MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
I don't know why, but my two year old has a fascination with pylons. I found this for him to watch, but he got bored, but there's some great views of pylons here!
We used to have a chap in the office who was a pylon enthusiast - had loads of framed photos of them on the wall by his desk. He did work in power networks though.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32234656
Including mention of the Pink Pylon (officially named ZP226) near Rochdale in Greater Manchester.
The Pylon Appreciation Society: https://www.pylons.org/about.shtml
Unfortunately much of the content is behind a paywall 
But you can see a photo of the pylons at Cressing:
https://www.pylons.org/feature/feature3.shtml
What I really like about pylons is - with standard lengths of angle iron, a drill, a hacksaw and some bolts you could build one yourself. They such economical bits of engineering.
The perfect opportunity to introduce him to the delights of The Fall...
One of my favourites of theirs.
Interesting that this thread is gaining momentum! Slightly off topic, but on my ride today I went under a large power line that crosses Co Durham and the hissing noise from the pylons was phenomenal (it was very wet). It sounded like the Vic falls were just round the corner - is this normal?
I don’t know about them being that loud, but they certainly do make a fair old noise when wet. Has the old chestnut about them being tumour causing ever been proved/ disproved?
Has the old chestnut about them being tumour causing ever been proved/ disproved?
Only when they're using heavy electricity
Always been a big fan of this sculpture in London. It's massive and surprisingly few people know about it
Go big. See these all the time. My father in law worked on the safety systems for them.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/400_kV_Thames_Crossing
The ones over the car park in Chopwell are something like 400kV. They buzz like mad in the wet, and they induce enough current to give you a shock if you lightly touch the metal parts of the bike if it's on the roof rack.
Funny you should mention the Thames Crossing pylons, I did a search for Kent pylons to see what might come up as a potential day out and those are the biggest in the UK.
Now just to be clear, I'm not thinking about going on a trip just to see pylons, pylons would just be one of several things we might go to see on such a day trip.
I can really appreciate the geometric shapes & compositions (for instance found in that video I posted, particularly around 4:00 ~ 5:00 minutes in) but that's just one side of the coin, they're still fugly too.
Pylons up our way…
The Thames one are almost exactly half the height of the tallest in the world. I see them every time I circumnavigate the M25 on my ride. Always impressive.
The big ones are just a hoax. They are really there to keep Trolls contained in their reservations..
The big ones are just a hoax. They are really there to keep Trolls contained in their reservations..
Have you been watching TOWIE?
I once enquired about a lovely house for sale. I phoned the estate agents to ask how much? They wouldn't tell me, they just said go drive past and if the pylon doesn't put you off, call back. I drove past, huge buzzing pylon in the back garden. It did put me off. I never did find out how much it was up for!
"Have you been watching TOWIE"
No idea what you are talking about - it comes from...
Fun fact: Using the result of a Google Translate of "falling pylons" to Russian as a search term for youtube gets you loads of pole dancing videos.
Won't be adding those to my "Falling Pylons etc" playlist for my toddler 🙈 !
Here's "The most extreme pylon dance."
riding along singing my song, next to a great big .....
What I really like about pylons is – with standard lengths of angle iron, a drill, a hacksaw and some bolts you could build one yourself. They such economical bits of engineering.
I once had a summer job boxing up kits for them. The proper big electric board ones. Just me, a checklist and a guy with a forklift.
Got to love the early 70s.
The ones over the car park in Chopwell are something like 400kV. They buzz like mad in the wet, and they induce enough current to give you a shock if you lightly touch the metal parts of the bike if it’s on the roof rack.
That’s true of other pylons. I used to ride over to Castle Combe race circuit occasionally, and there’s a set of high-voltage cables go right over Quarry Corner, where the spectators stand on a raised bank. I rode a Cannondale at the time, and I had to be very careful not to touch any part of the bike other than the grips or saddle, otherwise I got quite a belt off it! It was just like touching a cattle fence, and not pleasant.
For that reason alone I would never own a property with high voltage cables or a pylon anywhere near, and then there’s the buzzing in damp weather, which would drive me nuts!
Here's an another way of enjoying pylons:
https://soundslikenoise.org/2017/07/02/electricity-pylon-adelaide-hills/
I find a lot of aesthetically pleasing things in electricity distribution
The cables we use to export from our offshore wind farms
HVDC converters
HVDC converters
I for one welcome our new machine overlords. The guy who designed these would probably be kicked out of a special effects studio for doing stuff that's too far out.
How much the one in the lower pic costs? In case I decide to start up a really hip techno club in the future.
This always gives me the willies
Are those pipe things in the 3rd photo very loosely wound transformers?
Cadiz puh Strait of Messina those a pylons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pylons_of_Messina
ohh UHVDC, the future of power transmission. Less transmission line losses, no frequency matching issues, slightly offset by more expensive transformer/inverter assemblies and the switch gear is more complex as you have to do it electronically and mechanically. Remember no convenient zero point unlike AC.
@BigJim, hope your'e XLPE is better than ours, we've got some 22Kv stuff from the 80's that's bloody awful (trips the protection regularly) and the old 50's vintage oil filled stuff is out lasting it.
I hope so given the amount of money it costs to lay it underneath the sea bed!