A Mechanical Store

The A Mechanical Store at Wangi Power Station is a single fitted-out room holding the spare parts and consumables specific to A Station's mechanical plant. Heavy steel shelving lines two walls floor to ceiling, with the shelves divided into compartments by partition boards. Hand-written labels are pinned to the front edge of each compartment, identifying the part category in the standard storekeeper shorthand. A counter sits at the entrance to the store, with a small logbook open on it and a telephone in its cradle. The lighting is a row of fluorescent strips overhead, mostly working. The store smells faintly of oil and old paper, as old industrial stores always do.

The A Mechanical Store held the spares specific to A Station, the stoker-fired half of the plant: bearings for the rotograte mechanisms, components for the coal feeders, gaskets for the cross-drum boilers, pump fittings, and consumables. The store ran on a paper-based logbook system, with each part signed out against a job number. After A Station retired on 7 March 1985, the store was wound down. The higher-value items were transferred or sold; the residue stayed on the shelves. The B Station equivalent store, separate from this one, ran a year longer before B Station closed in October 1986.