Balfour Beatty - Derby

[poyks]

Great photos. Thanks.

[rillington]

Excellent pictures and that ahs to be about the shortest route ever, and they're interesting towers also given what wiring they are suoporting.

Also, I can see other towers behind carrying possibly a 66Kv line. Does that route terminate there?

[Flash Bristow]

Thanks for posting those! That's what I love about this group, where else could you discuss this stuff?

You don't usually see ladders extending right to the bottom. I'd like to see the towers encased in barbed wire with mad undergrowth underneath, give them a touch of realism.

[rillington]

Aye - it's fab isn't it, and the reaosn this group exists is all down to you Flash!

[poyks]

There's a real mish-mash of different things going on between the two towers. A marvellous adults playground that!

[jpskertchly]

I actually worked for Balfour Beattys in Derby until a couple of years ago and know the depot , and the training pylons , well . Ive spent a lot of time at that depot.
Of great interest is the little 66 KV line one or two of you have noticed nearby. There were actually two of these lines until the last 15 / 20 years or so . The other one is still there but is now terminated on the other side of the road ( before it goes past the depot ) and undergrounded on the pylon next to the car auctions site.
Those two little 66kv lines are very very old and go right back to when the Spondon power station was first built. They fed into Derby City ( then Town ) itself from the old Spondon Power Station and they are very much " pre-grid" . They are visible on several pictures of old Derby in the mid 20s ! They used to have interesting " safety bar " arrangements sticking out on brackets below the cables , presumably designed to "catch" a falling cable in the event of a cable breaking.

Jeremy.