| The last of the Greendykes Road towers, which have become something of a landmark since their erection in about 1931, was dismantled by workmen this morning to restore the east end trunk road to its original configuration.
The five-day removal job, which followed weeks of preparation, was completed bang on schedule when a massive crane began the delicate job of taking apart the three-section pylon.
For generations of Dundonians, the 25-metre tall electricity structures have been a constant feature of the Craigiebank landscape — but not for Florence.
She moved to her home at the foot of Greendykes Road a full four years before the pylons went up and can still remember the view.
Florence’s dad was a foreman riveter at the old Caledon shipyard at the docks and moved to the tied house in Greendykes Road when Florence was just a year old. She inherited the house and lives there still with husband, Bob.
“It was a long, long time ago but I can remember when Greendykes Road didn’t have the grass strip running up the middle.
“There was no need for it as the pylons weren’t up. When I looked out of the livingroom window it was just like a normal road.
“Quite honestly, though, we’ve never really given them much thought over the years — we were so accustomed to them.
“At one time you could hear a sizzle coming from them, especially when it rained. They also used to interfere with your radio reception.”
Florence and Bob have had to get used to tons of scaffolding being erected directly outside their home recently as the preparatory work for the pylons’ removal got under way.
“That wasn’t too bad at all apart from the odd wee bit of noise at night,” she said.
Eight pylons in total have been removed by Scottish and Southern Electricity (SSE) in a major operation that the company said had gone “very smoothly”.
They were replaced in April by underground cables in a £6.5 million project and have been redundant ever since.
SSE still had to take considerable care in their removal in an operation engineers said was like “dismantling a huge Meccano set”.
Scaffolding towers were erected at various stages along Greendykes Road and safety netting strung between them in case any of the cabling broke free.
The whole of Greendykes Road was closed to traffic for the duration of the dismantling.
Greendykes Road is scheduled to re-open on Wednesday or Thursday once workmen have completed their tidying up operation.
SSE engineers are also active in Dundee’s Drumgeith Road where scaffolding has been erected around pylons to enable some rewiring and conductor replacements to be carried out.
SSE also said the rewiring project for pylons north of Milton of Craigie and stretching out to Tealing is now mostly complete with just the scaffolding to be taken down. |
