L2's are great!

Anyone able to shed light on what those things are on the earth wire. Seen them on the line between Walpole and Pelham and here just north of Carrington.

Have a trundle through Gloucestershire on street view for some time and you'll come across the ZF line. Here seen near Cirencester 

Found this rather fab photo of the M27 motorway under construction. Taken I’m guessing in the early 70s and shows Nursling Substation in the background. To the far left is the L6 line heading down to Fawley Power Station and in the right hand side is the line down to Mannington. 

Still think the L2 D90 is one of my utmost fav designs out there. This one seen just south of Ocker Hill.

And why not a combo of L2's and canals up in Birmingham as seen here between Ocker Hill sub and the tee connecting this line to the ZF route near Tamworth

View from the M6 just north of Preston where the WCML runs adjacent to the ZX line from Penwortham to Hutton

Another interesting find just coming out of West Boldon, and there is a diversion of L8's for only 7 ish towers but there is an L12 DJT being used which I wasn't expecting to see.

The mighty ZA line running from Elstree Substation up to Staythorpe Power Station, via subs at Sundon and Grendon. Seen here between Grendon and Staythorpe. Further up the line there used to be a tee to Corby power station which was removed back in the 90s.

Back to Jarrow in Tyne and the ZZA line throws up these 2 river crossing towers which used to have 6 hanging insulators but in recent years they have acquired the deviation insulators on the bottom arm. Strange but interesting find.

58 minutes ago, Daniel Beardsmore said:

I don’t mean that any one person should travel everywhere — rather, that our collective coverage could be put to better use.

 

Hm … L2 D10 is certainly one of my favourite designs.

No yeah, dont worry I get that! I was just relaying what is possible for me.

Yes I do agree L2 D10's are one of mine too

30 minutes ago, Daniel Beardsmore said:

Hmm …

 

When I started documenting pylons I made the decision to only use my own photographs. I am not sure I understand why I felt that way, only that I felt quite strongly about it. Since then, I have used a number of Ian’s photos. There is a limit to what I will be able to photograph myself.

 

I did contact Christopher Aldridge both on Flickr (both of his accounts, no idea why he has two) and later on PAS and he never responded. It would be nice to use a handful of his to extend the coverage: he has by far the most extensive coverage of anyone, at least of common types. On Saturday I travelled all the way down to Sindlesham (near Reading) to get some better photos of SWE PL1 D10. I’ve not uploaded any yet, in part because I am still bogged down in the identification mess.

 

It’s one thing sharing photos on Street View, but sadly there is still nothing resembling a coherent record of either the lines or of the towers in proper clear photos, and certainly not one with licence terms that permit re-use — all copyrighted (hence not being able to use Christopher Aldridge’s without permission and since he won’t respond, I can’t compile them together with other photos). There are lots of photos scattered about here, all disorganised and a headache to find. All my pylon photos are public domain, not that it’s worth that much as the quality is so lacklustre (except the small number taken with the new camera).

For me getting to a lot places isn't very easy due to high costs of travel and not knowing the areas well and for me google maps is the only way for me to track certain lines and towers of interest to share here. Yeah, it is not ideal but I have to work with the best of what I have got. 

But I can share these that were taken earlier today.

Photo 1 - The ZL line crossing the A413 near Missenden looking towards tower 442 heading north 

Photo 2 - The ZL line heading up towards Amersham Substation looking towards tower 444 up to to 447

Photo 3 - Close up of ZL443's panel sign 

12 hours ago, L2's are great! said:

Towers ZZA71 and ZZA72 at South Shields Sub. Running from just north of Hartmoor up to Blyth. Quite a few L2 D90's appear up here too!

Towers ZZA71 and ZZA72 at South Shields Sub. Running from just north of Hartmoor up to Blyth. Quite a few L2 D90's appear up here too!

3 hours ago, Daniel Beardsmore said:

Post 2 photo 1 tower 1: seems to be some kind of hybrid between L12 D90 and DT. It’s got duplicate D90 earthwire crossarmlets, duplicate crossarms from D90 outer angle, middle crossarms from DT, duplicate outer angle bottom crossarms from D90 … (D90 and DT share the same body except for the very top.) Unless I am missing something here. I don’t have proper, clear drawings for all of L12 so my diagram list is incomplete.

Yeah I believe this tower will be used to route the T-pylons coming out of Bridgwater onto the ZG line which runs back to Melksham Sub. I have a feeling it might be modified into more of a D90 when the works are complete because at the moment ZG is still connected to Hinkley via one circuit. There is another one of these towers near Quainton I believe. Not sure if its classified as L12 or L13.

Also, some updated screengrabs of the works around the ZG and VQ lines 

On the ZA line near Market Harborough, i give you a rather extensively modified L2 D2!!

Whilst we are on the subject of D40EC towers, there are 2 types of what is the BICC equivalent on the Bolney - Ninfield - Dungeness line and looking at it, it looks like a stretched deviation tower with a D60 peak 

On 04/05/2023 at 22:06, Daniel Beardsmore said:

 

There is nothing in that area that National Grid deem to be non-standard, within the limits of their erratic data (full of mistakes). The only tower not filtered out by my query is a DT(0-40) at the substation itself. Whatever that tower is, National Grid do not seem to have given it any special designation. I can’t tell from the photo what it is.

 

All the DT's at Thornton are L12's, One type has the extended upper crossarms and the other ones have normal length crossarms. Interestingly i haven't seen plans for the DT with longer upper crossarms so that's probably the one without special designation

On 04/05/2023 at 14:30, Daniel Beardsmore said:

 

You think that is different from a normal earthwire changeover tower? I don’t have the drawings for L6 BK D20EC or D40EC so I don’t know what they look like.

Well its got squared off crossarms just like the L2 D40EC and seeing as it splits the line in this circumstance, it would not surprise me if it was a D40. 

On 04/05/2023 at 14:29, Daniel Beardsmore said:

 

You can tell that it’s non-standard from something that tiny? There are too few pixels for me to make any call on that.

Looking at it closer up on streetview and from various web photos, its definitely the same as that one at Dunford Bridge. My call is that it's a D20 but i'm not certain

On 04/05/2023 at 17:02, pharrc20 said:

I believe this and or the pair in the background were the late Flash Bristow's favourite towers at Braintree

Yep that's them.

Talking of L6 oddities, you've also got this Blaw Knox variant too. I know one another exists at Connahs Quay too but it was a DT before the modifications took place

10 hours ago, Daniel Beardsmore said:

 

I see. Pray tell, which one? All you can see from the roads are Eve towers, and some random oddments, on all four of the lines. I don’t see a Blaw Knox line there.

Here it is, with an ordinary D30 next to it on the right. Thornton sub is just out of site over to the right. This is the line that heads south to Drax. It stands next to Sand Lane

1 hour ago, Daniel Beardsmore said:

Interesting … the tower below is the same type as the one on this page:

 

https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/grid-at-work-stories/removing-pylons-restore-britains-natural-beauty

 

There are two angle towers in the photo on that page: the more distant one is a D30, but the nearer one is an unidentifiable type. The tower body between the bottom and middle crossarms is that of D60 but the top of the tower and the peak don’t match anything.

The person responsible for sourcing that photo for National Grid is now gone, so they have no idea where that photo was even taken, thus no way to trace the tower type. However, it now seems likely that they are the same line. Looking at the photos, they could easily be the exact same tower.

 

With a good zoom lens, you could also get a clear look at Blaw Knox’s interesting conductor attachment points, not modelled in my diagrams due to lack of data.

 

 

There is another one of those Blaw Knox towers near Thornton Substation on one of the lines heading north. 

Guess the substation.....