So that's where it went

That's funny. A lot of it was still there in the 70s.

MBQ

They pulled down lots of the town centre and replaced it with concrete shit. Market hall was an example.

Reply to
harryagain
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A fascinating story. I hate to nit pick, but it is described in the first paragraph as a 1 MW prototype station, but later on quotes a CEGB booklet giving 1156 MW, so it should be 1 GW.

During my thin sandwich degree course with what became GEC (and subsequently Alst[h]om), I did have spells at both Eggborough and Fiddlers Ferry. All that generation of power stations with 500 MW alternators had suffered from delays and faults requiring significant repair work - things were about 5 years late at the time. The factory capacity to rebuild stators was limited, so one was being done on site at Eggborough. This involved one of the dodgiest lifting arrangements I have ever seen.

To do the work, the stator frame had been stood on end on the floor of the turbine hall. For those who don't know, this is an assembly weighing, when complete with laminations and windings, around 200 tons, with a diameter around 3 m and length 3 or 4 times that.

The two station cranes needed a spreader beam to share the load. In order to get slings onto the lifting trunnions bolted onto each side of the stator frame, another spreader was needed, so one was borrowed from the factory at Trafford Park. As it happened, this had been specially made for a pair of cranes which were of slightly different ratings, and was asymmetric.

This meant that, when inverted, with its double hook suspended from the double hook of the station spreader, it needed a chain block to pull it horizontal. I don't know who worked out what its rating needed to be, but getting things level took some time.

The task was to lift the stator and turn it end-over-end, so, once the Heath Robinson rig was aloft, a wire rope was connected to a winch at ground level to get the whole thing to rotate on the trunnions.

Luck was with them that day.

Chris

Reply to
Chris J Dixon

In message , Priories writes

As a former near by resident I was also fascinated by the article. A couple of minor points if I may. The article makes reference to the swing bridge over the river being replaced by a lift bridge. The bridge is actually over the canal. There are also references to coal being delivered by water from Hatfield Main. I explored the local waterways during the 70s and 80s, and there was never any evidence of a coal wharf for Thorpe Marsh (although there was for tanker barges, I think I saw one moored there once). The canal staithe at Hatfield Main was looking very disused by 1974, so water borne coal traffic from there was long gone by then.

Adrian

Reply to
Adrian

Yes, the delivery by barge of anything is a load of bollocks. Only Ferrybridge C had that capabilty in Yorkshire.

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and coal only ever came in to Thorpe Marsh by train (oil being used for boiler lighting and flame stabilisation) the only exception would have been in the late stages of the 1984/85 miners strike where a lot of places had coal moved in by road, for the sole reason of proving that they could, not because it was needed to keep the lights on.

Some of the text in that article appears to be derived from official literature, it's very 'CEGB' and as such is the only place that manages to get the electrical output of the gas turbines right, two units of 28MW each, unlike wikipedia that not only gets the that wrong they also get the output of the main coal fired units wrong too, but that would take a page or two to show the full history of the ups and downs.

Reply to
The Other Mike

Maybe I should have appended amongst the "'500's"

Many stations had coal and oil delivery by waterborne craft, those on the Thames Estuary for instance.

Reply to
The Other Mike

Thanks for the updates guys, yes theres a lot of misinformation out there - I did think it was strange there was no remains of a coal unloading facility, I've had to go on a lot of hearsay so guessing someone confused Doncaster and Thorpe Marsh glad you guys can put me straight on this stuff.

Could anyone give me further info on the fire I've seen a photo of a massive plume of black smoke coming out of the main building but don't have any details on what caused it how long it lasted or how they put it out.

Reply to
Priories

Do you know what year?

Reply to
The Other Mike

In message , Priories writes

The on line mapping suggests that Doncaster power station would not have had supplies by rail. In the 70s it seemed to get all its supplies by water from Denaby colliery, which by then appears to have been the only colliery in South Yorkshire that had a staithe. My recollection was that the water carried output from Hatfield was all shipped to Goole in Tom Puddings for loading into ships (whether that was for export or for the Thames side power stations I don't know).

Adrian

Reply to
Adrian

Was that in the early 80s? I ask, because I distinctly recall a news article in the local rag about a generator bod who was crushed when a stator fell on him at Hunterston power station. I wonder how widespread these stator failures were and if one of them was responsible for his death, during this crazy handling procedure.

Reply to
grimly4

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