832 Comments for Westport Generating Station

Those labeled indicators look like they were made by Master Specialties. They were build as lighted displays that took up to four #327 or #328 lamps. Thy supplied thin, colored silicone rubber covers to color code the signal. Several types of snap on switch modules were available, as well. I first saw these at the now gone Bethany VOA facility, near Cincinnati, Ohio in the late '60s when a new control room was being built. There were well over 500 of them, since that was the secondary Master Control site for all of the VOA radio stations. It was a full time job to walk around, push the indicator to test all four lamps, and replace any that were bad. They used two of the same color, in opposite corners. That reduced the chances of missing a problem, due to bad lamps. That site was closed, years ago. A small part is now a museum but all the antennas and towers were removed to build a golf course.
A couple years later I was an Engineer for an Army AFRTS Radio & TV station. I think that I still have one new indicator and switch in my workshop.

L&N chart recorders. Most power plants were full of them. You are right Mitch that L&N got absorbed into Honeywell. Too bad too because they made really great equipment.

Now...this is an interesting one. That gauge may indeed be still working as intended. Being a dual vacuum/pressure gauge and in order to show the accurate difference between the two it is calibrated to show true zero..this being minus just under 15 pounds per square inch 'atmospheric...which is the pressure we live in. Aneroid barometers are calibrated the same way and given that the air pressure varies almost daily with the weather it could easily show a high of 20 at the time the photo was taken. Just thought somebody might find it interesting...that's all.

Mac Steves: I'm sure you're right. This is indeed what's left of an AC/DC rotary converter. The company I worked for had some machines powered by variable speed motors each feeding off one of these units.

The pump don't work because the vandal took the handle.

-Bob Dylan

Glad you got a chair in there

Is that a giant crack in the upper center of the picture? Looks like Houston may have a problem...

It sure does; after replacing electrical components on some old outboards (stator, coils, etc) I can understand how these machines work a little better, although the scale is immensely larger. Thank you for all your informative comments!

Looks like tap changers on some of the transformer equipment in that old plant, These were used to change the output of the transformer and vary the voltage that was being used. Very old stuff, more modern plants don't have any open, exposed wiring or equipment like this. These tap changers would never be operated with the equipment online, it had to be shutdown to work the tap changer on the transformer.

End of the condenser underneath the turbine with the inlet cover removed. You can see the stay bolts and condenser tubes inside.

Uncle Steve is correct, JEY. These are empty feedwater heater shells that have had the feedwater heater coils removed and sold probably for the scrap content if the high nickel copper content of the tubes in them. These "bundles" can be worth quite a bit of money in scrap value, or be used in another power plant with like feedwater heaters for spares or replacement bundles.

Looks like the coal pipes that used to feed the pulverized coal to the burners of the boiler that have been cutoff either during moving out some large piece of equipment or starting to demolish the old plant.

I'd say that Matt is right, It's probably there so you might see it and not bump your head on the end of the stairway riser while walking around checking the equipment in the plant.

Looks like the manual control arm for a damper in the air ducts that would be used to control airflow into or somewhere around the boiler, I assume.

This is a boiler nameplate from Babcock and Wilcox boiler company. It describes the amount of steam evaporated in thousands of pounds per hour and the pressure and temperature of the unit also with the type of air preheater supplied and the type of coal mills that came with the boiler setup supplied. I also would love to have that piece of boiler nameplate history for my wall, but JEY has the first dibs on it. Would be neat , though, it probably would be a risk to reenter the site and get the nameplate off and out without being caught.