Ash Plant Workshop

The ash plant workshop at Wangi Power Station sits adjacent to the ash-handling area, fitted out for the routine maintenance of the conveyors, pumps, and hoppers that moved the boiler ash residue out to the disposal site. The workshop has a fabrication bench along one wall, fitted with vices and a small hydraulic press; a parts cabinet along the opposite wall; and a clear central floor area sized for the larger components that came in for repair. The lighting is fluorescent strip overhead. The walls are corrugated steel sheet, the floor concrete, the ceiling open to the structural framing of the roof. The workshop carries the marks of coal-dust accumulation across decades of work on the ash handling plant.

Boilers like the six at Wangi produced ash continuously while running, in the form of bottom ash from the firing grates and fly ash captured by the emissions filtration. The ash plant managed the conveyors, hoppers, and discharge systems that moved that ash from the boiler-house basement to the disposal area outside the building. The workshop in this photograph supported that plant. After A Station retired on 7 March 1985 and B Station closed on 31 October 1986, the ash plant wound down with the rest of the operation. The workshop has been empty since.