Pylon of the Month

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.