Boiler House Basement Maze

The central aisle of the briquette factory at Morwell Power Station and Briquette Factories extends deep into the building, flanked on both sides by large corrugated metal housings with rusted access doors open to expose the mechanisms inside. Overhead, cable trays and pipe runs crisscross the full length of the ceiling beneath a row of industrial light fittings. Yellow safety barriers mark the ground along the machinery line. Worn concrete stretches the length of the floor. The aisle runs straight and narrow between the housings, every door open, every run overhead still in place.

The briquetting equipment here was supplied by Maschinenfabrik Buckau R. Wolf A.G. of Germany under the 1950 contract, two factories rated at 2,100 tons a day. The Victorian Heritage Register lists the plant as the only remaining intact assemblage of mid-twentieth-century briquetting machinery in Victoria. Morwell brown coal proved unsuitable for briquetting, high in alkali and sulphur, so Yallourn coal was railed across the interconnecting line to feed these factories. First commercial briquettes came in December 1959. Brett photographed the briquette factory on 15 April 2017, in the closed factory before the demolition program began.