The Tinsley Towers demolition morning megathread

[tifftifco2 10]

just been down to the viaduct to see aftermath before dark loads and loads of cars pulling up and parking to take snaps although police are there moving me people on now and are stood with a big ticket book!!!! they must have moved lots of rubble already it's really reallyweird down there now, crazy!

[JA5E 10]

You mean it was a modern version of this, (with Sheffield accents!!)

 

:hihi: Are you sure you wasn't there Dozy?

[medusa 16]

They're tremendous! Nice find!

 

It may be a nice idea to go onto the biker's forum and let him know that you liked his posting

 

http://www.sheffieldbikers.co.uk

[strangedays 10]

Hi All,

 

To commemorate and commiserate the sad destruction of Sheffield's most famous landmarks I have been working on a book and photo essay, to be published in the next couple of months. The book covers the history of Blackburn Meadows Power Station, the construction of the cooling towers, and the last week in the life of the towers.

 

At present I am looking for a few additional photographs which show the demolition, preferably from the shopping centre side of the M1 and from the south side of the canal, east of the viaduct. As the photographs are for publication they need to be of a high quality, probably not less than 5Mbyte file size, taken with the a Digital (or Film) SLR camera; unfortunately camera phone images will not be of sufficient quality.

 

I would also be interested if anyone has good historical black & white or colour photographs (or slides) of the power station or cooling towers. especially form the 1980s or earlier.

 

If you have any photographs or anecdotes that you would consider for publication in the book then please email me at [email protected] (that is: "tinsleybook AT googlemail DOT com").

 

Cheers,

 

Ian

 

 

I'll also take this opportunity to clear up a couple of points that I have read on this thread today:

 

> Viaduct Closure - it was always intended that the viaduct would remain closed until at least 20.00 Sunday, as this was the time required to complete full inspections, reestablish power, light and water (which had all been turned off pre-demolition) before it could reopen. A meeting was due to be held at 19.45 to make that decision. I don't live by the viaduct so would be interested to know what time it did finally reopen?

 

> North Tower - there appears to be some confusion as to how the final part of the North Tower was brought down. About 30 mins after the main demolition two large excavators moved to the base of the tower and commenced to move around rubble - the first part of the remains to fall was the "finger" part that pointed out by itself. It took nearly 2 more hours for the excavators - mainly pushing at the tower using extended-reach arms - to finally bring down the remains. I left the Meadow Hall Road grass bank - very wet! - at around 5.30.

[Engineer1951 10]

The lower deck of the viaduct was reopened shortly after 5pm, the motorway itself was opened in both directions by 5.30.

[sheff71 10]

If the tower was finally demolished because it was unsafe, being that close to the motorway/viaduct, is it a good idea to replace it with another large power plant on the same land (or is the proposed biomass plant a lot smaller or further away?)

[danh111 10]

If the tower was finally demolished because it was unsafe, being that close to the motorway/viaduct, is it a good idea to replace it with another large power plant on the same land (or is the proposed biomass plant a lot smaller or further away?)

 

I think it was because they was so old, and they could have collapsed at any time.

[ormester101 10]

yes i went up meadowbank road never seen so many people at 3 oclock in the morning got a good spot a few drunken idiots around us then the towers came down very surreal. The dust storm after came straight at us and was shocking if anyone suffered with asthma god help them .Sad to see them go lets hope the replacement is a lot better to look at .

[illuminati 10]

Regarding the posts relating to how everybody was so friendly I would like to contradict - whilst coming back down Meadowbank Road a few motorists had got confused as to which side of the road was the up side of the dual carriage way (loads of cars parked on the other side made it looked like a single road) I suddenly had a screaming woman shouting at me saying I was an idiot and that I should turn my car around etc. etc. banging on my roof like a complete lunatic. Guess what, it was a police woman! anyone else see this total lack of professionalism? She needs another job!

[ppz resident 10]

Sunday 24th August was a sad day for Sheffield; our cooling towers reluctantly fell leaving only a shopping mall and a Finnish stainless company to mark what was formally a great center of British industry. Two beautiful, iconic structures raised to the ground. Two huge shapes that put Sheffield on the map for every single one of the millions of motorists who brave the M1 each year, now demolished.

 

Any attempt to replace those imposing towers with another "symbol of Sheffield" will be little more than an inadequate erection which should bare the names of all those fools involved with the travesty.

[jezzyjj 10]

OMG!!! Strix! I soooo WANT one of those ... *drools*

And drool will wash off no problem!

[jezzyjj 10]

I used Sony Vegas 8. Cost me an arm and a leg but it is the best video editing software I have ever used.

And soooo much easier to use/more powerful than the better known video packages.