Control Room Side at White Bay Power Station, the curved control desk sweeps across the room in a wide arc.
Control Room Side at White Bay Power Station, the curved control desk sweeps across the room in a wide arc.

Control Room Side

Provenance

Camera
NIKON D810
Lens
14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings
14mm · f/9.0 · 0.8s · ISO 100
Paper
Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

The curved control panel, lined with switches, dials, and gauges. Operators here directed electricity to Sydney's tram and suburban rail network. From 1958 onward the station also supplied the wider NSW electricity grid, continuing until the Christmas Day 1983 shutdown.

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
Size
Type
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

Control Room Side at White Bay Power Station, the curved control desk sweeps across the room in a wide arc.Control Room Side at White Bay Power Station, the curved control desk sweeps across the room in a wide arc.Control Room Side at White Bay Power Station, the curved control desk sweeps across the room in a wide arc.Control Room Side at White Bay Power Station, the curved control desk sweeps across the room in a wide arc.Control Room Side at White Bay Power Station, the curved control desk sweeps across the room in a wide arc.
01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title
Control Room Side
Series
White Bay Power Station
Catalogue
WBP-104
Process
Giclée
Captured
27 May 2016
Camera
NIKON D810
Lens
14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture
f/9.0
Shutter
0.8s s
ISO
100
Focal length
14 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

The side wall of the control room at White Bay Power Station carries one of the auxiliary switchboards, mounted with the indicator lamps, the smaller meters, and the manual controls for the station-supply circuits. The panel is matte-finished steel, painted in the pale industrial green of the plant, with the meters and lamps set into the panel face at regular grid positions. Hand-painted labels above each instrument identify the circuit. A small operator desk sits in front of the panel at the side of the room. The flooring is composite tile. The lighting is pendant fittings overhead.

The side wall of the control room handled the secondary circuits the main switchboard did not: station lighting, instrument supply, control voltage, the smaller AC loads that fed the plant's own auxiliary equipment. The duty operators monitored both the main switchboard and the side panel across every operating shift. The plant ran continuously from 1917 to Christmas Day 1983. After closure the side panel was de-energised. The instruments, the labels, and the operator desk are still in place. The lighting overhead may or may not still work depending on the state of the local circuit.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

The curved control desk sweeps across the room in a wide arc. Toggle switches, rotary dials, and knife-handle levers crowd its surface. A red danger tag hangs from one lever. White porcelain insulators line the lower edge. Behind the desk, wall-mounted panels carry rows of analogue metres and circuit indicators, some still labelled for Strathfield Export and generator output. Ceiling tiles sag with moisture staining. The air smells like dust and old bakelite.

Brett Patman

White Bay Power Station

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.

Anatomy · true ratio
07 MORE FROM WHITE BAY POWER STATION

123 other prints in this series

All prints
Control Room at White Bay Power Station, a curved control console wraps across the room in a wide arc.
Control Room $100.00
Turbine Hall at White Bay Power Station, reinforced concrete walls rise three storeys on each side, their surfaces stained.
Turbine Hall $100.00
Glass Curtain at White Bay Power Station, a towering mosaic of glass and steel, where light filters through dust-streaked.
Glass Curtain $100.00
Turbine and Condenser at White Bay Power Station, a steam turbine and its condenser sit on the operating floor of White Bay.
Turbine and Condenser $100.00
08 BY POST · NO SPAM

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