Power Test Page - WIP

Electricity used in Manchester may have been generated in the Trent Valley travelled along cables attached to pylons and travelled under the scenic Peak District before reaching Manchester's consumers.
Trent Valley

Pylons bring power to Dunford Bridge Station

Woodhead Tunnels



Dubford Bridge station where cables will enter the tunnel.

 

High-voltage cables were installed in disused Victorian railway tunnels in the 1960s, helping to bringing electricity supplies to Manchester from power stations east of the Pennies in the Trent Valley.

The decision to put cables in the 3 miles 13 yards (4,840 m) Victorian tunnels, rather than building overhead power lines, was made by the Peak Park Planning Board. The two parallel Victorian Woodhead tunnels, between Dunford Bridge Station and Woodhead Station, were bought by the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) and now form part of the 400,000-volt high-voltage grid connecting the substations at Thorpe Marsh, near Doncaster, and Stalybridge, east of Manchester.

The Future
The 1960s cables laid in the two single track Victorian Woodhead Tunnels have a life of about 50 years so in 2011 are now nearing the end of their life and need to be replaced. It is not possible to install new high-voltage cables alongside the existing cables for three main reasons.

1. Supply. The supply of power through the Victorian tunnels needs to be unaffected.
2. Space. There is not enough room to install new cables in the Victorian tunnels alongside the existing live 400,000-volt high-voltage cables.
3. Cost. The Victorian tunnels require considerable works at substantial cost to extend their life.



Major engineering work at Woodhead Station to receive the cable from the tunnel.

Work began in February 2008 to install the replacement cables in the third twin track Woodhead Tunnel constructed in 1953. The line and tunnel were closed in 1982, as part of the Beaching line closures, and the tunnel was bought in the 1990s by National Grid as a possible site for the replacement high-voltage cables.

Installing the new high-voltage cable in the third tunnel was expected to take two years to complete, but is still under way in February 2011. 

Cables and Wires

Water Test Page - WIP

Rain

Rain falling on Featherbed Moss above Sheffield in South Yorkshire flows into the River Etherow which feeds the Longdendale Chain of reservoirs in the Peak District National Park.





River Etherow

The River Etherow flows through Longdendale in the Dark Peak.  The Dark Peak is made upp of a thick blanket of peat overlying on Millstone Grit sandstone that is formed on a bed of shale.  

The River Etherow has no major tributaries but instead is fed by brooks and streams flowing from the cloughs on the moors forming the Dark Peak, such as Kinder Scout, Bleaklow and Black Hill.  The Dark Peak forms a watershed of approximately 30 square miles (78 km2), which recieves an annual rainfall of 52.5 inches (1,330 mm).  

Longdendale Chain
The Longdendale Chain is six reservoirs on the River Etherow in the valley of Longdendale, in north Derbyshire. Longdendale Chain was constructed between 1848 and 1884 to a design by John Frederick Bateman (30 May 1810 – 10 June 1889), an English civil engineer whose work formed the basis of the modern water supply industry in England, to supply fresh water to the growing population of Manchester.

The reservoirs of Woodhead, Torside, Rhodeswood and Arnfield supply drinking water, and the lower reservoirs, Valehouse and Bottoms, are used to maintain the downstream flow of the River Etherow, known as compensation reservoirs, originally for the benefit of local water-powered mills. The seventh reservoir, Hollingworth Reservoir, was contructed in 1854 but in 1987 was abandoned to become part of the 60-acre (240,000 m²) Swallows Wood nature reserve which contains semi-natural woodlands, meadows, ponds and marsh areas.

Mottram Tunnel
Water from the Longdendale Chain flows into an aqueduct connecting to the Arnfield reservoir from where the water passes by gravity along the Mottram Tunnel to the Godley reservoir on the edge of Manchester.

The Mottram  Tunnel was built between August 1848 and October 1850, and the Godley service reservoir was built to receive and filter the water in 1851.The Mottram Tunnel is 3100 yards long, and has a fall of 5 feet in one mile. The Mottram Tunnel is lined in stone, it is 6 feet in diameter and can carry 50,000,000 gallons a fresh drinking water per day. 

Godley Reservoir
At Godley Reservoir the water was originally filtered by passing it through straining frames made of oak and fine wires. It was chlorinated to remove bacteria and then entered Manchester's water distribution network. In the 1960s additional treatment works were built at Arnfield and Godley.  From Godley water also flows by gravity to the service reservoirs at Denton, Audenshaw, Gorton and Prestwich.

Pipes and Tapes