Workshop Facing South

Looking south across the workshop at White Bay Power Station, the space extends to the far wall where a large steel-frame cabinet holds grinding wheels and cutting tools on steel-pipe mandrels. The workshop floor is heavy reinforced concrete, stained with cutting oil and coolant that has soaked into the surface over decades. Lathes and milling machines on concrete bases are still in position along the left wall, the machine leadscrew handles visible on each unit. A centre lathe with a large swing radius occupies the most prominent floor position; its chuck has a piece of bar stock still gripped in the jaws. Overhead the gantry crane rail runs the length of the workshop, the hook block resting at the far end. Chain blocks hang from the rail at intervals.

The workshop at White Bay Power Station was the main mechanical repair facility for the site, handling overhaul work on pump impellers, valve components, turbine auxiliary plant, and general fitting work that could not be done in place on the turbine hall floor. White Bay's 8 Babcock and Wilcox boilers and its Parsons turbine plant required sustained maintenance across the station's 66-year operational life from 1917 to Christmas Eve 1983. The workshop was staffed throughout by fitters and turners who kept the generating plant running. After the shutdown and formal decommissioning in 1984, the workshop machinery was assessed during the 1990s decontamination. Much of the machine tool inventory remained in position through to the heritage listing in April 1999.