Samuel's Blog

Underground Cabling Photographic Tour

March 17th, 2006 at 08:00am

As regular readers of this blog would be well aware from the recent coverage here, here, here & here, there is some underground cabling going on at Civic, to bring power to a new building which is currently under construction in Civic.

The cabling which runs from the Mount Ainslie substation down to the building in Civic, has been going on for quite some time, and they are finally up to pushing the cables through the conduit.

This map may be of some use in following this article

I took these photos on Monday, and started from the CIT Campus on the corner of Coranderrk Street and Constitution Avenue, by walking up Coranderrk Street where a set of seemingly unrelated cabling is taking place.

Just before the intersection between Coranderrk and Doonkuna Streets is one of these points of cabling.

There is some more near the corner of Coranderrk Street and Elimatta Street

And again near the corner of Coranderrk Street and Limestone Avenue (in the background is Campbell High School, the red and white building).

This set of cabling does not obviously appear to connect to any other cabling, so where it goes to from here is a mystery. Although I may have stumbled upon the answer later on in the tour.

From here I made the journey to the Mount Ainslie Substation. Taking photos of major bits of infrastructure in a mildly concealed location does fall into the category of “suspicious activity” and with UEA (the cabling company) staff around, I decided that I should limit the number of photos that I took. The ones that I did take don’t show much, and I would have like to take some more from a better angle, but these will do. Here is one.

There is a lot of conduit floating about on Mount Ainslie at the moment.

From the point I was standing on for the last two photos, you can see two points of cabling holes in the ground, the trench path in the distance, the back of the substation sign on the left, and a UEA truck on the right.

And another picture of the substation

Around this time an american tourist who was passing by asked me if I was a photographer and what I was photographing.

There is a sign for the substation (which ActewAGL call the “City East Zone Substation” and a sign informing us that the path we are using is a horse track).

There is also the back of a sign owned (and marked as such) by Cord Excavations. They have put their phone number (6260 2166) on it, presumably so that if it is lost, and you find it, you can ring them and they can pick it up.

And of course I was on the edge of the Mount Ainslie Nature Reserve, which also has a sign.

Here is one of the many cabling holes, featuring one cable and three streams of conduit, which is fairly normal for the current progress of the cabling.

And more conduit.

And much more conduit with a UEA truck.

It would appear that a trench was dug from the substation to the first road along the path, and from that point on Horizontal Directional Drilling was used. The trench (which has now been dug over) can be clearly seen here.

Further down we have another cabling hole.

And some of the nature reserve.

From here you can see the under-construction building, the eventual destination of the cables.

Shortly after this two ActewAGL vans passed by and I took a photo of one.

They then stopped up at the previously photographed hole and started working around there.

Then we have another hole, the first one along the Horizontal Directional Drilling.

And another one

Then there is one down at the corner of Batman Street and Limestone Avenue

Two UEA trucks turned up around this time and the occupants gave me strange looks, so I didn’t take further photos of that particular hole and went on to the next one, which looks like this.

It would appear that UEA are using Skippy Bins to store their dirt.

Then we have the hole which turns from being parallel with Limestone Avenue, to go under Limestone Avenue and become parallel with Allambee Street.


In that last photo you can see a fourth conduit, which appears to head in the general direction of Coranderrk, which makes it looks like they are giving that line of cabling a new feed, instead of using whatever feed they were using previously, which was quite possibly the same feed which services Campbell High School. Presumably they will split one of the cables into two so that it can feed Coranderrk Street.

On Allambee Street the holes on a block where things are a bit more likely to get thrown in by residents have been dug over.

By this time it is possible that I had attracted attention for taking photos of all this cabling, and a government car pulled up and the occupant appeared to monitor me for a while before going away.

On the next block, the first hole is marked “Demolition In Progress”.

Another hole has been dug over on this particualr block, although it is unclear why.

On the next block we have another hole.

From here we can see the under-construction building.

Crossing the road to the next block I could see some people working on a roof on a building in Argyle Square.

And it is possible to see the under-construction building and a crane from halfway down this block.

Where Allambee Street turns into Currong Street there is a large hole.

Half way down Currong Street it turns right on to Boolee Street, but the corner was covered in dirt.

On Boolee Street there is a sign informing of a road closure during some of the work which misspells Boolee.

And more signs related to the road closure.

From here you can see the under-construction building.

And there is a Horizontal Directional Drilling machine on the corner of Boolee Street and Kograh Lane.

And the hole just in front of it, where you can see some conduit and the drill piece on the Horizontal Directional Drilling machine

The cabling then goes under Ballumbir Street and through Glebe Park, on the corner of Boolee Street and Ballumbir Street there is are some street signs.

I then entered Glebe Park through the Galliard Smith Gate

From just inside the park you can see lots of Conduit and their hole in the ground.

Glebe Park is very wet underground, and has always been that way, as such this hole is pretty wet.

From here the under-construction building is highly visible.

UEA were moving one of their Horizontal Directional Drilling machine, if you look closely you will see mats under the machine, which appears to be needed for moving the machine on the bricks. The people moving the machine have to move the mats in front of the machine after they get behind it. In the background you can see the new building.

Around this time one of the UEA trucks that passed me on Limestone Avenue entered Glebe Park and the people inside started giggling when they saw me still taking photos. From just outside of Glebe Park I could see more UEA vehicles.

I then took a photo from the next block, on top of where the cable is going, with the path directly in front of, and directly behind me. You can see the under-construction building’s transformer room from here.

I then zoomed in the transformer room.

And one of the “High Voltage” signs.

I then took some photos of the under-construction building.

I then walked over to the CIT Campus for a cup of coffee at Cafe Yala (with discounts for students) and took these photos of the building from the bridge to the CIT Campus over Coranderrk Street.

After this I went and photographed the other main construction site over at section 84 (The Canberra Centre extension), which I will have the photos of, online shortly.

Samuel

Entry Filed under: Canberra Stories

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