Tag: civil

#365daysofbiking I dream of wires:

September 10th – Two things I thought I’d never see in my lifetime are the Chase Line Electrification and the creation of the pedestrian bridge to cross the tracks at Moors Gorse instead of the level crossing, but here I am, taking pictures of one from the other.

Interesting to see how far advanced the electrification of this busy passenger railway from Walsall to Rugeley now is – the catenaries are in, strainers all fitted and it seems here very close to functional.

I note the blue earth bonds to prevent the overheads going live while being worked on, and the curious block communing point on the track not yet connected to anything, but with the coil of bonding cable nearby ready. Wonder what that’s actually for? It looks like there’s some kind of sensor built into it.

Never seen those before and I’m curious.

April 17th – The Telford footbridge construction project continues, and there’s a really interesting stage started now; partially build sections of the bridge have been delivered as steelwork skeletons, namely a couple of lattice piers and the over railway deck section. What’s interesting is that they have been fixed temporarily on spare ground, and other parts are being welded and added. The assembled sections will be completed on the ground, and then lifted into place.

I’ve never seen this done before and passing through on a grey, drizzly afternoon it was certainly interesting to watch the engineers at work while I waited for the train.

This is certainly going to confuse people trying to work out the final layout…

April 15th I cut over Clayhanger Common to the takeaway, and noted that the waters here had almost totally receded now. The lower meadow here is designed to flood, defending the village, and works well. The problem is the path has sunk over the years and is now submerged in times of the meadow doing it’s job.

Thing is now, you’d not really know what had happened. 

This really is a curious, well engineered landscape.

May 6th – A frantic day. From work, to Birmingham for an important appointment, and I was there late. Not much time to eat, or think. I was frazzled, and on edge. But I did have a ‘what the hell?’ moment looking at the new tram tracks being laid from the New Street/Stephenson Place junction. It’s quite a steep hill, and that snaking curve looks… interesting. Not much can’t in the track, either. 

I hazard that’ll lead to some interesting moments with the odd inebriated passenger and also probably cyclists.

I must say, the metro extension project seems to be taking an age to complete.