Some years back, a kid got into a substation at the end of a 275kV
overhead line, and thought it would be OK to unbolt the earth wires
coupling the last pylon to ground. It seems that as the last one was
unbolted, the pylon floated up to many kV above earth, and fried him.
So real earth wires are not safe to disconnect either.


Now if that'd been thee or me they'd have seized bloody solid and we'd
have needed a long bar spanner or an impact wrench to undo them!.




Um... point of order .

Don't all pylons have an earth wire along the top so that they use more
than the one earth to ground. After all a lightning strike isn't going
to nip along miles of wires until it finds an earthed pylon is it?......
--
Tony Sayer

BTW, the sight of only 3 wires on rural 11/33KV transmission lines was
also my recollection too but I've even seen 11/33KV lines strung with
just two wires on rare occasions which left me a little bit puzzled to
say the least.

Not at all theres quite a few of them around out in the fens two wire
run off three wires...

Googling suggests these 2 wire lines might possibly be examples of a bi-
phase SWER transmission line (or, more likely here in the UK, just a
simple 2 wire single phase spur to a remote load not deemed worthy of the
expense of a 3 phase supply).

More the latter I'd reckon.

They do use that technique on the railways to boost the 25 kV overhead
in parts...


--
Tony Sayer

In article ,
tony sayer writes:


Some years back, a kid got into a substation at the end of a 275kV
overhead line, and thought it would be OK to unbolt the earth wires
coupling the last pylon to ground. It seems that as the last one was
unbolted, the pylon floated up to many kV above earth, and fried him.
So real earth wires are not safe to disconnect either.


Now if that'd been thee or me they'd have seized bloody solid and we'd
have needed a long bar spanner or an impact wrench to undo them!.




Um... point of order .

Don't all pylons have an earth wire along the top so that they use more
than the one earth to ground. After all a lightning strike isn't going
to nip along miles of wires until it finds an earthed pylon is it?......

Well, maybe it was rather more bonding. I presumed it was the bonding
you see linking all the metal supports and switchgear together, although
the report at the time specifically said it was the pylon he was
disconnecting.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On 03/09/2015 23:29, Dave Liquorice wrote:
A 9 V battery has the capability to kill if well enough connected to
you.

"It's volts that jolts, mils that kills"

"mils" being short for milliampere.

Not connected to you, connected _into_ you. You'd have to try pretty
damn hard to get enough out of a 9 volt without sticking electrodes
through the skin. And even then you'd probably have to place your
electrodes near the heart.

Unless of course you have a reference...

Andy