Well, its Sheffield again... I listed the number of times during about the last ten years when 'track-work', of varying degrees of complexity, has been undertaken in the local area, say within a radius of 10 miles of Sheffield; it came out as around 12 times. Having just completed the extensive 2-week Lincoln Line refurbishment and signal box removal, that at beighton Crossing and the other, much larger Woodhouse Junction box, its now the turn of the sections of three lines out of the north end of Sheffield Station, through the Sheaf Street tunnel. The 2 Midland main lines north and the Lincoln Line to the east, the latter diverging at the north-end of the multiple tunnel exit, though the 'tunnels' are really short stretches of road under-passes. But, first up...more of a 'to-do' as on Thursday afternoon last, 1st April no less, 'April Fool's Day', and a large fire breaks out at MHH Contracting Material Suppliers on Carlisle Street in the Newhall area of Sheffield, not far from Meadowhall. The first set of 4 pictures in this mosaic show the scene last Sunday morning, almost 3 days after the fire had started with, at top left, the presence of one of the UK'S most powerful pumps, brought/bought in by several fire services, after the devastating flooding which occured here, during the summer of 2007. In conversation with the guys in the picture, I was told these units are capable of pumping 3000L/min (40,000 gallons/hour) and here, it was being pumped from the River Don, 1.5km uphill along Carwood Road, before heading off right along Carlisle Street, to the fire site. The top right picture shows the large yellow 'hose-pipe', around 15-20cms diameter, which carried the fish-free water, due to inlet filtering, from the river to the fire site, a long way to pump 40,000 gallons an hour.. and this had been going on Thursday afternoon to at least Saturday afternoon.. The Fire Service guys complained of drivers speeding across the sections of hose laid across the carriageways in the centre of the picture, not knowing what was going on, I crossed 'gingerly' at 3-5m.p.h, I noticed others did not. The result, th3y would 'clip' the hose with wheel rims and the section of hose would burst and have to be replaced, what an utter pain-in-the-ar** some folk are...A fine spray of water can be seen spurting out of the section of hose in front of the approaching red car in the centre of the picture, between the two 'restricted width' road signs. At lower left, the business end of operations on Carlisle Street, with the road here closed to traffic and the fire site off to the right away up the hill on the premises of MHH Contracting Material Suppliers, who recycle materials including, it appears, the metal in mattresses, as I was told it was these which had started the fire on Thursday with the conditions as they were, it soon took hold. It was certainly, 'Big & Tasty Time'. At lower right, it is clear what the terrain was like and the conditions the fire service were having to deal with; dry very dusty arid conditions, the sky a perfect blue and the temperatures warm... under these conditions, its easy to glimpse high-altitude commercial jet airliners; the one here heading north-west, possibly and USA flight from Heathrow...
