There were major road works going on in the city centre here over the past few years and you could see a lot of older duct work some of which would date back almost 100 years. Interesting to see how the very old ducts were fully intact while the 1960s and 70s plastic ducts, particularly ones carrying public lighting cabling had collapsed.

The power and telephone service ducts were huge concrete pipes several inches in diameter. They certainly didn't skimp!

The electrical service cables from the old distribution pillars were all direct burried sheilded cables. They looked like about 2" thick with a layer of coiled metal around the outside. These were replaced with modern multicore shielded equivilants layed in red ducting.

[Linked Image from homepage.eircom.net]
Warning for cable serving a small island off the west coast of ireland.

[This message has been edited by djk (edited 01-04-2005).]