Ludlow fieldtrip 14/03/2016

[yv47r]

Hello folks, well this is my first field-trip of 2016 and I haven't really had the chance to do any since last year due mainly to a change in personal circumstances. Anyway back at home and all sorted out. Following on from the query about the towers near Ludlow that were flagged up and my subsequent investigations on-line I decided I wanted to travel to Ludlow to take a closer look at these towers.

My initial info suggested that the line code was XO based upon a Google earth image from the Google street car. But I realised this couldn't be right as the XO code is already used by the Trawsfynyndd PS to Ffestiniog PS 275kV circuit using L3 towers so I thought since the other similar looking codes esp the last letter was either a D or a Q. Knowing also that XQ is allocated to the Stalybridge to Manchester Stuart St 132kV L3 circuit as previously visually confirmed in the past it seemed more likely to be XD. Imagine my surprise yesterday Monday when I eventually got right up to one of the Ludlow towers and saw the plate marked XQ 8!!

To follow will be highlights from my trip showing the different designs of towers including some lovely pre-grid 11/33kV towers that run parallel to the larger towers.

Cheers Paul

[lesc]

Is that the Ludlow near Shewsbury? Nice prototype L66/L3/L8 on 132 btw. No more spoilers

Ping Naughtyhorse you're going to be needed in this one!

Les

[yv47r]

Yes the one and same Ludlow to the south of Shrewsbury. I have been a bit short of time to post my photos onto photobucket and write up the notes onto the thread and add links but I will do it over weekend but I hope you don't mind waiting a little longer :-)

Cheers Paul

[yv47r]

OK folks, finally I have had the time to sit down and sort through my photos and pick out the main ones from all those that I took on the day at Ludlow. This is part one of two :-)

Starting with the L66/L3 type design of towers I managed to identify 5 different towers starting with a DT90 then D suspension towers with several examples of height extensions single examples of a D10 followed by D30 and D60. The DT and D10 - D60 towers are identical to those that run in the north-east of Scotland from Kintore to Beauly (Inverness) via Blackhillock substation and a tee to Foyers HEP station. However this line uses L3C D towers instead.

The substation at Ludlow is located to the east of the main town centre and is pretty much hidden from the town itself although you would get a view from the A49 Ludlow bypass. It is a 132/66/33/11kV substation operated by Western Power Distribution.

The first of these L66/L3 towers is a DT90 that is number 1 (XQ 1 once I managed to find a tower further along to visually check the route code).
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I am not sure if this is the original tower or it has been later modified to become a DT90 with the addition of the cross-arm pointed extensions and the back cross-arms to bring the northern side circuit around into the substation and bus-bar. A handy footpath running along the north hedge and fence-line of the substation allowed these photos to be obtained.
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The next tower along from the s/s was this D suspension tower and the ones that caused the most headscratching seeing them for real at last. They do have a definate feel of an L3 tower for sure but that missing top earth peak makes the difference. This is XQ 2 with some height extensions.
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Having left the s/s I will return and look at the pre-grid tower line that parallels the L66/3 route later on.

This is the same tower but viewed from the other side on the Sheet Road heading east from Ludlow. I quite like taking photos of towers side on lining the corners up...
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XQ 4 from the side on having walked further and headed across the fields and crossed the Ledwyche Brook river bridge
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Further along and back on Sheet Road is XQ 6 nicely positioned in the field... and as you will notice complete with a pair of linesmen ascending up each side of the tower. When I was at the substation, I stepped aside to let two WPD Land Rover vans depart the s/s thinking they were going somewhere else whereas in fact they ended up here. I am not quite sure what the linesmen were doing as they were still there in the vans when I passed on my walk back towards Ludlow town centre later on in the day...
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Back onto the footpaths and a hasty diversion from my intended footpath of choice after being confronted with a herd of cattle feeding on hay right at the stile where the footpath started and muddy as hell... hmm nope not going that way LOL. Fortunately there was another footpath just up the hill higher up that offered a safer and mud free route and brought me closer to the pre-grid line.

Another view of D tower this time XQ 7
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And now onto the deviation towers. From the OS maps I originally thought there were just D10 and D60 towers in this line and no D30s but having seen XQ 3 when crossing the river further down I realised this was in fact a D30.
The actual D10 was in fact XQ 8 and this was the first tower I could actually get close upto and confirm the route code.
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Side corner view of D10 XQ 8 with pre-grid D60 type tower in background somewhat dwarfed LOL...
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And proof indeed of XQ 8
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The north side circuit is colour coded Red-Green stripe-Black-Green stripe-Red whilst the south side circuit is Blue-Yellow-Blue. They are plated up as 275000 Volt lines but as previously noted fitted with 132kV insulator sets.
A nice up the tower view
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Side on view
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Little and Large
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Close-up of the cross-arms and lovely red porcelain insulator sets with those extra long spacers tying them to the cross-arm ends
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So D10 has pointed equal length cross-arms on both sides of the tower

The long earth peak makes this design of L66/3 deviation towers very unique looking as does the pointed tower body from the base right to the top peak unlike the L2 and L3 which are more subtle tower body shape.

So as mentioned I figured out that XQ 3 further back was actually a D30 tower. The view from Sheet Road of the D30 followed by some near the river bridge.
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So the D30 has unequal length cross-arms; those on inside of turn are short and pointed ends, whereas those on outside of turn are long and pointed ends

To access the next tower of interest after XQ 8 the D10 tower involved a bit more walking and minding the sheep and lambs in one of the fields. However the XQ 9 was easily viewed at distance from XQ 8...
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Having got onto the footpath to XQ 9 I was able to get this side on view of the tower
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Followed by this side corner view
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Then a frontal view
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Followed by the other side corner view
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Further confirmation of the tower codes and former ownership and voltage
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A lovely up the tower view makes for a powerful photo
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So the D60 has short non-braced pointed cross-arms for the inside turn and long square ended cross-arms for the outside of the turn.

Is there or was there ever a D90 planned or drawn up for this tower design? If so I can only imagine a more heavier duty tower body with similar cross-arms to the D60 to enable a full 90 degree turn. Given that (to my knowledge) there are no L3 or L3C D90 towers maybe they might just have used a L2 D90 for the job instead?

I hope you enjoy this part one. In part two the pre-grid towers
Cheers Paul

[caldridge]

Nice pictures Paul, what design are those pylons? They kind of look like L3. Where abouts is Ludlow, I might like to find these pylons.

Christopher

[lesc]

They also kinda look like L8. Oh no, the deviation pylons are the dreaded L66CDxx or yet another L66CD / (more likely) L8D (note not the L8CD) prototype these have caused any number of squabbles in here.(edit) Spotter entity LesC has caught something very like this in Scotland

Nice pics, God

Les

[yv47r]

Mar 29, 2016 17:45:06 GMT -5 caldridge said:

Nice pictures Paul, what design are those pylons? They kind of look like L3. Where abouts is Ludlow, I might like to find these pylons.

Christopher

Well at this moment I am not quite sure what design they are... Lesc has seen the D10 - D60 deviation towers plus the DT towers on his travels up in the north-east corner of Scotland where a line runs from Kintore up towards Beauly near Inverness. However, the D suspension towers used on this Scottish line appear to be L3C. The Ludlow D suspension towers are something completely different and as yet we don't know the proper code for them.
Ludlow is roughly mid-way between Shrewsbury to the north and Hereford to the south along the line of the A49 road.

Cheers Paul

[yv47r]

Mar 30, 2016 13:20:03 GMT -5 lesc said:

They also kinda look like L8. Oh no, the deviation pylons are the dreaded L66CDxx or yet another L66CD / (more likely) L8D (note not the L8CD) prototype these have caused any number of squabbles in here.(edit) LesC has caught something very like this in Scotland

Nice pics, God

Les

Yep they might well end up being a bit of a mystery design Les until some more information comes to light. I did wonder whether to try and approach the WPD guys in the vans to see if they would talk and see what they say if I asked them what design of tower they were... without getting too many funny looks LOL!

One thing that did strike me as slightly odd was the fact that knowing the linesmen were still up the tower, I could tell the circuits were still live. Being a hearing aid user I can switch from the standard audio mode to hear to a T setting which switches over to an induction coil setting. Hence any strong electromagnetic field like a power line or motor can be heard as a buzzing hum in my ears. So I was quite surprised to hear the hum on the T setting whilst under XQ 8 and again under XQ 9.

So L66CD or something deviation towers? L8D not sure? Are those the lightweight L8 type towers that are also present at Peterhead that look like a slimmed down version of the standard L8 that we know?

I would love to find the original tower drawings for these and all the other tower designs in a super big tower bible!

Cheers Paul

[yv47r]

Here we go with part two of my photos from Ludlow.

Starting back at the substation and located inside the perimeter fencing is this lovely chunky looking pre-grid tower :-)
i195.photobucket.com/albums/z231/paulsrailphotos/UK%20Pylons/2016%2003%2014%20Ludlow/DSCF8188_zpskudlrr2r.jpg

Although I could not read the plate on the tower itself based on the tower numbers further along the same line it is either ZLLE 2 or a re-sited ZLLE 1 that was moved possibily when the s/s was created perhaps with the arrival of the larger L66/3 towers seen in part one.
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It would appear that this double circuit operates on two voltages; 11kV on the south side and 33 or 66kV on the north side of the towers. Reason I say this will become apparant from photos of later towers where tees off to 11kV style pole lines.

Next tower ZLLE 4 is a D suspension tower almost like a mini L2 in appearance!
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Swiftly followed by this deviation tower with substantial base maybe D30? ZLLE 5
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Further along the line we come to another D30 style tower this time with a tee off to the south to a pole line so presumably this is 11kV? This is ZLLE 10
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D suspension tower ZLLE 11 also has a tee off the 11kV side but routed around the tower and the teed pole line heads to the north
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Sitting next to its much larger cousin ZQ 8 is this D60 type tower ZLLE 12
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The pre-grid 11/33kV line heads across the valley and stays to the north of the parallel ZQ line for a mile or two heading east and eventually dives back under the ZQ route before heading off towards Burford where the line briefly terminates either side of the village and then runs along the River Teme valley eastwards to Stockton-on-Teme where it terminates. Whether it originally continued further east towards say Stourport where there used to be a power station is possible but long since dismantled.

On the walk back I took another look at the pole feed from ZLLE 11 and 10
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In the field under the trees near to ZLLE 10 was this unused pole complete with top cross-bar and attachments presumably awaiting erection for a new line feed or to replace a life-expired existing pole. The chance to take a few rough measurements using my size 9 boots and my A4 maps gave me a rough idea of the length of the pole and the cross-bars for future reference ;-)
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On the walk back to Ludlow town I took one last look at ZLLE 5
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I hope you enjoyed these pre-grid towers
Cheers Paul

[caldridge]

Mar 30, 2016 15:39:39 GMT -5 yv47r said:

Well at this moment I am not quite sure what design they are... Lesc has seen the D10 - D60 deviation towers plus the DT towers on his travels up in the north-east corner of Scotland where a line runs from Kintore up towards Beauly near Inverness. However, the D suspension towers used on this Scottish line appear to be L3C. The Ludlow D suspension towers are something completely different and as yet we don't know the proper code for them.
Ludlow is roughly mid-way between Shrewsbury to the north and Hereford to the south along the line of the A49 road.

Cheers Paul

The line heads to Lincombe and ends several yards from Bishops Wood substation, maybe that could be worth a fieldtrip as there seems to be an L2 junction nearby. I might see if I could drive up there one day.

Christopher

[yv47r]

Yep that's the one the line from Ludlow terminates just short of Bishop's Wood substation with an L3 DT tower and is then under-grounded into the s/s along with several other 132kV that also terminate short. The two L2 DJT towers on the ZN line feed from north and south into Bishop's Wood and form part of the local 275kV ring in the West Midlands with a circuit north to Penn via ZN line, two circuits to Kitwell via ZN and YK lines, and a final circuit south to Feckenham via the ZN line.

There is one other DT tower to this unknown design (L66/3) and that is located at Shrewsbury substation where it is used to terminate an L7 line coming in from the Telford direction. Unlike the one seen at Ludlow this is just a standard DT and doesn't have the extra cross-arms making it a DT90. Have a look here at Upton Magna goo.gl/maps/morbZmFC5362

Cheers Paul

[caldridge]

The pre grid pylons head to Burford, they change to poles and head through a trading estate and then there's one last pylon in the line at a substation in a housing estate.

I guess they kind of look like L2 pylons. I might like to find them.

Christopher

[philb]

I was the person who originally asked about the 132kv line. I've followed the thread with some interest. It looks like the deviation towers are like the Scottish ones but the line towers seem to be unique to this line. We travelled along the Ludlow to Worcester road on Saturday and I was struck by how the distance that the earth wire is above the conductors is a lot more on the deviation towers due to the lack of peak on the line towers, made worse by the fact that the line towers have no spacers with the insulators. I believe the 'pre-grid' and local 33kv lines used to come from Stourport when the Power Station was there. The 132kv circuit more or less now feeds this network from what was the far end, i.e. Ludlow. I am just about to post two other queries about the area.

[yv47r]

It was well worth the train trip and sunny day out to see these towers at Ludlow philb. The lack of earth peak on the line towers is very noticeable compared to the large peaks on the deviation towers. A strange looking combo indeed.

Cheers Paul

[mikep]

Have been searching for informaton on the towers on this line, as we have just surveyed the foundations on them. WPD provided us with information that stated they were L8 design, but they don't look like any L8 towers I have seen elsewhere. We understand the line was built in 1964 and originally ran at 275 kV before being downrated to 132 kV. the information on th is thread has proved very useful.