Anyone remember Alcan?
I don't. In a crass and completely insensitive measure I completely overlooked the old girl, which now lies as a shadow of its former self, all chimneys demolished and well set up in its new life as a business park. Had I bothered to get myself over there, I'd have probably noticed the coal fired power station they'd not shut down next door.
By the time I'd realised that this cracking little specimen even existed, they were well underway into the biomass conversion. I can only assume they're running behind schedule, as when we tried it on what we thought was a casual Saturday night, we ended up being a gnats testicle from being clocked by workers no less than 3 times. The place was swarming. The final straw was AJ grabbing my arm and pointing out a worker who'd just lit a cigarette in the smoking shelter, 3 meters away from the road I was about to carelessly run down to get access to the boiler house; so we gave up, called it a night and bailed. It would probably have been easier if it had been live!
By the time holiday season had come round, we'd both had enough of turkey sandwiches and our relatives and opted to give it a second go, and this time we were in luck! The only bloke on the clock was a man pacing up and down the control room, we didn't see another soul!
The turbos in this place are cracking, and absolutely spotless!
All the switch gear is still alive and kicking, and it's still attached to the grid.
It was a bit of a pig getting to the turbos themselves. There are a lot of cameras in the turbine hall and our mate upstairs would have probably thrown a wobbler if he'd have seen us skulking around, so we stayed hidden.
We had a stroll to the top of the boilers which was nice and tidy, but probably nothing you've not seen before.
And the coal crushers! Probably never to be used again!
In the back yard they've built 6 massive biomass storage hoppers and filled the old coal conveyers with cement. The cool thing about Lynemouth was that there were tunnels dug straight to the mines from the powerstation, with all the coal being mined on demand and chucked straight in!
So thats it! I'm kinda ashamed I didn't spot this one before, as the time to get on it was probably when they switched her off for the biomass change over.. I guess it'll be full steam ahead now until the big switch on!
I don't. In a crass and completely insensitive measure I completely overlooked the old girl, which now lies as a shadow of its former self, all chimneys demolished and well set up in its new life as a business park. Had I bothered to get myself over there, I'd have probably noticed the coal fired power station they'd not shut down next door.
By the time I'd realised that this cracking little specimen even existed, they were well underway into the biomass conversion. I can only assume they're running behind schedule, as when we tried it on what we thought was a casual Saturday night, we ended up being a gnats testicle from being clocked by workers no less than 3 times. The place was swarming. The final straw was AJ grabbing my arm and pointing out a worker who'd just lit a cigarette in the smoking shelter, 3 meters away from the road I was about to carelessly run down to get access to the boiler house; so we gave up, called it a night and bailed. It would probably have been easier if it had been live!
By the time holiday season had come round, we'd both had enough of turkey sandwiches and our relatives and opted to give it a second go, and this time we were in luck! The only bloke on the clock was a man pacing up and down the control room, we didn't see another soul!
All the switch gear is still alive and kicking, and it's still attached to the grid.
It was a bit of a pig getting to the turbos themselves. There are a lot of cameras in the turbine hall and our mate upstairs would have probably thrown a wobbler if he'd have seen us skulking around, so we stayed hidden.
And the coal crushers! Probably never to be used again!
In the back yard they've built 6 massive biomass storage hoppers and filled the old coal conveyers with cement. The cool thing about Lynemouth was that there were tunnels dug straight to the mines from the powerstation, with all the coal being mined on demand and chucked straight in!
So thats it! I'm kinda ashamed I didn't spot this one before, as the time to get on it was probably when they switched her off for the biomass change over.. I guess it'll be full steam ahead now until the big switch on!
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