After I shared the original Wangi Power Station gallery, a former worker named Cliff sent through a collection of photographs he took in the late 1970s and early 1980s while the station was still operational. Some of what follows is his archive. Some are images from the Sam Hood Collection at the State Library of NSW. Some have been shared with me over the years by people with their own ties to the station.
Wangi Power Station was once the largest power station in New South Wales. Civil works started in 1948. The first generating unit synchronised to the grid on 6 November 1957, and Premier Joseph Cahill officially opened the station on 7 November 1958.
If you have any photos of Wangi Power Station from before its closure, I'd like to see them. Get in touch.
Construction
Civil works began in 1948. Approximately 1,000 men camped at Wangi Wangi during peak construction. Sir William Arrol & Co. of Glasgow supplied 8,359 tonnes of steel, first erected in August 1952. The first chimney was started by Arcos Constructions in April 1951.
Photo by Sam Hood, 1955. Courtesy of the State Library of NSW.
An aerial view of the site during construction. The first chimney is up, the steel frame of A Station is being assembled, and storage sheds and temporary worker housing fill the surrounding land.
Coal
Coal arrived from Awaba State Mine (from 1947, via a 10.4 km branch line) and Newstan Colliery (from 1957). The last steam-hauled coal train ran on 23 February 1973. Road haulage took over from late that year. At peak the station consumed about 1.2 million tonnes of coal a year.
Looking towards the B Station lift tower. Bulldozers pushed coal piles into the conveyors. The main store is visible to the far left.
The trial slurry coal feeding system at B Station. The hopper fed coal down to a ball mill, where it was ground before being washed and processed through a centrifuge.
A view from the B Station roof. Coal deliveries arrived by both truck and rail, with transfer towers (visible in the middle of the frame) connecting multiple conveyor systems across the site.
Inside
Inside, the station ran on six A Station boilers (Babcock & Wilcox stoker-fired), three B Station boilers (Babcock & Wilcox pulverised-coal), and six Parsons turbine-alternators across A and B Stations. B Station was the first Australian power station to burn pulverised coal, and the first to use hydrogen-cooled alternators.
A steam-driven feed pump turbine, responsible for pumping feedwater through the boiler. Rather than using electricity, this pump was powered by steam bled from the main turbine. In the background, a B Station boiler is visible; the circular ports are where pulverised fuel was fed in.
Boiler No. 2A in A Station, one of six Babcock & Wilcox stoker-fired boilers in A Station. Each A Station turbine was fed by two boilers; B Station's three turbines each ran on a single pulverised-coal boiler. Chain grate systems burned raw coal fed through gravimetric feeders, visible here as the rotating wheels above the chutes. Coal was flung onto the rotograte by rapidly rotating spreader stokers. The boiler supplied steam at 650 PSI and 840°F. Boilers were started by tossing in an oil-soaked rag and hoping it caught the coal. The open access hatch shows ash buildup. Grease lines and tools used to clear jammed tracks are still in place.
Looking down the full length of the turbine hall towards A Station. The hall housed six turbines: A Station's three units at 50 MW each, B Station's three at 60 MW. Later power stations like Liddell (500 MW), Bayswater (660 MW), and Eraring (660 MW) dwarfed the 330 MW Wangi Power Station total. On the left, an operator or supervisor in uniform inspects a turbine control panel; others in overalls manage operations.
The turbines
The station housed six turbine-alternator sets: three 50 MW machines in A Station and three 60 MW machines in B Station, all built by C.A. Parsons & Co. The 60 MW B Station units were the largest single generating sets in Australia when they entered service in 1958. The B Station alternators were also the first hydrogen-cooled alternators in any Australian power station.
High-pressure steam from the boilers passed through three cylinders (high pressure, intermediate, and low pressure) before condensing back to water in the lake-fed cooling circuit and returning to the boiler. The turbines drove the alternators directly at 3,000 RPM, synchronised to the 50 Hz grid.
Most of the generating equipment was removed from the station between 1995 and 1997. What remains today is the building.
The hydrogen-cooled 60 MW Parsons generator below is turbine number 6, viewed from above the operating level. It sits just outside the B Station mechanical workshop, the supervisors' office, and the meal room above that. You can even see one of the supervisors in his office through the window.
Left: A Parsons turbine inside Wangi Power Station. The blue, white, and chrome livery is unusual for modern plants, where everything is orange. The intricate valving is part of the turbine's control system. The asbestos lagging on the surrounding pipework is original. At the 9 o'clock position on the governor, the speed indicator is still in place. Right: the high-pressure end of No. 6 turbine. A couple of operators are just out of frame to the left.
A view over No. 6 turbine and the B Station mechanical workshop. The supervisor's office overlooks the turbine hall, with Tom Wilson and Neil Hall visible inside. Behind it lies the workshop. The stairway leads up to the meal room. Workers gathered there during the September 1983 America's Cup final. The turbine is divided into high-pressure, intermediate, and low-pressure stages, along with the generator. It's unlikely an office would ever be placed this close to a generator today, given its 3,000 RPM operation.
Cooling water
The station depended on cooling water from Lake Macquarie. Water was drawn in through filtered intake screens, run through the condensers to cool spent turbine steam, and discharged back to the lake via an outlet canal. The intake structures and pumps were dismantled with the rest of the generating plant between 1995 and 1997. The outlet canal survives.
Left: the B Station intake screens. Rotating drum screens filtered out debris, including fish, before the water was pumped into the condenser system. Right: the outlet canal, carrying warmed water back to the lake.
The A Station screen. A series of buckets, driven by a chain mechanism, carried material up an incline. The cast iron rollers in this system were known for their durability and were often repurposed for making engine piston rings.
The wider site
Beyond the boilers and turbine hall, the site carried the rest of what a working power station needed: administrative offices, workshops, switchyard, water-storage tanks, on-site housing, and an apprentice workshop. The triple-brick cladding over a riveted steel frame ran 228 metres along the western shore of Lake Macquarie.
Left: the main administration building. The main entrance is in the bottom left, with the apprentice workshop on the ground floor and the nurses' office around the corner. The first floor housed the electrical workshop, the canteen sat above that, and the executive offices occupied the top floor. Right: looking from the B Station end over the switchyard towards Lake Macquarie. The outlet canal and the town of Wangi Wangi are visible beyond. The domed building in the foreground housed the apprentice workshop, a later addition that supported hands-on learning outside the main workshop floor.
A Mini passes in front of Wangi Power Station. The A Station chimney is visible behind. Beyond the car park, the workers' tennis courts once sat where the road now runs.
Legacy
A Station was retired on 7 March 1985. B Station closed on 31 October 1986. Formal decommissioning followed in 1989. The generating equipment was removed between 1995 and 1997. Today, Wangi Power Station stands silent. The machinery is gone. What remains is the building shell on the lakeshore.
If you have memories or photographs of Wangi Power Station, get in touch. Cliff's archive is here because he sent it. The same is true of everything else in the collection that didn't come out of my camera.
