PL16 - Is This A D60 Or D90?

[robin]

I used to cycle past this if I went for a run on my mountain bike. I knew it was an angle tower but back then I didn't know there were different towers for different angles. I just thought they were different for reasons of local geography maybe, or that they were built at different times. Anyway, when I finished work this morning there was a good early sun in the sky so I went the long way home. On other D60s I have seen, the arms on the outside of the angle have the square side profile instead of coming to a point, like on this pylon, but the arms on the inside angle are still the same length. Then again, when I checked on my map using a protractor (not easy because the line comes to a junction two pylons away so it is very short on the map) I got the angle to be about 47 degrees.

s1286.photobucket.com/user/batman19711/media/018_zpsup9a8ign.jpg.html?filters[user]=140858496&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=2
s1286.photobucket.com/user/batman19711/media/021_zps8l3alcz4.jpg.html?filters[user]=140858496&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=1
s1286.photobucket.com/user/batman19711/media/023_zpsnpaxy5qz.jpg.html?filters[user]=140858496&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=0

Incidentally, this is the line on the west of Perth I thought was being dismantled last year. Mercifully they were replacing the conductors and insulators. At the junction tower they connect to the PL1 line that went from Abernethy to Tummel Bridge. I think they just go to the north of Buchanty now because from there they ran more or less parallel to a new row of PL16s that are now redundant after construction of the Beauly to Denny line. Last time I was up that way the PL1s had vanished so it looks like they dismantled the PL1s and kept the newer pylons to the point where they went off in different directions. Here is a PL1 just down from the junction tower-

s1286.photobucket.com/user/batman19711/media/024_zpsrzw7iuk1.jpg.html?filters[user]=140858496&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=0

Sorry it's a bit of a crappy picture. I notice the suspension towers on the PL1 line still have older looking insulators but the angle towers have the newer blue ones. I have better pictures of these but I haven't uploaded them yet...

[yv47r]

Hi Robin, it is a D60 tower with the short pointed arms on the inside of the turn and the longer squared end arms on the outside of the turn. The D60 designation means that the tower is used to deviate the line from 31 up to 60 degrees. And so suspension towers in the PL range are usually referred to D2 as line could in deviate from 0 to 2 degrees; D10 0 to 10 degrees; D30 11 to 30 degrees; D90 61 to 90 degrees. That's how I interpret the tower diagrams.

HTH Paul

[lesc]

Pylon is a PL16D60 examples above could be lifted straight out of the Tower Bible.



Les

[robin]

Thanks. Where is the tower bible? I've searched for it a few times now and all google throws up is threads from here and photo forums where people have mentioned it.

[yv47r]

Sir Naughtyhorse of this parish posted a link to the PDF affectionately known as the Tower Bible back in August 2008!

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Post by naughtyhorse on Aug 23, 2008 at 7:02pm

I have an outline catalouge of most 132kV designs used in the UK. it's not complete i'm afraid. but its a start :-) - i have hyperlinked the pages that are there from the contents page.

you can get a copy of it - it's a pdf of about 4 meg at

homepage.ntlworld.com/jonathan.burford/tower%20bible.pdf
#

Copy and paste the link and you will get a download of the PDF. The link seems to work for me. This is not the complete version of the bible and covers most of the double circuit PL design towers. But you will note on the front index page that there are codes for the single circuit PL towers plus the 275kV L2 and L3 towers but sadly these are missing.

HTH Paul

[lesc]

Indeed Sir Naughtyhorse and the one and only Saint Fortran set me off on the twisting turning path of 132kV, to this day nobody has supplied a pic of an L3DTV45/DT though

I've got it available here as a secondary d/l: llandru.servehttp.com/tower%20bible.pdf

Les

[robin]

Downloaded it. Thanks very much!