Re: White Bay power station and Menangle Milk siding

["Ted Gay" <tedgay@bigpond.com>]

"Chris" <chrisc@fl.net.au> wrote in message 3a62b596@fl.net.au">news:3a62b596@fl.net.au...
> If you look from Victoria road you can see the letters NSWR&T (or
something
> like that) over a doorway on the power station. NSW railway and tram dept?
>
NSWR&T = New South Wales Railway & Tramway,  the Tramway was separated from
the Railway in 1930 which was after the power station had been built.  I
once heard a story that at the transfer of the power stations to ELCOM the
deal was that power was always to be supplied to the trains and trams so
that workers could get home even though their homes may have been
blacked-out.  I can remember as a child, during the coal miners' strikes of
late 1940s,  eating dinner cooked on a metho Primus (the gas pressure from
AGL Mortlake was to weak to cook a meal) with a kero lamp for lighting.

Only in the past couple of years has equipment, transformers etc been
decommissioned and removed on the Robert Street side of the site.

Ted

> From memory when I was working for the Electricity Commission of NSW those
> generators were brought in during the late 1970's early 1980's.
>
> I think they are gas turbine generators, imported with a great deal of
fuss
> and hurry as Neville Wran was in the shit, and I believe they have been
> since trucked up to Broken Hill. To bring this post back on topic he was a
> politician who knew there were votes in building trains, something a most
of
> the politicians these days have forgotten. Apart for that he and his mates
> were pretty useless.
>
>
> Chris
>
> "Ken Kirkby" <ken@terrigal.net.au> wrote in message
> 3A61978A.1D61@terrigal.net.au">news:3A61978A.1D61@terrigal.net.au...
> > Philip Shortus wrote:
> > >
> > > Hey, I have two questions although one is doesn't have really anything
> too
> > > do with the railways
> > >
> > > 1) I was at White Bay the other day and saw the power station, does
> anybody
> > > know when it was closed and decommisioned? I heard it was once used to
> > > supply power too the trains?
> > >
> > > 2) I was looking at a train book the other day and I saw a photo of
3802
> at
> > > Menangle Milk siding in 1965, can anyone tell me where this siding
was,
> when
> > > it was closed and is there anything left?
> > >
> > > Thanks for all your help
> > > Bye
> > > Mark Shortus
> >
> > Im not sure when it ceased burning coal, but there are two large gas
> > fired gas-turbines
> > (DC10 engines from memory) which feed to the twin stacks on the Balmain
> > side. They in
> > those container like housings.
> >
> > These, along with similar units at Eraring formed an emergency
> > generation system. The
> > Eraring units were certainly on standby five years ago and may still be,
> > along with the
> > White Bay turbines.
> >
> > The coal fired generators would have been quite small only 5-10mw, being
> > of a similar
> > age to those at Pyrmont and Bunnerong.
> > --
> >                          Ken Kirkby
>
>