Turbine Hall Basement Northern End

At the northern end of the turbine hall basement at White Bay Power Station the structure shows its age in the materials and construction techniques. The brickwork here is the original 1910s coursework, the mortar joints wide by later standards and the brick faces carrying the patina of a hundred years in a damp industrial space. Concrete pours visible in the floor level variations where later works filled in around the original footings. Valve platforms of welded steel angle are fixed to the wall with expansion bolts, the bolt caps rusted to the concrete below. The pipework on this section of wall is the original flanged steel, the flanges spaced wide for the earlier pipe specification.

The northern section of the turbine hall basement reflects the first phase of White Bay Power Station's construction. The NSW Government Railways commenced work in June 1912 and brought the first plant on line in July 1913, with the station formally operational in May 1917. The original A Station section of the turbine hall was the core of the plant, housing the early Dick Kerr and Willans and Robinson alternators rated at 8.7 MW continuous before the Parsons turbines were introduced from the 1920s onward. By the time the B Station expansion began in 1923 the northern basement structures were already a decade old. The station ran until Christmas Eve 1983 and was heritage listed in April 1999.