I hadn’t intended doing this as I was weighing up something else at the time. But I’d looked at it a few months ago, when it was far too busy to get near, so I checked it out on the off chance.
To look at it from afar, it’s just a collection of great big long sheds.
I didn’t expect anything more than that but there was a little more to it that made it worthwhile. All of the pictures are at extremely high ISO. It was very dark in there and the few lights they did have played merry hell with the white balance. Actually being in there felt like it was all shades of orange.
I don’t know what Corus had been doing with the place apart from storing lots of steel beams and rails there, but the was some kit still around, waiting to be moved or cut up.
I could see from the start that there was plenty of rolling; squeezing and cutting accessories around, just had to try and figure out what they all did.
Some sort of elevated processing plant, a lot of it had been cut up and moved around though.
A cutting table I thought at the time. I have some doubts now, but in any case it’ll probably not be cutting much ever again.
And more rolly polly drilly bendy gadgetry. Look, I don’t know what I’m talking about OK. When I did metalwork at school we had an anvil and a hammer and the most I ever produced was a garden trowel that you couldn’t shovel boiled sweets with, let alone dig. I’m doing my best for goodness sake.
Ah, this I did figure out. It’s a machine for bending railway tracks. Or straightening them, or grinding them or maybe I still have no clue what it was and I just insist on constant waffle about my engineering wisdom. The fact is I am rather a good service engineer but all this heavy manufacturing stuff has me feeling a complete amateur.
Right then, maybe the cranes will be a little less challenging to comment on. As an apprentice I worked on things like that.
Ah yes, it’s all coming back to me now. The crane control room had all those familiar contactors with blow out coils and arc chutes, DC sequence motors and oil damped timing relays. Good honest wiring looms and lovely big fuses. All of this looked like new and the Pikies had left it pretty much alone.
Now, across the partition wall in the next shed was crane No. 97. It was so much older than the one I was standing on and I wasn’t going to get to it as the area was properly secured off with all the doors welded up. The question was though, what made them decide that it had a SWL of 86 tons. Why not round it off at either 80 or 90?
Now, I could have walked all along the apex catwalk but there really wasn’t much point. It was so dark and with all the stuff being on the floor, I’d never have gotten any detail in any pictures anyway. But it’s there if you really want to.
This is where I wanted to get to. Bay 3 is partitioned off and is used as a store for all sorts of steel works parts. Bu then what do I know about any of it, it could belong to the local Morrisons for all the authority I’ve been able to show on the subject of steel making. See what I mean about white balance? I wound it right done as cold as it would go after this but just started to get blue daylight coming in. Never mind.
Oh and there’s lashings of gubbins in here! It’s all big and it’s all rusty. Some of it’s obviously new and never been used and some of it looks as old as I am.
There’s Rollers
There’s Hooks
There’s Pinions
There’s Really Big Gears
And where would anybody be without some REALLY BIG magnets?
So, on to the plant ‘nerve centre’. The ubiquitous and suspicious looking chairs. Particularly the child’s school chair on the right. I'm developing a reall thing about the chairs. And lurking on the left is assuredly a stellar piece of early 1990’s IBM technology.
And YES! It still had an original 5 ½†floppy disc in it. And I am old enough to know how the getting the thing out and back in again.
Filled, and verily brimming, with new found equipment recognition confidence, I can now announce that this is a saw.
I did venture into Bay 2, but it is all steadily being brought down bit by bit.
With all the climbing around my hands were decidedly grubby by now. I found the showers but the soap dish hadn’t been serviced in quite a while. So I retired to the local Asda and cleaned up there.
To look at it from afar, it’s just a collection of great big long sheds.
I didn’t expect anything more than that but there was a little more to it that made it worthwhile. All of the pictures are at extremely high ISO. It was very dark in there and the few lights they did have played merry hell with the white balance. Actually being in there felt like it was all shades of orange.
I don’t know what Corus had been doing with the place apart from storing lots of steel beams and rails there, but the was some kit still around, waiting to be moved or cut up.
I could see from the start that there was plenty of rolling; squeezing and cutting accessories around, just had to try and figure out what they all did.
Some sort of elevated processing plant, a lot of it had been cut up and moved around though.
A cutting table I thought at the time. I have some doubts now, but in any case it’ll probably not be cutting much ever again.
And more rolly polly drilly bendy gadgetry. Look, I don’t know what I’m talking about OK. When I did metalwork at school we had an anvil and a hammer and the most I ever produced was a garden trowel that you couldn’t shovel boiled sweets with, let alone dig. I’m doing my best for goodness sake.
Ah, this I did figure out. It’s a machine for bending railway tracks. Or straightening them, or grinding them or maybe I still have no clue what it was and I just insist on constant waffle about my engineering wisdom. The fact is I am rather a good service engineer but all this heavy manufacturing stuff has me feeling a complete amateur.
Right then, maybe the cranes will be a little less challenging to comment on. As an apprentice I worked on things like that.
Ah yes, it’s all coming back to me now. The crane control room had all those familiar contactors with blow out coils and arc chutes, DC sequence motors and oil damped timing relays. Good honest wiring looms and lovely big fuses. All of this looked like new and the Pikies had left it pretty much alone.
Now, across the partition wall in the next shed was crane No. 97. It was so much older than the one I was standing on and I wasn’t going to get to it as the area was properly secured off with all the doors welded up. The question was though, what made them decide that it had a SWL of 86 tons. Why not round it off at either 80 or 90?
Now, I could have walked all along the apex catwalk but there really wasn’t much point. It was so dark and with all the stuff being on the floor, I’d never have gotten any detail in any pictures anyway. But it’s there if you really want to.
This is where I wanted to get to. Bay 3 is partitioned off and is used as a store for all sorts of steel works parts. Bu then what do I know about any of it, it could belong to the local Morrisons for all the authority I’ve been able to show on the subject of steel making. See what I mean about white balance? I wound it right done as cold as it would go after this but just started to get blue daylight coming in. Never mind.
Oh and there’s lashings of gubbins in here! It’s all big and it’s all rusty. Some of it’s obviously new and never been used and some of it looks as old as I am.
There’s Rollers
There’s Hooks
There’s Pinions
There’s Really Big Gears
And where would anybody be without some REALLY BIG magnets?
So, on to the plant ‘nerve centre’. The ubiquitous and suspicious looking chairs. Particularly the child’s school chair on the right. I'm developing a reall thing about the chairs. And lurking on the left is assuredly a stellar piece of early 1990’s IBM technology.
And YES! It still had an original 5 ½†floppy disc in it. And I am old enough to know how the getting the thing out and back in again.
Filled, and verily brimming, with new found equipment recognition confidence, I can now announce that this is a saw.
I did venture into Bay 2, but it is all steadily being brought down bit by bit.
With all the climbing around my hands were decidedly grubby by now. I found the showers but the soap dish hadn’t been serviced in quite a while. So I retired to the local Asda and cleaned up there.
