Tracing underground electrical wiring - Metal Detector or Other Means?

[IanB]

Oh boy 11kV under load makes a nice bang.

I believe so. I remember a case in Letchworth where a cable fault under the pavement made a bang that rattled shop windows and lifted the paving slabs.

[MinerMini]

Anyway, you should try! I'm not a specialist, but my friend tells me a lot about metal detectors and their use. The most simple and informative article is here - http://tenrows.com/metal-detectors/ , and honestly the only one that i've understood

[richard.cs]

For those who are interested this is the sort of cable that's usually used for direct burial in the UK:

There's a lot of paper insulated, lead covered still in use for distribution, along with the more modern XLPE insulated stuff.

For the OPs problem I would probably either hire a cable tracer or just dig at the end to see what direction the cable is going and see what can be deduced from that - cable runs are usually pretty straight. Most commercial cable tracers inject modulated 33 kHz and then look for that, a few rely on the cable re-radiating broadcast LW signals.