Tag: engineers

July 11th – If you fancy a free, breathtaking aerial entertainment display, get your backside down to the Tame Valley Canal, and just look up.

High tension lines run along the canal from a control compound at Ocker Hill to another at Ray Hall, and this interlink is currently undergoing service. Huge scaffold towers and nets span roads, canals and railways, to support lowered lines; engineers scramble and dangle high above from the steel lattice-work, oblivious to the toe-curling peril they appear to be in.

They work quickly and with precision amongst a baffling array of hawsers, catenaries, safety lines and fall arresters, materials and tools being hoisted ip in a sack via a block and tackle hoist. 

And below? I watch, open mouthed at these confident, sure-footed and highly skilled engineers. Whatever they’re paid, it can’t possibly be enough.

July 24th – I’ve waited a long time to catch these technicians in action, and finally, on my homeward commute from Blake Street today, I spotted them.

These are very long range photos of a pair of engineers working on the dismantling of the temporary changeover TV transmission mast at Sutton; it’s about a mile away from where I stood.

Nonchalantly, they work inside the latticework, hundreds of feet above Sutton. Their lift cradle is called to an intermediate platform, they climb in, and are lifted to a higher part of the mast to carry on with the job. As they’re lifted, one of the duo casually checks his mobile.

I don’t know what these people are paid, but they’re clearly worth every penny, and seem quite, quite fearless. Respect to them.