Ascent

Directly overhead, the raw coal bunker shaft of the Morwell Power Station and Briquette Factories rises through layer after layer of rusted steel grating, each floor compressed by the vertical perspective into a dense geometric grid. A large dark metal funnel hangs in the lower centre of the frame. A yellow-painted structural member cuts across the lower left, sharp against the surrounding corrosion. A single bell-shaded light fixture marks the mid-levels of the shaft, with a second bare bulb visible near the top. The steel is uniformly rusted and the levels stack away from the viewer into shadow.

This shaft fed coal into the briquette factory, where the briquetting presses were supplied by Maschinenfabrik Buckau R. Wolf A.G. of Germany under the 1950 contract for two factories of 2,100 tons per day. Morwell brown coal proved unsuitable for briquetting because of its high alkali and sulphur content, so Yallourn coal was railed across the interconnecting line to feed these factories. Coal descended through bunkers and gratings like this one before moving on through the multi-level plant, which ran continuously until the 2014 closure. Brett photographed the bunker shaft on 15 April 2017, in the closed briquette factory before the demolition program began.