Site of Inverkip Power Station - A Personal Story

Sources:
- Photography of Inverkip: Levingston Photography (www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotlan...)
- Footage of Control Room: Cal ( • Pure Power! Inverkip P... )
- Popular media images from various sources

[@wallaceshackleton1889]

1:56 You are standing on Boiler House. The cranes on the Jetty have been removed, there were three fuel oil tanks and the building beside the tank was the boiler house to keep the oil warm. The Canteen was to the left, top floor with the changing rooms below and the clocking in hall at the bottom. The admin building was in the middle of the picture. The car park was to the right and the garage was far left.
2:00 you are looking between set one which was blue and set 2, green. The turbine was hidden behind the rectangular steam condensers. The empty plinths were the boiler feed pumps. At the far end of the were the turbo-alternators where the electricity was generated and beyond that was the house sized generator transformer. Each set was 66MW, set one ran the most being the first commissioned and set three hardly ran at all. The Alternator for set three went to China.
2:11 I think this is Unit one control panel. The rectangular panels at the back were alarm mimic boards, the two large empty spaces were TV monitors that showed the firing inside the boiler furnace. The Yellow panel was for the switchgear and the synchronising panel was to the far left.
Those chart recorders were the bane of my life.
2:15 was the electrical switch gear area, which ran the whole length of the boiler house. There's a very big piece of switchgear to the right with the double handle.
2:26 looking over the turbine for unit three, with the casing of the high pressure of medium pressure turbine visible. It looks very much like they cut the steam pipes either side of the turbines. The water demineralisation plant can be seen on the far right of the picture
2:28 was the Charge Engineer's desk, who was station manager out of hours. Notice the safe to the right. Unit one panel to the left, unit two to the right, with the switchgear panel in the middle and the fire panel at the back.
Instrument dept man and boy 1975 till 1983. Thanks for the memories.

[@Unclecthulu]

Within walking distance of my house, I know the site well. Did you also get to the abandoned wartime AA gun command post in Inverkip?

[@GPOTOM]

This was the “one that got away” for us, like yourself we discovered the various reports about Inverkip over 10 years ago, but when we finally ventured there we found that the demolition had already begun and the site was far too active for comfort.

[@BeyondthePoint]

There's always a few that got away, but there's plenty now that'll be gone in future too

[@Chasworth]

I woz here