Picture(s) of the day....

[mickthemaverick]

You havn't got an ashtray for a motorbike in that same drawer have you bobins?

[NewcastleFalcon]

Erm, what about the Shukhov Tower design?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shukhov_T ... _Oka_River

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Shukh ... TZIRw0DmQM

Not many Shukhov's traversing the landscape of the UK James.

Granted they were the words of the Company Director Ian Grimshaw of TEP who have been working with National Grid on the project to connect the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to the UK’s electricity transmission network.

The T-pylon might do everything a traditional lattice pylon does – it carries electricity from a source of energy to your homes and businesses – but it’s the most significant change to a pylon design since the development of the original structures in the 1920s. This means it introduces a number of new factors we need to consider when looking at where it’s most appropriate to use the T-pylon as an alternative to the lattice structure.

Being "used" to our normal pylons, on our first drive through Northern France I thought French pylons were a touch uglier than our own lattice structures.

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Flickr has at least one gallery of Pylons Round the World.....I think ours take some beating

https://www.flickr.com/photos/blech/gal ... 223515195/

REgards Neil

[bobins]

[
Anyone heard of the new fangled T-Pylons? You may come across them if you live near Hinkley Point.

"It’s the most significant change to a pylon design since the development of the original structures in the 1920s."

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Arti ... lon-for-Hi

Regards Neil

Reading that article, I'd think the 'leccy board needs to work on their camouflaging a bit better. Paint schemes to help poles, pylons and buildings to blend into the surroundings have come a long way in the past decade or so, so I'd hope the National Grid might put a bit more effort into how they paint their new pylons.

Further reading of the article mentions one of the 'highlights' (and I use the term loosely ) of the Hinkley scheme being "installation of a 90-tonne Callendar Hamilton Bridge - the first to be built in the UK for several decades". A What ? I hear no one ask........ A Callendar Hamilton Bridge - no less.

"The Callender-Hamilton bridge is a modular portable pre-fabricated truss bridge. It is primarily designed for use as permanent civil bridging as well as for emergency bridge replacement and for construction by military engineering units. Assembling a Callender-Hamilton bridge takes much longer than the more familiar Bailey bridge as it is made up of individual lengths of galvanised steel bolted together with galvanised high-strength steel bolts, all of which require torque settings. It is stronger and simpler in design concept than the Bailey bridge. The Callender-Hamilton bridge system was designed by the New Zealand civil engineer, A. M. Hamilton, and patented by him in 1935. The system is currently fabricated by Painter Brothers, Hereford, operating within the Balfour Beatty Power Networks Division formerly British Insulated Callender's Cables. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callender-Hamilton_bridge


WaltonBridge
Oliver White / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)

[NewcastleFalcon]

In the past I have whiled away some time poring over maps working out where the pylon run starts, and where it ends Perhaps a sign of too much free time

These couple of downloads from National Grid with a little bit of decoding map out the transmission network

The Code for "my Pylon" is 4ZY319. So on the Towers Database/Spreadsheet It tells me it was erected in 1966 and is 80.04 Metres High.

On the Overhead Lines database Spreadsheet it tells me that line 4ZY is BLYTH-ECCLES-STELLA WEST.
So the line links Stella West on the Tyne nr Blaydon with Blyth on the Northumberland coast and heads up to Eccles near Kelso in the Scottish Borders, and crossed our little route today in North Northumberland. I presume the 319 is just a tower number.

For the transmission network these two spreadsheets cover the UK
towers
Overhead lines

So a bonus pic of 4ZY319 from an unusual angle

REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

whats the difference between a bridleway and a byway?

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

Toh A bridleway is a route for horse riders , vehicles are usually banned, a byway is a minor road usually unsurfaced but open to all traffic. On the OS maps byways are whites and bridleways have their own symbol distinguushing them from whites and footpaths.

[bobins]

To simplify it - a bridleway is open to cyclists, horseriders, and walkers. A byway is open to motor vehicles, cyclists, horseriders, and walkers. Certainly down this neck of the woods, most byways were either downgraded years ago to lower categories, or are 'restricted byways' - which normally means they don't want the motor vehicles using them. There used to be a further classification of rights of way - The Road Used As A Public Path, or RUPP. These normally, but not always, had the same permitted traffic as byways. Certainly down here I think RUPPs are now extinct.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Thanks, I think between you the question has been answered.

It was interesting at our picnic spot one side of the road was the bridleway and the other the byway. Northumberland have a definitive map of such things and like Bobins says many of the byways are "restricted Byways", but the one near where we parked was the full brown (on the definitive map key) Byway. There was no discernable "track" at that point just "the side of a field" and the gate was shut but in theory I would have been perfectly entitled to drive the BB Micra over a couple of fields down over a stream and taken a "short cut" to the Village beyond. Wonder if a friendly farmer would have towed me out with a tractor had I got stuck in my attempt?

Regards Neil

[bobins]

Where they are relatively long distance byways, you can get into the situation where the track crosses into a different authority jurisdiction and they have classified it differently - so the track that started out as a Byway, crosses some invisible boundary, and suddenly becomes a bridleway

[mickthemaverick]

Thanks, I think between you the question has been answered.

There was no discernable "track" at that point just "the side of a field" and the gate was shut but in theory I would have been perfectly entitled to drive the BB Micra over a couple of fields down over a stream and taken a "short cut" to the Village beyond. Wonder if a friendly farmer would have towed me out with a tractor had I got stuck in my attempt?

Regards Neil

You would have been better off to try it in the Leaf Neil, then if you found the stream too deep you could simply float down to the next shallow or ford and drive out!!

[NewcastleFalcon]

If it's any consolation, this is the location of the one in my photo

If I had to make an educated guess, unless that Pylon is a distribution network one, I suspect it is on the Bolney to Lovedean sub-station (near Horndean) Transmission Line. I presume if you checked the tower number it would start with 4VF and the number would be between 001 and 190. The transmission line originates in Dungeness. Next part of the chain is Ninfield then Bolney then Lovedean and onwards...........

4VF ROUTE TWR (001 - 190) 09/06/20 C 400 BOLNEY - LOVEDEAN 1

If the numbering starts at Bolney my best guess would be 4VF130 or thereabouts.


REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

...and just to keep it visual small places with a disporoportionate claim to fame in the UK's National Transmission Grid for electricity.

Number 1 Eccles in the Scottish Borders Near Kelso. Terminus of the BLYTH - ECCLES - STELLA WEST 1 transmission Line

Eccles, on the surface is one of those little villages where between welcoming and thanking careful drivers, there isn't a single pub/shop/cafe. Plenty services in Kelso a few miles down the road though.

National Grid Important little places
No1 Eccles Scottish Borders

Certainly a familiar sight round here and Eccles most visible buisiness, Olivers Transport based at Eccles, have a set of nice liveried wagons with shiny chrome hubcaps.

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

As the power transmission lines make their way across the Southern England the line sections are Dungeness-Ninfield-Bolney-Lovedean-Mannington-Chickerell-Axminster-Exeter.

So No2 In the Series of National Grids important little places (one of the above) has featured on Gardeners World.

What is it
Here's a clue

Yes on Gardeners world in 2012

Regards Neil

[myglaren]

No mention of Eccles cakes? Deary me


Back at hospital and confirmed that I can indeed see Penshaw Monument from Durham

Should have a 4/500mm lens really.

Also visible is the 'Black Tower' in the center of Washington - half a mile from me. Government building, HMRC possibly, I forget.

From the field outside my house. Almost dark and crappyphone photo

And a pink thing, if that tickles your fancy.