43 Comments Posted by jt

It's an exciter. Minus the stator poles. Probably the copper scrap merchants get here. Strip what they can and leave a mess.

Naa. It's reheated as it states.
High Pressure super heated steam from the boiler enters the HP turbine stages, exits and goes back to the boiler through separate tubes and is heated back up again though a separate set of tubes in the boiler and then goes to Intermediate Pressure "IP" turbine stages, then on to the Low Pressure stages.
Purpose for this as I understand it is to remove water vapor by evaporating it rather than waste energy by extracting it. Water vapor damages the turbine blades.

Dang, this office is more moden than mine, and tider.

Poor turbine, got that right. Those rotors are not light! Who ever dropped that would be in for serious disciplinary action if not instant sack. Drop turbine rotor-loose job. I see the LP stage is smashed. To replace one today (they are still made by the way) would be well in the 6 figures if not 7. Would be interesting to find out the history as to how it got there.

Are you sure Bob?
I'd put money on it they are oil injectors for a water tube boiler. I won't argue with the 3 story bit. In the really big plants they are 5 stories high. Sorry, you already know that.

Been to a museum that has 2 of them working.
Used to move tourists on a cable car.
They were originally used to haul coal carts.
Very quite.
Very low RPMs and loads of torque.
My vacuum cleaner makes more noise.

Good to see photos of these places are taken before the scrap merchants and demolishers get in. Also a good idea to have hard copies of these photos for posterity. Mr Motts, unable to say how pleased you're doing this.
I had an opportunity to save 1920's 40 horse power electric motors from a filtration plant that were in working order along with the pumps and compressors they drove.
Art deco design, open frame. These were not common motors in that they used slip rings to deliver 3 phase power to coils in the rotor, the rotor had another set of coils connected to a commutator, the brushes on that commutator connected to the field coils, works like an auto synchronous motor from the 1920's era. I lost that opportunity. I still have the photos of them, all brass polished and working before the scrap merchants got them ): The local museum had the opportunity to pick them up. I'll never forgive them!
They were rear by design, type, age and that fact they were in use right up till 5 years ago.
The station modernized with boring functional soulless motors in a art deco building. There was a few tons of brass, copper and history that went out that day.

A wet rainforest of metal, rust, asbestos and a traffic hazard cone.

Looks like some one went round with a can of that expanding foam to keep the water out of the motor windings to reserve it. If it's the same stuff we use here, no more gaps I think, who ever is going to remove it will have a hell of a job unless the windings facing the vent were lined with paper or something cause that stuff is hard to get off.

Wow, this place must have a number of boilers to have all those blowers!

Boiler draught blowers. Going by the age, size. 20HP? 2 per boiler. Unable to see the 4th one.

[Those antique industrial lights are expencive I just bought a pretty good one pulled from a building being demolished]. What do you mean? I can buy them new over hear, they still make them. Oh, yea, the country I live in is 10 years behind every one else.

Coal shoots with crushers at the bottom?
As I understand and please correct me if I'm wrong. Typically in a large water tube boiler (from previous photos this station is using water tube as apposed to fire tube) the coal is fed into a crusher to crush the coal to pebble size lumps before being fed to the fire at the bottom (as seen at the bottom of the square shoots. Water tube boilers are in effect a big brick room with steal tubes filled with water running up the sides of the room and all connect to the bottom of a big drum at the top. Another set of tubes run from the top of that drum and run across the top of that room to super heat the steam from the drum. That drum is usually half filled with water. Water tube boilers are more efficient than fire tube ones you see on steam trains.

Blower for the boiler. Question is, what part of the boiler?

It's not hard to find out. Don't make it any easier for vandals to find it by spelling it out. Needless to say there are plenty of clues here.