Infrastructure likened to a curling serpent, whereas most serpentine similes I’ve seen have been speed-related.  See Tarka the Otter, Christopher Logue’s War Music and Mervyn Peake’s Titus Groan.

… the great grey dam curled up in the sun like a basking snake. 

Source: Justin Marozzi, The Man Who Invented History: Travels with Herodotus (London: John Murray, 2009), p. 157

Photo credit: Cédric Dhaenens at unsplash