Thought I'd sling up a quick report just to remind people how much else there is on offer here. Since Speed's report last year I've seen one other post covering the more recently closed areas courtesy of SammyDoubleWhammy, and I know other people have visited too, but recent reports have just been of the same bit everyone used to do before 75% of the rest of the works closed.
Visited here with Dempsey as a backup potential turbo lead having driven a stupid distance at stupid AM and finding ourselves at a loose end at least four hours from home. There were people about including security but aside from a minor encounter involving a hasty dash round a corner very early on we didn't see anyone. I was dragging my feet initially, being geared up for some 3000rpm's and instead being faced with a moderately aesthetically pleasing row of rotary kilns, but progressing through the works it got steadily livelier. Eventually we found that one room from Sammy's shots that had spooled us up and immediately ran slap bang into a row of three turbines, then realised there was another row of three either side of that! Probing further into this very loud hall revealed that it had at least 13 turbo sets in situ configured as exhausters or compressors, with a further row of four having ben removed. Old school chemical works rank highly on my list of awesome things already but this was basically one of the coolest places I've ever seen - not quite on the scale of seriously heavy industry but with completely its own intricacies and recognisable machinery being used for unique purposes, put it this way, the solvay towers themselves (manufactured at Stanton iron works) were about 30m tall apiece! That's the size of the actual molten metal part of a blast furnace.
Enough waffle, some Superia 400:
Rotary kilns (as seen in cement works etc.)
Scrubbers (as seen everywhere)
Looking down the side of a Solvay tower from probably the 3rd level. (As seen nowhere in the UK outside of Winnington/Northwich)
Uuuhhhh ___/ ...
Older compressors that had been decommissioned a good time earlier. Behind these, hidden by a curtain of sheeting, there was another spooling up and down frequently like an asthmatic industrial lung. It would have been tragic if it hadn't been so loud.
Ta for reading
Enough waffle, some Superia 400:
Rotary kilns (as seen in cement works etc.)
Scrubbers (as seen everywhere)
Looking down the side of a Solvay tower from probably the 3rd level. (As seen nowhere in the UK outside of Winnington/Northwich)
Uuuhhhh ___/ ...
Older compressors that had been decommissioned a good time earlier. Behind these, hidden by a curtain of sheeting, there was another spooling up and down frequently like an asthmatic industrial lung. It would have been tragic if it hadn't been so loud.
Ta for reading
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