[n10694]

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.



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



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



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.



And the pipes are BIG.....

[andym]

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

[wolfism]

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.