Pylon of the Month

August's Pylon of the Month is one that was sent in by a fan via the blog last year and I've finally got around to using it! I'm going for the one on the right with the mobile phone antennae attached but if you prefer one of the others, then feel free to choose differently. It comes from the west coast of the USA near Seattle and in this case if you really want to exploere the area, it came with a Google map link and the pin marks the camera position looking southwest. The sender noted 'the wide array of antennas on the right hand tower. I'm guessing those include both cellular and emergency services. Servicing them must be a heck of a deal.' That would seem to be the case and it's fairly common practice to use pylons for this purpose. My initial reaction was to wonder whether or not steps had to be taken to prevent electromagnetic interference from the high voltage lines but a few internet searches seem to indicate that this isn't a problem. Having a Washington state pylon made me investigate electricity generation in the area and given the topography, I wasn't too surprised to discover that 'Washington generated more electricity from hydropower than any other state and accounted for 25% of the nation's total utility-scale hydroelectric generation in 2024'. I was more surprised and impressed by the fact that:

By capacity, the Grand Coulee Dam on Washington's Columbia River is the largest power plant in the United States and one of the largest hydroelectric power plants in the world. In 2024, it supplied about 15.4 million megawatt-hours of electricity to 8 western states and Canada.

If I'd had to guess, I would have had the Hoover Dam as the biggest hydroelectric generator in the USA, so even in the summer holidays, every day's a school day, even more so if you watch this documentary about the project to build the dam. 

That's all for August. See you again next month for more pylon fun!

There have been higher quality photographs on Pylon of the Month, but July's pylon was snapped out of a train window over Easter and there is always room on the blog for these serendipitous sightings. The train in question was from Naples and this pylon is therefore in the shadow of Vesuvius because I was on the train to Pompei. It's a well known story – the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD buried Pompei and if you haven't been I'd recommend a visit. Once you've done so, I'd also visit (via train with one change) Herculaneum which is much less crowded and by the sea, so very peaceful in a way that the crowded site of Pompei is not. We did both in a reasonably long day which worked for us. 

Anyway, back to the pylon which is part of the 220 kV Erolano-Torre Nord line (thank you again Open Infrastructure map) originating at the 400 MW CCGT Napoli Levante power station. It's a perfectly ordinary looking pylon, very similar to UK pylons but a bit of exploration on the internet led me to an article about new innovative pylon designs (pylons of the future) and the history of electricity transmission in Italy. It's by Terna, "a leading grid operator for energy transmission, being the largest independent grid operator in Europe". Anyway, given that voltage is named after Alessandro Volta, it shouldn't be a surprise that according to the article, he foresaw the idea of electricity tranmission writing in 1777, “the moving spark could be brought from Como to Milan with the wire suspended above ground by wooden poles planted here and there”. Trying to fact check this quote led me to the book, Design of Electrical Transmission Lines, by Sriram Kalaga and Prasad Yenumula which is available here as a pdf. Reading that should keep anyone wanting more pylons in their life busy, at least until August's pylon appears!

May's Pylon of the Month is another sent in by a fan of the website. He became a fan when his Physics teacher introduced the class to the blog in a lesson so it's good to know that it is being used out there in the world! Anyway, this pylon is from just outside Leeds and it's a lovely example of a tension pylon, with the wider middle arms (also visible on the pylon in the background) making me think it's an L6 carrying 400 kV lines. The diagram below is from the fantastic Technical information on British Electricity Pylons website. Don't click on the link if you have important jobs to get done because you could spend hours down that particular internet rabbit hole!

I don't have any more detailed information about exactly where in Leeds this pylon is located, but if it has whetted your appetite for more Yorkshire pylon action then Wikipedia Commons has a category for Electricity pylons in Leeds and is if that wasn't enough excitement for one day, there is also an Electrical substations in the City of Leeds category. That is many weekends of happy pylon and substation spotting sorted if you are that way inclined. 

After a pylonless March, April's Pylon of the Month was sent in by a fan of the blog and comes from the grounds of Painshill in Surrey, a place I'd never heard of before, but it looks well worth a visit. The gardens were designed by The Hon. Charles Hamilton after his return from the Grand Tour 'as a living painting…………..a work of art [with] dramatic follies, calming waters and stunning views'. It is regarded as one of the foremost and finest examples of the English Landscape Movement, a style of landscape design described, by architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner, as “Britain’s’ greatest contribution to the visual arts”. In the background of the photo is the eye catching Gothic Tower, but pylon fans will of course instead be drawn to the 132 kV tension pylon on the West Weybridge to Leatherhead line. These smaller pylons have might not possess the majesty of the giant 400 kV pylons, but they have a squat charm all of their own and 132 kV was the original voltage of the National Grid when it was rolled out in the 1920s. One of these early 1929 pylon lines in Scotland was in the news this month when, it was pulled down to be replaced by wooden trident pylons which I have to say, I rather like. You can see them as well as a video of the original towers being toppled on the STV website. The trident pylons will, of course, only carry a single circuit, as did the original PL1b pylons they replaced. 

That's all for now. I've already got a shortlist for May, so come back soon to see what turns up next month.

Here in the UK we are reaching the end of a cold spell, so this pylon sent in a few weeks ago immediately sprang to mind as I sat down to write February's post. With spring hopefully just around the corner, it might well be the last winter-themed pylon for some time. This was not a picture taken from the side of the road – it involved a trek and a faint whiff of adventure, so I will quote from the email that sent it my way:

On the morning of Saturday, January 11th, I embarked on a journey across frozen terrain in order to take this picture………..After the long trek across streets and eventually rarely traveled hills, I reached the highest peak along this line. This point is on beside the fence separating the Oak Ridge National Laboratory from the rest of the community, which can be found on Google Maps by fallowing the D O E N Patrol Rd. The pylons shown are part of a 161 kV line running to the National Lab, and more information can be found here.

As soon as I saw the name Oak Ridge and the reference to the National Laboratory, I immediately thought of the Manhattan Project and the role that it played in seperating fissile U-235 from naturally occuring Uranium. The fact that Uranium in its natural state is  99% U-238 makes this technologically difficult and the electromagnetic seperation and gaseous diffusion techniques used at Oak Ridge were critical for the success of the project. Whilst doing a bit of reserach into this, I even discovered a link back to the UK where the prototype gaseous difffusion equipment was manufactured by Metropolitan-Vickers (MetroVick) at Trafford Park, Manchester.

After that little sidetrack, back to the pylon. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) seems to be the main show in town when it comes to pylons and electricity so I'm guessing the ones above belong to them. According to their website, they are the nation's largest public power provider [serving] more than 10 million people with reliable, affordable and resilient energy. They even have a Transmission Line 101 guide so if you have Ever wondered about TVA transmission lines—where they go, how they’re built or planned for? You’ll want to see every installment of our informative new video series. If you live near the lines, you won’t want to miss it!

I certainly didn't want to miss them and the final video about transmission line construction is particularly recommended. Producing something similar in a UK context wouldn't be a bad idea for National grid given the number of new transmission lines planned in the UK over the next decade or so. That's all for February – see you in Spring!

After a pylonless November, December's pylon brings a bit of festive cheer with a dusting of snow. It's located on a 132 kV line near Huddersfied and if you fancy a trip to see it then look on the open infrastructure map for where the 132 kV line splits into a diamond crossing under the 400/275 kV ZP line near Lindley. The picture was sent in by a fan of the website who has featured before and produces a pylon calendar that has made the news on quite a few occasions. You can still buy the 2025 calendar here on Etsy and if you're a two calendar household then his Views of the M60 calendar would be the perfect companion!

I'm going to leave it there – I've still got lots to do before Christmas! Before I go however, if you really want to geek out on pylons go back and look at the fascinating commments on September's L9 pylon, the latest of which arrived a few days ago. Merry Christmas to pylon fans eveywhere!

October's Pylon of the Month is from a fan of the website who encountered it whilst cycling from Zurich to Rapperswil. He notes that it is a tension tower where the line of cables changes direction vertically as it descends to the valley and lake below. A quick look at the open infrastructure map leads me to believe that it's a 132/110 kV line descending to the Rapperswil substation. If you look closely, you can also see that it hosts a 5G cell site. This strikes me as a good way of reusing existing infrastructure and a quick Google search leads to this article:

E.ON to convert electricity pylons across Germany to be used as radio pylons for the 4G/5G mobile network

It doesn't appear to be a thing in the UK, but maybe there are reasons for that? As well as communications infrastructure, the pylon also has a ladder clearly visible which presumably is used for inspection and maintenance purposes – not something I've seen on UK pylons. Perhaps Swiss citizens are more sensible and so less likely to misuse the ladder? Switzerland ranks sixth in the 2024 Global Peace Index (the UK was 34th), which claims to measure 23 indicators of peacefulness for each country, although the likelihood of pylons with ladders being misused isn't one of them. 

Pylons continue to generate lots of headlines in the UK, with most of them bemoaning plans for new pylon lines and failing to understand the financial costs or the limitations imposed by physics of going underground with high voltage lines. This thread on X/Twitter from the fantastic James Watson @EngineerLondon should be compulsory viewing for anyone who wants to partake in a debate about pylons vs underground transmission lines.

September's Pylon of the Month is one that I've wanted to feature for a long time but until now, I've always been driving when passing by. This time, I was more organised when returning home after visiting friends in Bath and grabbed my chance as a passenger. You can find it when heading North on the A46 just before joining the M4 at junction 18. What has always caught my eye is the squat appearance and the unsual v-shaped arrangment of the insulator strings. These pylons are on the 400 kV line labelled "Melksham-?" on the open infrastructure map which heads west into Wales, with a short branch line to Seabank power station in Bristol. I don't know why these pylons are squat – to reduce visual impact? Because Bristol airport is not that far away? Because there are other things often flying around the area of which I'm unaware? And is the unusual insulator string design a consequence of their lower height or because of some other factor – the fact that there are two cable bundles on each side of the pylon on the lower cross arm? I drive past these two or three times a year so it would make me very happy to have a definitive answer! It would also be great to know if they are unique or if other UK pylons have a similar design¹.

With pylons in the news quite a lot at the moment, it was interesting to read an article in the Guardian, Pylons v property: power line in Scotland caused divisions but did house price fears materialise? about the Beauly-Denny pylon line. You can a bit of background to the controversy that surrounded the building of it in the Guardian article and also in the Pylon of the Month from August 2017 which featured one of the pylons. There is (of course) nuance in the conclusions of a new report but the general conclusion was:

An analysis of property sales since the line began operating in 2015 showed property price trends along its route mirrored those of the wider local authorities and appeared to be influenced by wider macroeconomic factors rather than the appearance of new power lines.

So no need to panic about all the new lines planned as part of the National Grade upgrid. I suspect, however, that won't stop the headlines.

1.    Twitter/X provided answers to all these questions in the days after this article was posted. This month's pylon is an L9 model and a total of fifteen exist in the UK. Six near Bath (of which you can see two in the photo above), two in Withington (in the Cotswolds), two near Filton (Bristol) and two near Sunderland. The remaining three are in Scotland. The design is indeed intended to reduce the visual impact where the line crosses (in the case) the escarpment. The v-shaped insulator strings explanation deserves to be quoted in full: As for the V-shaped insulators, they were first developed by Hydro-Québec in 1962-65 for use on their first 735 kV lines, to reduce conductor sway in wind, so I assume were used for similar reasons on the L9 (Cit. 'Charging Ahead: Hydro-Québec and the Future of Electricity')