Boiler House To Coal Handling Shed

Looking from the boiler house at White Bay Power Station toward the coal handling shed, the view crosses the open floor of the bay toward the side-wall opening where the coal conveyor entered the building. Beyond the opening, the coal handling shed extends out along the slope toward the wharf. The shed is steel-framed and clad in corrugated iron, with the conveyor gallery rising on pylons through the centre of the structure. The boiler-house side of the opening carries the heavy fire doors that isolated the boiler hall from the conveyor when needed. The doors are open in the photograph, the conveyor route visible all the way to the receival hall.

The coal handling shed served as the buffer between the wharf and the boiler house. Coal arrived by ship at the wharf below the plant, was unloaded by gantry cranes into the receival hopper, passed across the weigher, ran up the conveyor to the bunkers, and dropped into the boilers above. The system handled millions of tonnes of coal across the working life of the plant from 1917 to Christmas Eve 1983. After closure the conveyor was shut down. The fire doors between the boiler house and the shed have stayed in place; the conveyor gallery beyond them is still suspended on its pylons.