50Hz
Dole money arrived n rather than sit on my arse on a friday night, i caught a train out to Lots Road Power Station.
Built in 1905, its been the longest serving of Londons six original city power stations after its sister station in Greenich, popping off a 500MW peak supply. It closed in 2002 and last year Dsankt, JonDoe, Stoop and Zero were the first to finally infiltrate it, no mean feat given at the time it was surrounded by a mix of razor wire topped 12ft high steel pike fences and razor wire topped 15ft high walls. They caught it intact, just prior to demolition crews moving in to rip its guts out. Me, well i initially used a tree to scale one of the fences to gain access to its coal shed and the utility bridge over Chelsea Creek. As it went i couldnt get over the bridge, it being caged and razorwired worse than its 12ft fence cousins. So i bailed out (razor wire is easy to deal with if your clothes are thick enough and you take it slowly, you just bend it out of your way) and headed round to the other side of the creek, where, gritting my teeth i scaled the more recent timber hoarding... no difficulty really, except that its 25m away from the security hut. Pure luck had the seccer looking down at his paper and that was me in. The plant has been gutted, but it was still an interesting explore, the view from its rooftop worthwhile, if a little obsured by the frame of the partially removed roof.
Leaving, i walked the four kilometres to Holborn and quickly checked the Kingsway Tram Tunnel, with much success too, before catching the 4am bus home.
Doing Lots Road got me thinking about all the power stations ive done in the past. Of abandoned topside structures, Id say that i dig power stations the most i think, so with little else to do today, i compiled an overview of the 16 other power stations ive explored, with photos from a myriad of sources.
Balmain Power Station (Sydney, Australia) was commissioned in 1940, its first few years hampered by WWII, after which it produced a output of 107MW at its peak. Never a huge power station, it was nevertheless one of the most striking ive seen, mainly because of its hard concrete style and by the time i saw it, its wrecked appearance. It closed in 1976, then sat abandoned until the mid 1980's when its four chimneys were taken down, its internals carelessly removed, leaving a very damaged shell. I first explored it in late 1996, following in the footsteps of Predator, Diode and The Bunker Boyz. By then, the site was almost entirely forgotten, a ruin, with security patrols twice a day. The ground floor was heavily graffitied and access to the floors above was only via dexterous scaling of what remained of the turbine casings, as all the staircases had been cut off, the main admin staircase sealed behind welded doors. It was never a particularly sound structure as concrete cancer had set in and the hundreds of holes in the roof allowed water to pour in, rusting its iron supports. By late 1997 demolition had started and by the end of 1998 the legs supporting the coal hopper were toppled. A huge upmarket waterside housing development now thrives on the site.
Looking north.
Turbine hall, 1996.
Boiler house, 1996.
White Bay Power Station (Sydney, Australia) still stands to this day, having stood since 1917, the last remaining of Sydney's five original inner city generating stations, saved by a listing on the heritage register. What remains today is the 'B' plant, added onto the smaller 'A' plant in 1927. Having had a peak output of 116MW, solely supplied for rail electrification, the whole shebang ground to a close on Christmas Day 1983, after which the 'A' plant was hastily demolished, leaving a scar on the south side of 'B' plant turbine hall. Gutting of the remaining plant occurred in 1996, proceeding after an extensive asbestos decon in 1993. I started exploring it during this internal gutting, my first entrance being at night, the boiler house dimly lit, its ground floor littered in the monolithic structures that had been gas axed from their places higher above. As the removal process progressed i noticed how careful the demolition crews were. As it went, there was a reason for all this care. The station was left with 1/4 of its boiler house intact and untouched, 1/4 of its turbine hall, comprising two generators also remained, and sitting above it all, the enormous submarine shaped hopper was retained as well. Of considerable note was the retention of the coal hopper flyover. Usually these encased conveyor bridges are the first things to be demolished, in this case, even despite the flyover's exceptionally rotten state, it was left in place. All this because of the heritage listing. From 1996 until 2001 the station was easily accessible, security very lax, to the point that we Cave Clanners held parties on the rooftop and even launched a few 4 inch mortar fireworks off it on New Years Eve. In 2002 however, the station was handed over from Pacific Power to the Harbour Foreshore Authority and Steve the Turk moved in... one of the most aggressive and trigger happy security guards ive ever had the displeasure of encountering. These days, you cant really say the station is 'abandoned', given that its used for storage, promotion and filming purposes, not to mention the fact that it is exceedingly hard to access and upon getting in, all the major areas are sealed off from one another.
White Bay, looking west, 1997.
Turbines being stripped, 1997.
The CSR Refinery Powerhouse (Sydney, Australia) was a smallish power generating facility location in amongst other industrial structures, all part of the CSR Refinery in Pyrmont. Oddly enough its turbine hall and boiler house were located almost 100m apart and at right angles to one another. I dont know much about it and my exploration of it was a single event, on a rainy night in 1997, having bypassed it for some cranes on an earlier daytime explore in 1996. By the time i finally gained access, part of the boiler house roof was missing and the chimney lay cut up on the floor, crushing huge sections. The turbine hall was a small nondescript affair. CSR started up in Pyrmont in the 1870's and im guessing the plant was built between 1905 and 1920. Demolition of the entire site started in 1995 but the façade of the boiler house was retained, fronting a block of fancy apartments.
Hangman, as we walked past the turbine hall, to the rear, left side, with the boilerhouse in the background to the right, 1996.
Spencer Street Power Station, better known as Melbourne Power Station, was one of the oldest in Australia, not to mention the oldest to survive past its closure. Built in 1892 right in the current heart of Melbourne city centre, its position, hidden in amongst other offices made it easy for a passerby to mistake it as an office block, except for the whopping great chimney sticking out of its roof. To this day i dont know how it was supplied with coal, being so closely sandwiched by other buildings in the middle of the city. It closed in 1982 having peaked at 109MW output and was left untouched, copious amounts of asbestos included, until first explored by the Cave Clan in 1998, after which it became a popular location with Melbourne's myriad of explorers and writers. A man was arrested after painting a slogan onto the chimney in 2003... ironically, being Melbourne, the slogan was left, whereas in more straight laced Sydney, slogans painted into White Bay's chimneys were removed the same day by authorities. With a theatre, its turbine hall and control rooms fully intact, you'd think the place would be relatively safe, but in 2004 a girl died after falling through a hole in the floor. The entire place was levelled by 2008.
Exterior looking east, 2007.
Turbine Hall, 2006.
Wangi Wangi Power Station,(Australia) located between Sydney and Newcastle was the largest of the older Power Stations in NSW. Situated in a small town called... Wangi Wangi, it was built in 1958 and ran a max output of 330MW. Easily the largest of Australia's abandoned power stations, it closed in 1986, superceded by far larger, newer plants, two of which are situated barely 10km away. It was gutted in the early 1990's, then placed on the heritage register. I explored it twice, once at night and again during the day. The station was notorious for being easy to get into, but once in, you would encounter two cowardly, but very vocal German Shepherd dogs... As it went they could be cajoled into shutting the hell up with a large budget steak. Not so easy to coerce was the caretaker/security guard, who once caught 14 Cave Clanners, myself included, inside the building. We exited quickly but were caught when he chased us with his car. I was personally told to 'leave the town and not come back' pending a broken arm at any hint of disobedience. Since then the caretaker has installed a myriad of home made PIR's attached to very loud sirens, so upon entering most parts of the building, one has to endure numerous alarms, and barking dogs, only gaining refuge from them, once up off the ground floor. The real kicker for those successful in exploring Wangi, is getting up the chimney's, which unlike most others, not only have ladders up their sides, but ladders that are caged and in stages, with landings, making an ascent much less tiring and far less acrophobic.
Looking east.
Turbine Hall, 2001.
Tennyson Power Station in Brisbane, Australia was commissioned in 1953. Ive not found any official estimates for its power output, but Predators 1999 report on his infiltration of it states that it laterally ran six 150 megawatt generators, so i guess its output was 900MW. It was gutted sometime in the late 80's/early 90's but the removal was done very cleanly. I explored it once, with Fishie in 2002. Typically, we arrived on a day when workers were in and their presence saw us having to belly crawl through long grass to get past them. We snuck in through the basement and headed to the roof, before taking a look around the insides, our progress halting swiftly when cars pulled into the turbine hall. The station was an Urban Exploring favourite amongst Brisbane explorers, such as Dsankt, Ekwelecks etc, mainly due to normally lax security, meaning they could camp out on the roof and generally hang out. It was demolished in 2008 and has since been replaced by a Tennyson Tennis Centre... bad taste.
From the river.
Turbine Hall, 1957.
West Ryde Pumping Station Boiler House (Sydney, Australia)was built in 1921, gutted in the 1980's after being decommissioned in 1982. An odd little structure, rather than have coal brought up and into its rooftop hopper by conveyor, a branch rail line was built out from the nearby northern line. The station sat below the level of the northern lines rail embankment, so as such, a bridge was built from the branch embankment straight into the rooftop of the building, allowing coal trains to shunt directly in. We explored this place kinda by accident in 2001, prying away a boarded door... Gutted but containing some odd architecture, the rooftop train tracks and shunt cabin made the place unique. Walking across the rotting rail bridge was bad, engaging the thousands of spiders living in the overground branch arm was worse. Sydney Water restored the boiler house in 2005, although it still sits empty.
Front, 1960's.
Rear, with rail shunt bridge, 1980's.
Inside the restored coal hopper shed, 2006.
Battersea Power Station (London, UK). The most famous power station in the world, thanks to a variety of converging aspects. To this day it is the still the largest brick building in Europe, its footprint covering the area of 8 football fields and with its four startlingly white chimneys and pleasingly symmetrical profile, it is highly recognisable, and would probably be so even if Pink Floyd hadnt featured it on cover of their 1977 album 'Animals'. These aspects would lead one to note that prior to 1953, Battersea would likely not have been so famous. For one thing, it was constantly up against opposition because of the pollution it belched 24 hours a day and secondly, it hadn't as yet gained its recognisable form. It is comprised of two power stations, built 26 years apart, the architect, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott having the foresight to make the second station a mirror image of the first. The 'A' station, comprising the eastern turbine hall and two chimneys, was built in 1927, but demands on the stations supplies required a second station to be added in 1953 and thus the 'A' station was duplicated into a mirroring second station, creating the pleasing tiered layout and quadruple chimney stacks seen today. By this time the stations output was at 509MW, comprising 15% of London's electricity needs. As with all inner city power stations, it was superseded by much larger replacements, better located, out in the coal fields and in 1983 it closed and was immediately slated for demolition, only to be saved by a Government heritage listing. This listing has seen it languishing derelict ever since, as six development consortium's have failed, one after the other, to redevelop it into anything of use. It was gutted in 1987 and left a literal shell, its boiler house roofless and its chimneys cancer stricken. I first explored it with Oriface in 2004 and to this day take great delight in pointing out that im the first to have explored who was then able to show photographic proof online lol. As it goes, exploring it is difficult as huge sections of the building offer no cover from external security and getting in has been made a nightmare thanks to the installation of CCTV. The buildings state is noted as being 'very bad' and its thought that if it isnt reused for something soon, it may collapse of its own accord.
Aerial, looking north.
Station 'A' turbine hall, 2006.
Looking over the roofless boiler house, 2006.
Hearn Generating Station in Toronto, Canada is the most famous power station in North America within, at least, the circles of urban exploration. Visited by more illegal trespassers than any other power station, it has sat abandoned since its decommissioning in 1995. It was built in 1951 and with a 300m long turbine hall pumped out a whopping 1200MW. Notorious for its pollution via 8 short chimneys, these were replaced in 1971 by a single 315m tall stack, that is famous for being one of the tallest structure in Canada prior to the building of the CN Tower. It became popular with urban explorers in the early 2000's, the huge block of land it sat on making it easy to avoid the single security guard and with the building left permanently wide open, those wishing to could pretty much stroll in and explore a virtually untouched structure, that only saw activity when films were being shot there. It became one of Toronto's premier locations for exploring, but between 2004 and 2007 the building was largely gutted and in 2008 an urban explorer fell into a coal hopper and later died from his injuries. Hearn still stands and plans for its future are muddled.
Aerial looking west.
Turbine Hall, 2005.
Wrecked cars, part of a film set in the boiler house, 2005.
Lakeview Generating Station in Mississauga, Canada is the biggest power station ive ever had the privilege of exploring. Built in 1962, at its peak it was generating 2400MW. I wasnt surprised by this figure after seeing it, literally days after it was mothballed. I snuck in with Kowalski, while all the lights were still on and workers still sat in their control room chairs. We didnt get down onto the turbine hall floor that night, but seeing the 400m long space laid out from above, it was easy to imagine 2400MW. Within weeks afterwards, the station was closed down and exploration became easier. The chimneys were known as The Four Sisters, each 146 metres and the winding down of the plant could be seen in that only two of them showed the recent blackening soot of operation. Barely a year after closing, The Four Sisters were demolished, rather dramatically i might add:
A year later the main building came down, in an equally explosive fashion. Both events were witnessed by thousands of spectators as one of the largest structures in the area met its demise.
Big Bastard.
400m long turbine hall, 2005.
Toronto Hydro Powerhouse is the real gem in this little compendium. I mean who builds a power station that looks like a Victorian Art Gallery? Canadians do, it would seem. The Toronto Powerhouse sits above the Horseshoe Niagara Falls as it has done since 1906. It closed in 1974, superseded by far larger hydro stations further down river, its 25 cyclic output of 102MW very much redundant. Being such a nice building, it has been left to remain, only recently being gutted and cleaned up in 2007. It was well known to Ontarian urban explorers from the late 1990's and being easy to access, with no on-site security, it became popular for its aesthetics and the novelty of seeing its 'intake forebay' first hand, the sight of a pool of green hued water inside the structure inspiring many a photographer. After 2004 it became famous for something else tho... The powerhouse operated by collecting water from the raging Niagara River in its forebay, then dropping it down 14ft diameter pipes, to the turbines, 10 storeys below. From there, having spun the turbines, the water was released into the stations Tailrace tunnel... which became known as 'Confluence' after Kowalski named one of his photographs of it as such. The tailrace is famous for being notoriously difficult to access (ask me, i failed) and for outfalling *behind* the curtain of the horseshoe falls. Bit of a Holy Grail to be honest.
Aerial, looking east.
The Forebay, 2003.
Generator hall, 2005.
Ontario Hydro Powerhouse(Canada)is a real piece of work. Situated at the bottom of the Niagara Horseshoe falls, it has sat in nearly perpetual ran, created by the mist from the falls since its construction in 1905. Built by an American company, who nevertheless called themselves Ontario Hydro, in a hard striking fashion from the then relatively new technology that was reinforced concrete, it was run until 1999. Operating in a somewhat reversed configuration from the Toronto plant at the top of the falls, water was piped through three 6m diameter intake tunnels (ask me, i succeeded) that ran downriver, level with the top of the falls, until they reached the area of the Niagara escarpment directly above the powerhouse. From there the water was dumped downwards, fifty metres into the stations turbines, spinning them up to an output of 133MW, then exiting as a surge from beneath the building, directly back into the river. I first explored OnPco (as it gets called) about two hours after doing the Toronto plant. Going down to its location, you really need a raincoat, as the mist drizzles down non stop, covering everything in mould and damp moss. Once inside, the station is pitch dark, as all its windows have been plated over to prevent the wetness from permeating. A huge generator hall is complemented by a small modernish control room and a myriad of steep tunnels and staircases that penetrate up inside the rear cliffs, allowing access to all the penstock gear. As of 2007, the plant has been gutted, but given its unusual and most certainly inhospitable location, i cant envisage it being reused for anything and thus it may just rot into soggy ruin in due course.
Exterior at base of Niagara Gorge.
Turbine Hall, 2004.
Island Station Power Station is a small power plant in St Paul, Minnesota. It was built in 1926 using technology that unfortunately became obsolete even as the station was under construction. Its fate was to remain a barely used back up generator, with its boilers and turbines rarely above 3/4 operating capacity. It finally closed in 1975. If its operational life was a failure then its redevelopment life was an utter disaster. Numerous developers have tried to drum up interest to have it converted to condos with a marina, given its location on a quiet bend in the Mississippi, just a mile from down town St Paul. The interest just isnt there though and still, after 33 years it sits there, covered in graffiti and littered with glass from its broken windows, those of which are still intact baring a realtor's slogan of 'LIVE HERE'. I didnt see much of Island station, as it was the last minute, late night venue for watching 4th of July Fireworks when i was in the Twin Cities in 2006. The view from the roof certainly is great, sadly though, i know little of the buildings interior.
Aerial.
Looking rather forlorn.
Esch-sur-Alzette Central Thermique... Ive yet to figure out if 'Central Thermique' is a term applied to power stations in France, Belgium and Luxembourg, or if this power station, in the City of Esch-sur-Alzette in Luxembourg, is solely called Central Thermique. Either way, i noticed it listed on a forum and asked where it was, the poster very kindly telling me. Its a mostly intact little power station, sat up on a hill, surrounded by blast furnace coal tailings. Built in 1951, it was a gas fired station, burning the noxious gases produced by the blast furnaces, that was decommissioned in 1997 and promptly, very thoroughly boarded up. It took me almost 40 minutes to figure out the one 'secret' way in, but once i had, i was treated to a badly graffitied but otherwise mostly untouched building, its small turbine hall and larger boiler house both full of machinery and items of former operation. Im guessing due to the dying industrial nature of Esch-sur-Alzette and the stations out-of-the-way location, that it may sit for years before the developers come a-knocking.
Exterior, rear.
Turbine Hall.
Methil Power Station. A 'standby station' in Scotland that burned coal slurry rather than solid coal, allowing it to make use of waste products from coal fields that coal fired stations couldn't use in the process of their consumption. It was built in 1965 and true to its 'standby' roots only contains two generators, with a combined output of 57MW. However, as the coal fields had dried up in the 1960's, so did the coal slurry supply left behind and Methil closed in 2000 after unsuccessfully trying to burn sewage solids from a nearby treatment works. Exploration of it was said to be risky, as, given Scotland's lack of a trespassing law, the site has two security huts, one each at the front and rear. As it goes i didnt know this and by pure luck managed to sneak past both of them. A maze of climbing along old heating ducts over razor wired partitions saw me wrenching a door open in a light well to gain access. Inside, the place was as spotless as you can get for a building abandoned for 8 years with no interferences from human hands. Climbing up onto the roof i found my movements restricted, as every time i stood up i was in plain view of either security hut. On my way out i was seen but successfully did the runner.
Exterior.
Turbine Hall.
Inverkip Power Station(Scotland) is the baby of this lot. Built in 1970 as an oil burning station, its full of machinery ive never seen anywhere else, the unfamiliarity a combination of modernism and the fact that its all for burning oil rather than coal. And my God, a power station with a glass boiler house! Its straight out of Willy Wonka! Inverkip has been whored out somewhat in the UK urban exploration scene... to the point where the security dont want any photos taken of it, even from the outside, 'in case they end up with the hundreds of others all over the internet'. Its an odd building, as its lower floors are typically dark, y'know being a big windowless power station and all, but as soon as you get up higher, well, things get considerably brighter, with the glass walled upper half over which looms the towering 236m tall chimney. The early 1970's oil crisis made it an unfeasibly expensive station to run and almost straight from the word go, more than half of its 1900MW capacity was mothballed, the rest being used as a peak filler, until 1988 when the whole plant was mothballed, a status that it remains in today, however it has been supposedly slated for demolition.
Turbine hall, section.
Front.
Built in 1905, its been the longest serving of Londons six original city power stations after its sister station in Greenich, popping off a 500MW peak supply. It closed in 2002 and last year Dsankt, JonDoe, Stoop and Zero were the first to finally infiltrate it, no mean feat given at the time it was surrounded by a mix of razor wire topped 12ft high steel pike fences and razor wire topped 15ft high walls. They caught it intact, just prior to demolition crews moving in to rip its guts out. Me, well i initially used a tree to scale one of the fences to gain access to its coal shed and the utility bridge over Chelsea Creek. As it went i couldnt get over the bridge, it being caged and razorwired worse than its 12ft fence cousins. So i bailed out (razor wire is easy to deal with if your clothes are thick enough and you take it slowly, you just bend it out of your way) and headed round to the other side of the creek, where, gritting my teeth i scaled the more recent timber hoarding... no difficulty really, except that its 25m away from the security hut. Pure luck had the seccer looking down at his paper and that was me in. The plant has been gutted, but it was still an interesting explore, the view from its rooftop worthwhile, if a little obsured by the frame of the partially removed roof.
Leaving, i walked the four kilometres to Holborn and quickly checked the Kingsway Tram Tunnel, with much success too, before catching the 4am bus home.
Doing Lots Road got me thinking about all the power stations ive done in the past. Of abandoned topside structures, Id say that i dig power stations the most i think, so with little else to do today, i compiled an overview of the 16 other power stations ive explored, with photos from a myriad of sources.
Balmain Power Station (Sydney, Australia) was commissioned in 1940, its first few years hampered by WWII, after which it produced a output of 107MW at its peak. Never a huge power station, it was nevertheless one of the most striking ive seen, mainly because of its hard concrete style and by the time i saw it, its wrecked appearance. It closed in 1976, then sat abandoned until the mid 1980's when its four chimneys were taken down, its internals carelessly removed, leaving a very damaged shell. I first explored it in late 1996, following in the footsteps of Predator, Diode and The Bunker Boyz. By then, the site was almost entirely forgotten, a ruin, with security patrols twice a day. The ground floor was heavily graffitied and access to the floors above was only via dexterous scaling of what remained of the turbine casings, as all the staircases had been cut off, the main admin staircase sealed behind welded doors. It was never a particularly sound structure as concrete cancer had set in and the hundreds of holes in the roof allowed water to pour in, rusting its iron supports. By late 1997 demolition had started and by the end of 1998 the legs supporting the coal hopper were toppled. A huge upmarket waterside housing development now thrives on the site.
Looking north.
Turbine hall, 1996.
Boiler house, 1996.
White Bay Power Station (Sydney, Australia) still stands to this day, having stood since 1917, the last remaining of Sydney's five original inner city generating stations, saved by a listing on the heritage register. What remains today is the 'B' plant, added onto the smaller 'A' plant in 1927. Having had a peak output of 116MW, solely supplied for rail electrification, the whole shebang ground to a close on Christmas Day 1983, after which the 'A' plant was hastily demolished, leaving a scar on the south side of 'B' plant turbine hall. Gutting of the remaining plant occurred in 1996, proceeding after an extensive asbestos decon in 1993. I started exploring it during this internal gutting, my first entrance being at night, the boiler house dimly lit, its ground floor littered in the monolithic structures that had been gas axed from their places higher above. As the removal process progressed i noticed how careful the demolition crews were. As it went, there was a reason for all this care. The station was left with 1/4 of its boiler house intact and untouched, 1/4 of its turbine hall, comprising two generators also remained, and sitting above it all, the enormous submarine shaped hopper was retained as well. Of considerable note was the retention of the coal hopper flyover. Usually these encased conveyor bridges are the first things to be demolished, in this case, even despite the flyover's exceptionally rotten state, it was left in place. All this because of the heritage listing. From 1996 until 2001 the station was easily accessible, security very lax, to the point that we Cave Clanners held parties on the rooftop and even launched a few 4 inch mortar fireworks off it on New Years Eve. In 2002 however, the station was handed over from Pacific Power to the Harbour Foreshore Authority and Steve the Turk moved in... one of the most aggressive and trigger happy security guards ive ever had the displeasure of encountering. These days, you cant really say the station is 'abandoned', given that its used for storage, promotion and filming purposes, not to mention the fact that it is exceedingly hard to access and upon getting in, all the major areas are sealed off from one another.
White Bay, looking west, 1997.
Turbines being stripped, 1997.
The CSR Refinery Powerhouse (Sydney, Australia) was a smallish power generating facility location in amongst other industrial structures, all part of the CSR Refinery in Pyrmont. Oddly enough its turbine hall and boiler house were located almost 100m apart and at right angles to one another. I dont know much about it and my exploration of it was a single event, on a rainy night in 1997, having bypassed it for some cranes on an earlier daytime explore in 1996. By the time i finally gained access, part of the boiler house roof was missing and the chimney lay cut up on the floor, crushing huge sections. The turbine hall was a small nondescript affair. CSR started up in Pyrmont in the 1870's and im guessing the plant was built between 1905 and 1920. Demolition of the entire site started in 1995 but the façade of the boiler house was retained, fronting a block of fancy apartments.
Hangman, as we walked past the turbine hall, to the rear, left side, with the boilerhouse in the background to the right, 1996.
Spencer Street Power Station, better known as Melbourne Power Station, was one of the oldest in Australia, not to mention the oldest to survive past its closure. Built in 1892 right in the current heart of Melbourne city centre, its position, hidden in amongst other offices made it easy for a passerby to mistake it as an office block, except for the whopping great chimney sticking out of its roof. To this day i dont know how it was supplied with coal, being so closely sandwiched by other buildings in the middle of the city. It closed in 1982 having peaked at 109MW output and was left untouched, copious amounts of asbestos included, until first explored by the Cave Clan in 1998, after which it became a popular location with Melbourne's myriad of explorers and writers. A man was arrested after painting a slogan onto the chimney in 2003... ironically, being Melbourne, the slogan was left, whereas in more straight laced Sydney, slogans painted into White Bay's chimneys were removed the same day by authorities. With a theatre, its turbine hall and control rooms fully intact, you'd think the place would be relatively safe, but in 2004 a girl died after falling through a hole in the floor. The entire place was levelled by 2008.
Exterior looking east, 2007.
Turbine Hall, 2006.
Wangi Wangi Power Station,(Australia) located between Sydney and Newcastle was the largest of the older Power Stations in NSW. Situated in a small town called... Wangi Wangi, it was built in 1958 and ran a max output of 330MW. Easily the largest of Australia's abandoned power stations, it closed in 1986, superceded by far larger, newer plants, two of which are situated barely 10km away. It was gutted in the early 1990's, then placed on the heritage register. I explored it twice, once at night and again during the day. The station was notorious for being easy to get into, but once in, you would encounter two cowardly, but very vocal German Shepherd dogs... As it went they could be cajoled into shutting the hell up with a large budget steak. Not so easy to coerce was the caretaker/security guard, who once caught 14 Cave Clanners, myself included, inside the building. We exited quickly but were caught when he chased us with his car. I was personally told to 'leave the town and not come back' pending a broken arm at any hint of disobedience. Since then the caretaker has installed a myriad of home made PIR's attached to very loud sirens, so upon entering most parts of the building, one has to endure numerous alarms, and barking dogs, only gaining refuge from them, once up off the ground floor. The real kicker for those successful in exploring Wangi, is getting up the chimney's, which unlike most others, not only have ladders up their sides, but ladders that are caged and in stages, with landings, making an ascent much less tiring and far less acrophobic.
Looking east.
Turbine Hall, 2001.
Tennyson Power Station in Brisbane, Australia was commissioned in 1953. Ive not found any official estimates for its power output, but Predators 1999 report on his infiltration of it states that it laterally ran six 150 megawatt generators, so i guess its output was 900MW. It was gutted sometime in the late 80's/early 90's but the removal was done very cleanly. I explored it once, with Fishie in 2002. Typically, we arrived on a day when workers were in and their presence saw us having to belly crawl through long grass to get past them. We snuck in through the basement and headed to the roof, before taking a look around the insides, our progress halting swiftly when cars pulled into the turbine hall. The station was an Urban Exploring favourite amongst Brisbane explorers, such as Dsankt, Ekwelecks etc, mainly due to normally lax security, meaning they could camp out on the roof and generally hang out. It was demolished in 2008 and has since been replaced by a Tennyson Tennis Centre... bad taste.
From the river.
Turbine Hall, 1957.
West Ryde Pumping Station Boiler House (Sydney, Australia)was built in 1921, gutted in the 1980's after being decommissioned in 1982. An odd little structure, rather than have coal brought up and into its rooftop hopper by conveyor, a branch rail line was built out from the nearby northern line. The station sat below the level of the northern lines rail embankment, so as such, a bridge was built from the branch embankment straight into the rooftop of the building, allowing coal trains to shunt directly in. We explored this place kinda by accident in 2001, prying away a boarded door... Gutted but containing some odd architecture, the rooftop train tracks and shunt cabin made the place unique. Walking across the rotting rail bridge was bad, engaging the thousands of spiders living in the overground branch arm was worse. Sydney Water restored the boiler house in 2005, although it still sits empty.
Front, 1960's.
Rear, with rail shunt bridge, 1980's.
Inside the restored coal hopper shed, 2006.
Battersea Power Station (London, UK). The most famous power station in the world, thanks to a variety of converging aspects. To this day it is the still the largest brick building in Europe, its footprint covering the area of 8 football fields and with its four startlingly white chimneys and pleasingly symmetrical profile, it is highly recognisable, and would probably be so even if Pink Floyd hadnt featured it on cover of their 1977 album 'Animals'. These aspects would lead one to note that prior to 1953, Battersea would likely not have been so famous. For one thing, it was constantly up against opposition because of the pollution it belched 24 hours a day and secondly, it hadn't as yet gained its recognisable form. It is comprised of two power stations, built 26 years apart, the architect, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott having the foresight to make the second station a mirror image of the first. The 'A' station, comprising the eastern turbine hall and two chimneys, was built in 1927, but demands on the stations supplies required a second station to be added in 1953 and thus the 'A' station was duplicated into a mirroring second station, creating the pleasing tiered layout and quadruple chimney stacks seen today. By this time the stations output was at 509MW, comprising 15% of London's electricity needs. As with all inner city power stations, it was superseded by much larger replacements, better located, out in the coal fields and in 1983 it closed and was immediately slated for demolition, only to be saved by a Government heritage listing. This listing has seen it languishing derelict ever since, as six development consortium's have failed, one after the other, to redevelop it into anything of use. It was gutted in 1987 and left a literal shell, its boiler house roofless and its chimneys cancer stricken. I first explored it with Oriface in 2004 and to this day take great delight in pointing out that im the first to have explored who was then able to show photographic proof online lol. As it goes, exploring it is difficult as huge sections of the building offer no cover from external security and getting in has been made a nightmare thanks to the installation of CCTV. The buildings state is noted as being 'very bad' and its thought that if it isnt reused for something soon, it may collapse of its own accord.
Aerial, looking north.
Station 'A' turbine hall, 2006.
Looking over the roofless boiler house, 2006.
Hearn Generating Station in Toronto, Canada is the most famous power station in North America within, at least, the circles of urban exploration. Visited by more illegal trespassers than any other power station, it has sat abandoned since its decommissioning in 1995. It was built in 1951 and with a 300m long turbine hall pumped out a whopping 1200MW. Notorious for its pollution via 8 short chimneys, these were replaced in 1971 by a single 315m tall stack, that is famous for being one of the tallest structure in Canada prior to the building of the CN Tower. It became popular with urban explorers in the early 2000's, the huge block of land it sat on making it easy to avoid the single security guard and with the building left permanently wide open, those wishing to could pretty much stroll in and explore a virtually untouched structure, that only saw activity when films were being shot there. It became one of Toronto's premier locations for exploring, but between 2004 and 2007 the building was largely gutted and in 2008 an urban explorer fell into a coal hopper and later died from his injuries. Hearn still stands and plans for its future are muddled.
Aerial looking west.
Turbine Hall, 2005.
Wrecked cars, part of a film set in the boiler house, 2005.
Lakeview Generating Station in Mississauga, Canada is the biggest power station ive ever had the privilege of exploring. Built in 1962, at its peak it was generating 2400MW. I wasnt surprised by this figure after seeing it, literally days after it was mothballed. I snuck in with Kowalski, while all the lights were still on and workers still sat in their control room chairs. We didnt get down onto the turbine hall floor that night, but seeing the 400m long space laid out from above, it was easy to imagine 2400MW. Within weeks afterwards, the station was closed down and exploration became easier. The chimneys were known as The Four Sisters, each 146 metres and the winding down of the plant could be seen in that only two of them showed the recent blackening soot of operation. Barely a year after closing, The Four Sisters were demolished, rather dramatically i might add:
Click to viewA year later the main building came down, in an equally explosive fashion. Both events were witnessed by thousands of spectators as one of the largest structures in the area met its demise.
Big Bastard.
400m long turbine hall, 2005.
Toronto Hydro Powerhouse is the real gem in this little compendium. I mean who builds a power station that looks like a Victorian Art Gallery? Canadians do, it would seem. The Toronto Powerhouse sits above the Horseshoe Niagara Falls as it has done since 1906. It closed in 1974, superseded by far larger hydro stations further down river, its 25 cyclic output of 102MW very much redundant. Being such a nice building, it has been left to remain, only recently being gutted and cleaned up in 2007. It was well known to Ontarian urban explorers from the late 1990's and being easy to access, with no on-site security, it became popular for its aesthetics and the novelty of seeing its 'intake forebay' first hand, the sight of a pool of green hued water inside the structure inspiring many a photographer. After 2004 it became famous for something else tho... The powerhouse operated by collecting water from the raging Niagara River in its forebay, then dropping it down 14ft diameter pipes, to the turbines, 10 storeys below. From there, having spun the turbines, the water was released into the stations Tailrace tunnel... which became known as 'Confluence' after Kowalski named one of his photographs of it as such. The tailrace is famous for being notoriously difficult to access (ask me, i failed) and for outfalling *behind* the curtain of the horseshoe falls. Bit of a Holy Grail to be honest.
Aerial, looking east.
The Forebay, 2003.
Generator hall, 2005.
Ontario Hydro Powerhouse(Canada)is a real piece of work. Situated at the bottom of the Niagara Horseshoe falls, it has sat in nearly perpetual ran, created by the mist from the falls since its construction in 1905. Built by an American company, who nevertheless called themselves Ontario Hydro, in a hard striking fashion from the then relatively new technology that was reinforced concrete, it was run until 1999. Operating in a somewhat reversed configuration from the Toronto plant at the top of the falls, water was piped through three 6m diameter intake tunnels (ask me, i succeeded) that ran downriver, level with the top of the falls, until they reached the area of the Niagara escarpment directly above the powerhouse. From there the water was dumped downwards, fifty metres into the stations turbines, spinning them up to an output of 133MW, then exiting as a surge from beneath the building, directly back into the river. I first explored OnPco (as it gets called) about two hours after doing the Toronto plant. Going down to its location, you really need a raincoat, as the mist drizzles down non stop, covering everything in mould and damp moss. Once inside, the station is pitch dark, as all its windows have been plated over to prevent the wetness from permeating. A huge generator hall is complemented by a small modernish control room and a myriad of steep tunnels and staircases that penetrate up inside the rear cliffs, allowing access to all the penstock gear. As of 2007, the plant has been gutted, but given its unusual and most certainly inhospitable location, i cant envisage it being reused for anything and thus it may just rot into soggy ruin in due course.
Exterior at base of Niagara Gorge.
Turbine Hall, 2004.
Island Station Power Station is a small power plant in St Paul, Minnesota. It was built in 1926 using technology that unfortunately became obsolete even as the station was under construction. Its fate was to remain a barely used back up generator, with its boilers and turbines rarely above 3/4 operating capacity. It finally closed in 1975. If its operational life was a failure then its redevelopment life was an utter disaster. Numerous developers have tried to drum up interest to have it converted to condos with a marina, given its location on a quiet bend in the Mississippi, just a mile from down town St Paul. The interest just isnt there though and still, after 33 years it sits there, covered in graffiti and littered with glass from its broken windows, those of which are still intact baring a realtor's slogan of 'LIVE HERE'. I didnt see much of Island station, as it was the last minute, late night venue for watching 4th of July Fireworks when i was in the Twin Cities in 2006. The view from the roof certainly is great, sadly though, i know little of the buildings interior.
Aerial.
Looking rather forlorn.
Esch-sur-Alzette Central Thermique... Ive yet to figure out if 'Central Thermique' is a term applied to power stations in France, Belgium and Luxembourg, or if this power station, in the City of Esch-sur-Alzette in Luxembourg, is solely called Central Thermique. Either way, i noticed it listed on a forum and asked where it was, the poster very kindly telling me. Its a mostly intact little power station, sat up on a hill, surrounded by blast furnace coal tailings. Built in 1951, it was a gas fired station, burning the noxious gases produced by the blast furnaces, that was decommissioned in 1997 and promptly, very thoroughly boarded up. It took me almost 40 minutes to figure out the one 'secret' way in, but once i had, i was treated to a badly graffitied but otherwise mostly untouched building, its small turbine hall and larger boiler house both full of machinery and items of former operation. Im guessing due to the dying industrial nature of Esch-sur-Alzette and the stations out-of-the-way location, that it may sit for years before the developers come a-knocking.
Exterior, rear.
Turbine Hall.
Methil Power Station. A 'standby station' in Scotland that burned coal slurry rather than solid coal, allowing it to make use of waste products from coal fields that coal fired stations couldn't use in the process of their consumption. It was built in 1965 and true to its 'standby' roots only contains two generators, with a combined output of 57MW. However, as the coal fields had dried up in the 1960's, so did the coal slurry supply left behind and Methil closed in 2000 after unsuccessfully trying to burn sewage solids from a nearby treatment works. Exploration of it was said to be risky, as, given Scotland's lack of a trespassing law, the site has two security huts, one each at the front and rear. As it goes i didnt know this and by pure luck managed to sneak past both of them. A maze of climbing along old heating ducts over razor wired partitions saw me wrenching a door open in a light well to gain access. Inside, the place was as spotless as you can get for a building abandoned for 8 years with no interferences from human hands. Climbing up onto the roof i found my movements restricted, as every time i stood up i was in plain view of either security hut. On my way out i was seen but successfully did the runner.
Exterior.
Turbine Hall.
Inverkip Power Station(Scotland) is the baby of this lot. Built in 1970 as an oil burning station, its full of machinery ive never seen anywhere else, the unfamiliarity a combination of modernism and the fact that its all for burning oil rather than coal. And my God, a power station with a glass boiler house! Its straight out of Willy Wonka! Inverkip has been whored out somewhat in the UK urban exploration scene... to the point where the security dont want any photos taken of it, even from the outside, 'in case they end up with the hundreds of others all over the internet'. Its an odd building, as its lower floors are typically dark, y'know being a big windowless power station and all, but as soon as you get up higher, well, things get considerably brighter, with the glass walled upper half over which looms the towering 236m tall chimney. The early 1970's oil crisis made it an unfeasibly expensive station to run and almost straight from the word go, more than half of its 1900MW capacity was mothballed, the rest being used as a peak filler, until 1988 when the whole plant was mothballed, a status that it remains in today, however it has been supposedly slated for demolition.
Turbine hall, section.
Front.
