Whenever I go to Anacortes, I always swing by the shipyard to see what they are working on. This was a quick visit but there was a large vessel up on the yard with a crew of people steam cleaning it. I don’t know whether this was the precursor to some work or the end of some. I did like the shaping of the screws on this vessel though. They looked pretty sweet.
Within the Georgetown Steam Plant, one of the docents was keen to show off the details of the boilers. These were originally oil fired but, during the Second World War, they were converted to operate using coal. After the war, they were reverted back to oil and there are hardly any signs left of the coal configuration.
The layout of the pipes within the boiler is quite complex. It is designed to create a circulating flow of the water in the pipes and create the stream at the top of the boiler to feed the turbines. These pipes lie in a triangular framework angled over the make everything operate as intended. These were assembled and the walls of the boilers were then constructed around them.
There are access hatches which allow you to see into the boiler and see the pipe arrangements. It is very dark in there and a flashlight is needed to see anything at all. The boiler walls are metallic but they are lined with fire bricks. These bricks had a limited life so there would be a time when they had to be replaced. People would have to climb in through the narrow hatches to knock out the old bricks and pass them out before installing the replacements. They would also have to clean off the pipe work exterior as this would accumulate debris from the hot gases of combustion.
Accessing the interior of these boilers looks extremely unpleasant. It would be far too claustrophobic for me to think about and that is before considering the hard work in a hostile environment. These guys were tougher than me! The boilers are in pairs with a gap between each pair so I guess they would have to close down both parts of the pair to allow a temperature that was acceptable for entry. Even then, I doubt it was a good place to work.
Near the north end of Boeing Field is the old Georgetown Steam Plant. This is an old power station that was decommissioned decades ago. I had been curious to see what it was like inside. I had thought about going a while back and then the pandemic put paid to any visits for a couple of years. The opening hours have now been established and they open on the second Saturday of each month. That proved problematic for a while as that clashed with travels or other plans. Consequently, I put the first opening in my calendar and tried my best to make sure I could go.
The Saturday came around and it was a gloriously sunny day. This shouldn’t matter much since I was going to be indoors but it does make for a nicer day to be out anyway. It was due to open at 10am so I decided to get there right at the beginning. Turned out this was a good idea. The parking lot was already looking pretty full and more were arriving. I have no idea why it was so busy. Sure, a nice day encourages people to go out but how many people see a sunny day and think “let’s go to a decommissioned power plant”? I asked a docent whether this was normal. He said they normally get about 30 people over the day and they had four tours of 50 people booked plus those, like me, that didn’t take the tour!
The power plant was built at the beginning of the 20th century. It had three steam turbines of different vintages, powers and technologies. The first two are vertical and the third horizontal. These are fed from a large boiler room. There are balconies with the control electronics which you can see but are not yet accessible. I was happy to let the tours concentrate people in various locations which meant it was quieter wherever they weren’t so I could wander around casually.
I had figured wide angle was going to be my friend in the building so had a wide zoom and a fisheye zoom with me. I used the fish a little initially but soon concluded it wasn’t that useful to me so I swapped it out with the 70-200 to allow me to get some detail shots of the machinery. Older machinery has a lot of character with polished metals, complex mechanisms and multiple gauges. It is a great look in to a bygone era.
These shots are few of the overall layout of the building. There are some details from within the plant that will have their own posts to come so I can focus on them. I don’t want to try and squeeze it all in to one post and lose some of the curious elements in the larger story.
One of the tourist attractions in Gastown in Vancouver is the Steam Clock. Sitting on a street corner, this looks like a giant grandfather clock with steam whistles on the top of it. It was surrounded by tourists and the number of selfies being taken was substantial. We were there close to the top of the hour so we waited around to see what happened. Below is some video of the lock striking the hour if striking is the right word.
In the days of steam, power was produced by huge machines. If you needed a more powerful machine, you just made it bigger. The huge wheels and pistons that resulted were most impressive. The Henry Ford has quite a selection of these old steam engines of various designs. The efficiency improved as they introduced multiple phases to the machines to recover more work from the output of the engine. The big beams and pistons remained a theme, though. The large brick structures and the associated metalwork have been nicely preserved and displayed.
The Dearborn factory required a large power generation facility and, in days gone by, this was provided by a large steam engine driving generators. This machine is now nicely preserved. The scale of it is a bit hard to represent. The cylinders are huge and the controls are substantial. You can climb up on top of the whole thing to see how it went together. Surprisingly, this is not a place that was getting too many visitors which meant I was able to nose around in relative peace. It is hard to imagine what it would have been like when this enormous piece of engineering was in use and was generating the power for the plant. Now it is idle but it still looks imposing.
I know a few of the regular readers of the blog are in to trains so I hope this one pleases them. The Henry Ford Museum covers all sorts of engineering endeavors including a selection of rail vehicles. This was one of the last things we saw before we left so I didn’t explore very much. However, there was one rather large steam locomotive on display. This thing was a beast and I imagine it was quite the sight when it was in regular usage. Our visit coincided with the running of Big Boy after restoration so something similar to this can been seen for real once again!
We had visited Old Faithful on a previous trip to Yellowstone and had stayed near the falls. Therefore, I was not so desperate to see the geyser again. However, in the middle of winter, things are a lot quieter than during peak season so it was quite interesting to be there with so few people around. The geyser erupted not long after we arrived. It was quite a different experience. The low air temperatures meant that the hot water produced a lot of steam as soon as it emerged. The clouds of steam drifted downwind but they concealed the flow of water to some extent. Still, it was an impressive sight to witness and even better on a crystal clear day.
The colorful pools of hot springs in Yellowstone can be quite stunning to see. Visiting in the deep of winter means they are surrounded with snow and ice but a lot less people. The colors are still there but the low temperatures mean that clouds of steam form above the surface. Gentle gusts of wind might briefly blow the steam away to reveal the intense colors beneath but the steam rapidly returns. As you look into the pools you can see the colors well but it makes for a harder time getting photographs. You give it a try but then just spend time enjoying the impressiveness of the pools.
Preserved locomotives seem to appear in a lot of towns in Washington and Newhalem was no exception. This old steam locomotive seemed to be particularly well preserved given the rugged location it lives in for a good chunk of the year. I assume Seattle City Light has enough cash to keep it looking good for the many visitors to the town. Indeed, getting a shot of it without someone climbing all over it took a bit of patience!
