Ferrybridge power station
Aug. 1st, 2014 10:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dormouse1953I see on the news that there has been a fire at Ferrybridge C power station. That brought back memories.
Some of you may know that I used to work for the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) but my memories go back further.
I grew up in the north-east of England but we had family down in London so we often drove down for holidays and the route my father took went right past the power station when it was being built in the early sixties. Then, in 1965, a couple of months after we last drove past, if I remember correctly, it was on the news that three of the cooling towers there had collapsed in high winds. This was a big news item at the time and later it was reported that although the cooling towers were designed to withstand high winds, the layout of the towers created vortices that caused the collapse.
Over ten years later, by which time I was working for the CEGB, I was sent on a course on power generation and distribution and the topic of Ferrybridge came up. "The manager of that station still has it on his personnel record that he lost his cooling towers." I don't know if that was actually true.
Some of you may know that I used to work for the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) but my memories go back further.
I grew up in the north-east of England but we had family down in London so we often drove down for holidays and the route my father took went right past the power station when it was being built in the early sixties. Then, in 1965, a couple of months after we last drove past, if I remember correctly, it was on the news that three of the cooling towers there had collapsed in high winds. This was a big news item at the time and later it was reported that although the cooling towers were designed to withstand high winds, the layout of the towers created vortices that caused the collapse.
Over ten years later, by which time I was working for the CEGB, I was sent on a course on power generation and distribution and the topic of Ferrybridge came up. "The manager of that station still has it on his personnel record that he lost his cooling towers." I don't know if that was actually true.
