Boiler House Handrail

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D7000
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 21mm · f/8.0 · 1/125 · ISO 100
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

A rusted handrail at the edge of the void where Boiler No. 4 once stood. Three of the four original Babcock and Wilcox boilers were removed from the boilerhouse during the 1990s decontamination; only Boiler No. 1 remains in situ. Sunlight comes through the steel-framed industrial windows.

Edition

Open edition

Open edition
Printed to order, no fixed quantity. Each print is hand-signed by the photographer.

Limited edition
A fixed number of prints exist. Once sold, the edition closes permanently. Each print is individually numbered and signed.

$100.00 AUD

Colour

Signed, numbered, with COA. Made to order in 10 to 20 business days (framed). Shipped in protective packaging with edition certificate, paper-stock reference and a printed care guide.

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In situ

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: Boiler House Handrail
Series: White Bay Power Station
Catalogue: WBP-021
Process: Giclée
Captured: 13 November 2015
Camera: NIKON D7000
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter: 1/125 s
ISO: 100
Focal length: 21 mm
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 290 × 200 mm
Location: Rozelle, New South Wales, Australia
Authenticity: C2PA verified provenance →
Recognised by: Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards

02 LOCATION

Rozelle, New South Wales, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

A length of handrail in the boiler house at White Bay Power Station runs along one of the upper-level walkways, the mild-steel pipe painted in the standard pale industrial green of the plant. The paint has worn back to bare steel at the operator's grip points, where decades of shift workers held the rail going up and down the stairs. The handrail is welded to upright stanchions bolted to the walkway grating below. Where the steel has been exposed by paint wear, rust has worked at the metal in patches. The walkway grating around the handrail base is darkened from accumulated boiler-house dust.

Handrails of this kind ran along every access walkway, stair, and catwalk in the boiler house. They were the working safety equipment for a building that ran around the clock with operators moving between levels constantly. The paint colour and the wear patterns on these rails are the most legible record of foot traffic in the plant: where the paint is worn back to bare metal at the grip line, that is where operators put their hands across decades of shift work. The plant ran from 1917 to Christmas Day 1983.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

A steel pipe handrail runs along a concrete walkway at upper-level height, edging a deep void where boiler plant once stood. The brick walls climb three storeys, stained dark with soot and moisture. Industrial windows stretch across the left face, their steel frames still intact, throwing long bars of afternoon light across the floor. Below the railing, corroded metal panels and green-louvred enclosures drop into shadow. Cables hang slack from the overhead gantry crane rails. The air looks thick with dust.

Brett Patman

The series

White Bay Power Station

2015–2018 · 124 photographs

Bricklayers laid 3.7 million bricks at White Bay across three and a quarter years of Phase 1 construction, on Wanngal Country at the western edge of Rozelle. The New South Wales Government Railways ran the build through its own Construction Department. By 3 July 1913, boilers and alternators were running before the buildings that housed them were complete.

View all in this series →

05 SIZE GUIDE

Print sizes

The anatomy view shows what this finish is as a physical object: paper margin, mat band, frame depth, acrylic profile. The comparison strip shows how each size sits relative to the others at true scale. Click a size or a finish to update both.