Comments

That area shouldn't exist - it's unauthorized. :-)

I think if it were generators the room would be much 'busier' with fixtures, like fuel piping, exhaust, engine cooling, electrical, etc. You'd see the scars on the walls if this stuff had been removed. More likely these were banks of air filters, similar to NBC filters you'd find in a bunker today. Companies like Andair, Temet Oy, or Drager, all in Europe, still manufacture these. Here's a CAD drawing link from the Finnish company Temet Oy:
http://www.ilerisavunm...mages/filterunit.gif

I think the man on the right asks 'What are you building?' to which the other replies 'Pst! The enemy is listening!'. My German is unfortunately lousy though so take it with a grain of salt :-)

That is a HUGE corliss engine. I would hope that it could have been saved.

Holes in thw flywheels were used bar it over, meaning a bar was placed in a hole to turn the machine.

As a modern operating engineer I would of loved to see this old school machinery in its prime. Beautifull!

The fly ball governor was belted to the flywheel. It in turn controlled the corliss valve gear preventing over speeding of the engine as well as maintaining a set speed as set by the operating engineer.

That is whats left of a smallish water tube boiler

What remains of what was called a spreader stoker for the boiler. Looks like the boilers were also retrofitted with oil burners that have been scrapped from the round holes in the boiler fronts.

It is a 3 cylinder steam engine driving a electrical generator. The smaller unit is indeed an exciter. Looks like copper scavengers had quite a haul with this one.

The tank is called a suction accumulator. Its purpose was to prevent liquid ammonia from carrying over to the ammonia compressor. As these compressors are piston types any liquid entering them would severely damage them beyond repair and cause a massive ammonia leak.

The square holes in the flywheel were for inserting a square steel pry bar into in order to turn the machine by hand during maintenance or repairs. The term for that was barring over the machine.

What a glorious BUSY photo full of most interesting things.

An overgrown path is the best kind of path i this business! :)

Were there square pegs in the wheel well? I'm wondering if the holes were there to keep the wheel from vibrating or shaking. ...if the pegs were there, that is.