Beautifully written as always Alex, thanks for sharing and great to see the other day. Glad you’ve still got your razor sharp wit and generous personality. Keep educating us fools. Cheers
You make me feel like an old fossil. White at UNSW doing my BE in power engineering we did a tour of Liddell. At that stage only units 1 & 2 were commissioned. I well remember climbing the 11 stories of the boiler frames. The boilers were suspended from the roof if memory serves. On another note later in the middle of my career I attended the implosion of the old Howard PS in Qld. They certainly don’t build stations like that anymore. We all lined up at a safe distance across the Burrum River, followed the countdown, watched the dust come out the windows, heard the sound of the detonations ..... and nothing happened. It was still standing in all its concrete brutalist splendour. I think they used the same design at QPAC at South Bank Brisbane😁
These are exactly the stories I like hearing! At the beginning of my career I used to love the stories from the old SECV guys. I think there were opportunities and experiences that the commissions offered that don't quite exist in the modern privatised sector.
My boss had a not quite complete set of the old CEGB Power Station design manuals (in a beautiful red hardcover) and while others might dream about buying a Rolex, I dream about finding a complete set of good condition CEGB manuals (for less than a Rolex if I'm lucky).
It's funny you mention QPAC, I was very much thinking about QPAC when I was writing this! (Can you tell I grew up in Brissie and am a fan of brutalism)
This was elite
Beautifully written as always Alex, thanks for sharing and great to see the other day. Glad you’ve still got your razor sharp wit and generous personality. Keep educating us fools. Cheers
Thanks for the kind words Nick! You ain't no fool, and it's always great to catch up!
You make me feel like an old fossil. White at UNSW doing my BE in power engineering we did a tour of Liddell. At that stage only units 1 & 2 were commissioned. I well remember climbing the 11 stories of the boiler frames. The boilers were suspended from the roof if memory serves. On another note later in the middle of my career I attended the implosion of the old Howard PS in Qld. They certainly don’t build stations like that anymore. We all lined up at a safe distance across the Burrum River, followed the countdown, watched the dust come out the windows, heard the sound of the detonations ..... and nothing happened. It was still standing in all its concrete brutalist splendour. I think they used the same design at QPAC at South Bank Brisbane😁
These are exactly the stories I like hearing! At the beginning of my career I used to love the stories from the old SECV guys. I think there were opportunities and experiences that the commissions offered that don't quite exist in the modern privatised sector.
My boss had a not quite complete set of the old CEGB Power Station design manuals (in a beautiful red hardcover) and while others might dream about buying a Rolex, I dream about finding a complete set of good condition CEGB manuals (for less than a Rolex if I'm lucky).
It's funny you mention QPAC, I was very much thinking about QPAC when I was writing this! (Can you tell I grew up in Brissie and am a fan of brutalism)