Ferrybridge C Power Station
Ferrybridge C: 1966 to 2016
The power station is situated on the River Aire and is the third coal-fired power station to be built on the site since 1924.
Generating began on 27th February, 1966.
Since it opened it has produced an estimated 462 Terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity - enough to power the entire nation of France for a whole year.
It has two 198m (650ft) high chimneys and eight 115m (380ft) high cooling towers - the largest of their kind in Europe.
At its peak it employed about 800 people.
In 1966, during construction, three of the cooling towers collapsed in high winds.
The āCā station was by far the biggest, with four 500 megawatt Parsons units. Two units were fitted with flue-gas desulphurisation plant in 2009 to bring them in line with European emissions regulations.
During 2013 the power station opted out of the Large Combustion Plant Directive, limiting the time it could be run for and would need to close by 2023.
In July 2014 a fire broke out in unit 4's flue-gas plant, also causing damage to Unit 3. Both units were taken out of operation while repairs were made, and unit 3 re-opened shortly afterwards.
It was deemed the damage to unit 4 was too extensive to repair, and the plant would operate at a loss.
Due to these factors the closure of the station was announced by SSE in May 2015, it last produced electricity on 23rd March 2016.
It's been a while since I last played LCPD bingo, +3 years to be precise!
Aside from Myself, Gaj & Keitei there was only really fb & Jobs giving these sites any serious attention at the time and I certainly was in no hurry to post any of it online back then
Eventually I dusted off the magnetic media and whacked up a few threads on the back of the original LCPD Bingo /Turbine Tennis efforts
I ended up mega busy and any free time was taken up with draining, parties & socials with half of you reprebates

2 years passed by and I got the powah itch again..
Ferrybridge C was the natural choice for me, it was last on the original LCPD list and it hadn't long since closed with everything still intact and powered up, Lets Go!
Only a dedicated few had been here previously and that's the way we like it, because as soon as these places started appearing every man and his dog started to take interest
With that and the Ironbridge sagas, brought with it the inevitable powah tour bus and suddenly everyone wanted in
No issue with that if only people had some respect for attempting to visit these places, and I've heard some cringe worthy tales of 'How NOT to a Power Station' over the past 12 months!
A regular bandwagon was now rolling out threads and fuelling facebook & Insta with pics for likes
With that and the continual trail of people queuing up to amuse security at these places on a Saturday afternoon I decided to sit out posting anything from here or any of the others until the dust settled
I guess the real advantage of seeing these places now is that that they are proper dead, back when we were first on with these there was plenty you could never see such as control rooms etc as they were manned 24/7
These day's you practically have half arsed security, cctv not working and walk in access in most cases which kinda takes the fun out of it if you ask me
That said at least we get to see the bit's we couldn't or wouldn't the first time around in these places

Getting in this place originally was a right faff, as like a few of the others it was that old "once in, you're not really in" affair, tense but enjoyable at the same time though
Next door is now home to the Multi Fuel station which is very lively and shares the same access road which we had to tackle to get into the older C station, avoiding traffic and security patrols which were quite frequent
On the night in question myself @PROJ3CTM4YH3M and @AndyK went for another look and it was the control room that was top of my 'must see before we leave here' list
Aside from those ^2 and @The Amateur Wanderer and @Raz nobody esle had managed a look in the control room without permission before due to it still being manned around the clock
It's so hard to pick a favourite station as there are literally too many good bits in each that out weigh another.. If only we could mix up the best bits and build our own eh?
The turbine hall here was mega nice with those older Parsons units, and the control room was pretty special too!
We did try and warn others about the cameras and they chose to ignore, so much so the place turned into a right clusterfuck in the end for some people, oh well

Anyway, I thought I might as well dust this one off now and drip a few more in here and there when I can be bothered.
Admiring the cooling towers
(pic credit PR0J3CTM4YH3M)
Waiting for those 2 chuffers' smoke break to expire
Flue/Gantry/Pipe Porn
We had a quick look at the Coal Bunkers/Coal Delivery, CCTV was no doubt still being watched so we trod carefully and didn't hang about in there
We entered the boiler house on 3/4, it was lit up like an Xmas tree and the pipes were still hissing
We quickly headed over to boilers 1/2 to avoid being spotted as it was much darker there
It was fairly uninspiring compared to others I'd seen at this point so we headed through 2 into 3 & 4 over on the 'A' side
We then headed over to Unit 4's Boiler, it was much more exposed here, pipes were creaking and the odd mechanical noise could be heard which kept us on our toes
Below the Coal Bunkers
Down we slowly crept, to have a look at the Boiler House Mills
The Mills grind the coal from the bunkers into a fine powder which is then blown into the boilers and burnt
We had a quick poke about the lower boiler level before heading to the Turbine Hall