Duco Plastic Pipes, Walker, Newcastle
 

WTF !

not quite an explore, but interesting.

well, it's a bit of a tale.

I spotted this from the (glass) roof of the National Glass Museum (sorry, it's a bit arty farty) at Monkwearmouth, and guessed it was something to do with loading / installing flexible pipe for the oil & gas industry. I did wonder how they loaded it up and where the pipe was made, 'cos it's all pretty big stuff.

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...4/P1000557.jpg

Answer, next night, mooching into Newcastle to look at the bridges, spotted the big cranes at Walker, and had to have a look.

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...0359-1copy.jpg

The cranes looked recently painted, big, and pretty well preserved.

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...P1000360-1.jpg

They looked preserved because they are still in use, loading big reels of pipe (that are also made here by a company called "Duco") onto barges similar to the barge in the first picture.

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...0353-1copy.jpg

And the pipes are BIG.....

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...P1000351-1.jpg

Looks like shipyard cranes, I wonder if this is the site of an old ship building complex?

I think this might be Aker Offshore or something similar … those look like pipe spools for subsea pipelaying ships, generally used to connect oil production platforms to the terminal on land.