I distinctly remember the first time I became aware of Decepticon as it was also the first time I discovered this website. It was August 2010, the result an internet search prompted by having wandered by and peered down to that open bit of (what turned out to be) Megatron ('Is the river really beautiful...?') and wondering what the hell was down there. A recent Facebook Memories reminder confirms that I also shared a link to this site at the time (to a largely disinterested audience of friends and family on Facebook) name-checking both Megatron and Decepticon as the two highlights.
I remember my mind being slightly blown as I realised that, not only were there drains that looked a bit like corridors from spacecrafts hiding away in the city I lived in, but also that there were people prepared to go in them, take pictures and share them on the internet. (The fact that they gave some of them the names of Transformers was also pretty intriguing too.) This was all very exciting, I could almost feel the world expanding... ... if only I knew how to use a camera, wasn't so claustrophobic, not to mention clumsy, etc etc, I thought, that's something I'd like to be doing. Fast forward eight years to the week and, after many other derps and drains, I finally made it into the (second) drain that sparked my interest in the first place. Dunno why I’d not done this sooner, in fact, but it’s ticked off now, not least because @WB has asked if I’ve done it yet each time I’ve seen him
Visited on this occasion with @Sheard - Decepticon is a storm relief overflow system, discovered by @siologen
The main thing you notice is how loooooong it is. We were down here for hours and didn’t reach the end. I had entered fairly determined to get to the source, but a combination of stoop induced ache (it gets pretty small) and actually wanting to breathe some fresh air made this an incomplete explore. I’m not sure if we even went any further than the other reports I’ve seen, but it’s difficult to tell due to the featurelessness of the long RCP what eventually did us in...
The first section, as others have noted, is a killer of a low-slung 4 ft stoop. Legs bent and back hunched over, my gluteus maximus was not thanking me the day after.
Once this was traversed it was a pleasure to be able to stand up straight for a bit. The wide concrete chamber turns into a tall concrete chamber (the spacecraft corridor section)...
Which then leads into the first chamber....
This in turn leads into a lengthy arched section. The raised concrete to the right here conceals a very active sewer pipe, which we will meet more closely in a bit...
Next is my favourite bit - a big, multilevel chamber. Haven’t encountered one this high in Sheffield - at least not one that was fully accessible.
We lingered here for a bit. Someone who has been here before has left some glowing plastic stars stuck on the lower wall - you can see them above the archway.
On the upper level, the brown pipe to the right was really noisy and you could see and smell the full flow of sewage by peeking in the open top...
Back down and onwards for a bit, past the familiar raised right section, leads to the next chamber. This one was really noisy - up the steps reveals another view of the sewerfresh flowing alongside us.
From here on it’s RCP all the way...
If I’m remembering rightly this starts off pretty big, but after a while it reduces in diameter and becomes an uncomfortable stoop. Every so often there’s another small chamber or another feature to keep you going...
These steps curve up to the left, meeting a much smaller length of RCP and a ladder up. Out of all the lids I tried this one felt the most likely to shift but I couldn’t quite budge it...
More chambers, some of which seemed to have had their lids dumped down the shaft and replaced. The one in the second pic here looks to have landed with some force, squashing the metal handrail - glad my head wasn’t under it when it fell...
By this point we were pretty knackered. No more photos of standard RCP in order to focus on walking, but there was another larger staircase to the right. The RCP at the top soon turned too small to access...
Followed, after a bit, with a chamber that was intersected by another brown sewer pipe...
Unable to find a suitable, movable lid for easier exit and aware of the lengthy walk (and stoop) back awaiting us we were going to call it a day here. However, noticing a faint sound of rushing water ahead we persisted for what seemed like ages to be met with another staircase leading straight ahead...
This wasn’t as far as we got as we plodded on further but with no end in sight, and no further notable features, we called it a day and took the long walk back the way we came. The walk back was accompanied by the ever growing drainz playlist blasting out of my speaker and, in spite of the distance, it was nice to experience the drain without stopping to take pics.
And out to daylight and fresh air...
Where next?
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