51. Coal bunkers.
A wonderful photo, I’ve not got a good idea of the perspective here, the men are standing where what became the entrance over the effluent wet pit into the boilerhouse. The excavation under the standard gauge seen earlier seems to have been back filled by now though the pipe under the track just beyond is still visible. From this aspect, I’m more convinced that excavation was for the condenser cooling water intakes, as the wide extent of the river bank seen here was later cut back a lot. The steam crane and the track diverging to the right from the point just in front of it are in what will later be the river.
The wide shallow excavation beyond the concrete block is being dug for the clay bunker basement – there were below ground passages here used originally to barrow clay from the bunkers to the blungers. The concrete block I think is a base for one of the pylons of no 1 conveyor.
As a railway enthusiast I find this full of ‘prototype for anything’ interest, not least the way the NG track crosses over the SG track, and the SG point is part buried.
