Rafters

Timber rafters cross the interior of West Ryde Pumping Station, the aged roof above them open in places to let light fall in narrow bands across the floor. It is a building that looks, from the inside, like it has been standing still for a long time. In operational terms, it has not. Station No. 2 was completed and commissioned on 15 September 1921, making it the largest steam-powered water pumping station in Australia at that time. The construction involved three builders: William Adams and Co. Ltd., State Monier Works, and Refshaw and O'Brien. The station was built for the Metropolitan Board of Water Supply and Sewerage to replace the exhausted capacity of the original 1891 station, which had ceased operating by November 1930 and was demolished in 1961. The engine house where these rafters sit is described architecturally as Federation Freestyle, a style well represented in surviving public utility buildings of the period. The roofline incorporates a timber-louvred monitor at the ridge, an industrial ventilation detail that remained in the heritage fabric through the station's successive upgrades. Arched-headed steel windows line the engine house walls, some original, some replaced during the late twentieth century. The station accumulated a series of engineering firsts across its operational life. Steam turbine engines were installed in 1906, the first such installation in an Australian pumping station. Independent electric power generation followed the same year. Reinforced concrete chimneys were constructed in 1918. Electrically welded steam piping was installed in 1921. A pneumatic ash collection system was added in 1923. By the time this photograph was made in 2015, full electrification had been complete since 1982. The station was listed on the NSW State Heritage Register in November 2002 and received an Engineering Heritage National Marker in October 2017. It has supplied water to Sydney's northern suburbs without interruption since Station No. 2 was commissioned more than a century ago.