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I suppose that's a possibility, but wouldn't there be more switchgear for that? Barton Turf village is so small anyway that I wouldn't have thought it warranted the expense for the number of homes involved.


Ah, O.K., I didn't look closely enough and I'm not used to this HV line stuff, so I stand corrected.


Quiet shift, eh? If only the guys who installed this stuff realized that their work was being discussed on the other side of the world!


I still can't quite figure this out. How would installing pole D affect clearances on the existing HV lines on poles C and E?

Pole D just provides a connection from the underground cables to the top of pole E, so if pole D was added after the original installation, why not just run the cable straight up pole E, as has clearly been the case at some time in the past?

I suppose there could have been something else there at one time. It's probably hard to follow the logic unless one knows the history of the site and how the feeds have been changed over the years.


Hmmm..... Could be I guess, but as far as I can see there's nothing to earth here now other than the secondary LV side of the xfmr. Do you run an earth for the radio gear on the sectionalizer? I don;t recall seeing any separate earth run down poles A or B for this, but I'll check again next trip past the lane.


We have those too. The handle is out of view below, but here's one which provides an overhead to underground transition as well. This one actually feeds the sub-station from which I get my power. You can see the operating rod dropping down to the left:

A few observations and possible additions.

Assuming the "highway" is the A1151 AKA Norwich road, and the road this station is on is Smallburgh Road (according to Google maps, Barton Rd is to the north of A1151, Smallburgh to the south)

The station is in the extreme NW corner of the second farm field from A1151, on the east side of Smallburgh Road. You see sort of a clearing on the
satellite photo

The farm served by the 3 phases is on the NE corner of A1151 and Smallburgh Rd, and the 2 phases each feeds the house on the property just north of that which the station is located, and the one east and across the highway from it.

The HV lines from pole C go across the fields behind that farm to supply the village just west of that farm, and supply comes Smallburgh in the northeast (which seems to fit the 33>11KV subsation in its vincinity idea) underground along the highway.

The line to Barton Turf appears to go along Smallburgh Rd, and probably turns at Mill Lane, to Pennygate and Barton Turf.
I doubt they'd run it through the middle of valuable farm land (along property lines or fencerows maybe.)

Then there is the crazy notion that the supply comes to pole C or E, and the sectionaliser sections the lines going underground somewhere.


[This message has been edited by classicsat (edited 07-02-2005).]

Wow! Many thanks for taking the time to search out the images. You're spot on with the location:

That is indeed the site. The road name is interesting though, as I've never seen a map showing this little lane as Smallburgh Rd. before.

As you can see from one of the pics, the PoCo labels this site as "Barton Rd. Sw. Station" and the old signs on the enclosure add "Barton Turf" below, which is partly why I assumed that "Village" on the new pole (A) refers to Barton Turf village. If that's not the case, then all my assumptions may be way off base and we could be into your "crazy notion" idea of power coming in on pole C or something.

If the question of the road name sounds odd, perhaps I should explain that one problem we have in England is that in many areas (Norfolk included) there are often no name signs on these little lanes. You just have to know what they're called if you don't have a detailed enough map!

That would be Cats Common, the group of houses mostly on the north side of the Norwich Rd. which you can see by scrolling one click west from your map reference. That's another place which I never even knew had a name until the signs went up a couple of years ago. It's no more than a dozen or so houses.

I seem to recall that there is an 11kV junction on poles at the intersection of Mill Lane. I know I've seen a pole-mount xfmr there, as there is a small group of houses around that corner.

I tried looking on the satellite images to pick up the 33kV lines where I know they come out from Stalham. I thought I might be able to follow them back and identify any likely spots for a 33-to-11kv sub, but I can't see enough detail.

Paul,
LOL, I think the last thing you need is some guy from the other side of the world telling you how things are in your own backyard.
I stand down.
As far as I'm concerned Paul, I can't give a reason for the extra pole.
PoCo's work in funny ways, I can tell you!.

FWIW, wee have those sort of fuses here, and are on the HV side of a service transformer, and betweeen HV segments (7200V, AFAIK). I see the odd air break switch, but only on 44KV or so distribution sysems (44KV delta used around here, substations convert to 4800 or 7200V Wye).

And yes, I got As in Geography, hence my skillas reading maps, directions, and lately satellite photos.

O.K. folks, as everyone's been trying to figure out this arrangement I thought I'd go and do a little detective work. It was a lovely Sunday afternoon, just right for a drive and walk around the back lanes and footpaths before I went to the supermarket.

Here is what appears to be the other end of the lines from pole C:



The white house is on the side of the main highway (A1151), so presumably this 3-ph xfmr feeds the small group of houses at Cats Common.

Below are the lines disappearing across the fields in the general direction of Barton Turf from pole E



These do indeed cut across the fields rather than follow the line of the road. (When I think about it, lines keeping to the edge of the road are somewhat less common here than in North America).

The first couple of poles in the foreground are the most usual type for 11kV lines. The poles you can see in the background are much less common, and have the lines in triangular formation.

You can just about see that the third pole has a spur line heading off to the right. It's actually a single-phase spur and it is this line which runs to the intersection with Mill Lane. There is a xfmr at this intersection for the few houses, as I recalled, but this HV line actually ends there:




{ Edited for minor typos }

[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 07-04-2005).]

The main 3-phase distribution lines continue in the direction of Pennygate and Barton Turf, crossing one of the little lanes, at which point there are pole-top switches with manual operation via a handle mounted at the bottom of the pole.

Here's where the line terminates in Barton Turf itself:




There are also one or two single-phase spur lines around Pennygate to feed these odd remote houses. So here's a revised map showing -- as near as I can figure -- the lines in question. I've put a little green dot roughly where Pennygate is located as it's too small to be shown on the map:



Obviously I couldn't check every pole, but I can't see why there would be any other underground cables connected anywhere along these routes, so I think it's safe to assume that the original theory is correct and that the output from the new sectionalizer feeds the lines on poles C and E.

Barton Turf is a rather nice, sleepy little village, a survivor of how England used to be! (There's even an old-style red phone box there still. ).

Click below for a few pics:

#1

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[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 07-03-2005).]

Classicsat,
Thanks for the Satellite photo!.
That really puts things into perspective.
Paul,
Great pictures, I could really live in a place like Barton Turf.
Looks to be quiet enough for my liking.

I forgot to mention that there is indeed a ground run down pole A from the radio cabinet, so maybe there was a new electrode system installed.

Yes, B/Turf is nice and quiet all right. Norfolk is at the low end of the population density tables for English counties, so we still have a few out-of-the-way places. Irstead (marked on the maps above and just down the road from B/Turf) is even more off the beaten track.

The network of waterways with only limited crossing points has made for some isolated little spots at the end of dead-end lanes.