Steelworking has always been in workington, its the main contributor to the size of the town and the size and position of the docks. used to be a set of bezemmer (spl) furnace on the site for over 125yrs, probably longer).
The main export from the site has always been rails. the whole process used to be onsite, from mineral extraction (or however steel is made) to furnace, to making blooms, to heating em and rolling em into 13.8m long rails (or therbouts).
already been thru the whole process on one of my older threads, but basically the whole lot has now been under demo for a few months, the bloom delivery system, gone, the furnaces gone, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd rolling mills gone, half the cooling racks gone (size of a football pitch).
What I visited here hasn't been visited by any explorer before, dempsey, littlemike and I tried pretty hard but security USED to be inbuilding and parade around constantly making it very hard to move about.
This part of the site is AFTER the cooling rails, where the rough rails would have been pulled into one of 4 machining shops to be cut to length, have the holes drilled thru them, quality controlled, and also to be checked for straightness (big ass machine with 9rollers that tweak the rail in every direction just a few mm's to harden em up (AFAIK).
onto the pics...
looking down the main hall from one of the older cranes, heater is still on in here and its DAMN hot, cathedral like. BUT HELL whats that, bottom right! cctv screens, hiviz, red bar heater ON, holy hell security is sat right there!!!
thank god, he's not there
turns out he wasn't, just cctv off the machines still whirring away
hate heights, but love em at the same time, weird attraction, but I just can't help climbing stuff!
quick look outside, train line is right there, means access is either illegal, or incredibly dangerous, theres only two ways
guys seat who would drill the holes in the end of the rails for the fish plates (right term?)
his control handle thing
the product
:
corus stamp, on every rail it says corus workington and then some code numbers, presume the rating/quality?
me taking in the view, damn filthy in here, everything is covered in dirt and grease
crapped it again when I came across this unit 4cctv screens, heater again, and a sealed box, some creaping and relief, again no security here. tried to get my mug in the picture of the tele from the camera feed, but the contrast was too high and the picture way too grainy.
my fav control panel shot, tried to hdr this, but it was nasty.
not sure whether it was directed at this worker, or the whole site in general (last chrimbo for everyone), as this particular stn would have been the last on the line, and the guy still has a pile of rail stock to shift and machine
so he got 2yrs more work than anyone else!
kickass piece of kit this, the stainless doesn't move, but theres a conveyor belt of moving magnets underneath that take out the enormous amount of swarf into a rail cart outside.
some machining tools, some new, some old, all never to see usage again
look back down the cathedral, although this shed is big, it wasn't the biggest by far, not as high either.
really liked this, rusty sheeting, and the thing on the left, not sure what it is though
self shot again, check that beard
really filthy under that machine (from two pix up) looks like it used to be a sump for cutting agent and swarf? really stank down here.
THE LAST RAIL, no seriously, the last one, nothing remains of the production line above here really, and the offcuts to the side on the right I reckon are for sentimental for somebody that they are the last ones
dirty crane stitch
whole shed pann
another cool control panel, the red tape on the right is part way across the cooling racks, this is where they will demo upto for the near future.
The main export from the site has always been rails. the whole process used to be onsite, from mineral extraction (or however steel is made) to furnace, to making blooms, to heating em and rolling em into 13.8m long rails (or therbouts).
already been thru the whole process on one of my older threads, but basically the whole lot has now been under demo for a few months, the bloom delivery system, gone, the furnaces gone, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd rolling mills gone, half the cooling racks gone (size of a football pitch).
What I visited here hasn't been visited by any explorer before, dempsey, littlemike and I tried pretty hard but security USED to be inbuilding and parade around constantly making it very hard to move about.
This part of the site is AFTER the cooling rails, where the rough rails would have been pulled into one of 4 machining shops to be cut to length, have the holes drilled thru them, quality controlled, and also to be checked for straightness (big ass machine with 9rollers that tweak the rail in every direction just a few mm's to harden em up (AFAIK).
onto the pics...
looking down the main hall from one of the older cranes, heater is still on in here and its DAMN hot, cathedral like. BUT HELL whats that, bottom right! cctv screens, hiviz, red bar heater ON, holy hell security is sat right there!!!
thank god, he's not there
turns out he wasn't, just cctv off the machines still whirring away
hate heights, but love em at the same time, weird attraction, but I just can't help climbing stuff!
quick look outside, train line is right there, means access is either illegal, or incredibly dangerous, theres only two ways
guys seat who would drill the holes in the end of the rails for the fish plates (right term?)
his control handle thing
the product
:
corus stamp, on every rail it says corus workington and then some code numbers, presume the rating/quality?
me taking in the view, damn filthy in here, everything is covered in dirt and grease
crapped it again when I came across this unit 4cctv screens, heater again, and a sealed box, some creaping and relief, again no security here. tried to get my mug in the picture of the tele from the camera feed, but the contrast was too high and the picture way too grainy.
my fav control panel shot, tried to hdr this, but it was nasty.
not sure whether it was directed at this worker, or the whole site in general (last chrimbo for everyone), as this particular stn would have been the last on the line, and the guy still has a pile of rail stock to shift and machine
so he got 2yrs more work than anyone else!
kickass piece of kit this, the stainless doesn't move, but theres a conveyor belt of moving magnets underneath that take out the enormous amount of swarf into a rail cart outside.
some machining tools, some new, some old, all never to see usage again
look back down the cathedral, although this shed is big, it wasn't the biggest by far, not as high either.
really liked this, rusty sheeting, and the thing on the left, not sure what it is though
self shot again, check that beard
really filthy under that machine (from two pix up) looks like it used to be a sump for cutting agent and swarf? really stank down here.
THE LAST RAIL, no seriously, the last one, nothing remains of the production line above here really, and the offcuts to the side on the right I reckon are for sentimental for somebody that they are the last ones
dirty crane stitch
whole shed pann
another cool control panel, the red tape on the right is part way across the cooling racks, this is where they will demo upto for the near future.
