Ironbridge Power station-Feb 20

[BikinGlynn]

Almost missed the boat on this one!

Nicked from WIKI
The Ironbridge power stations (also known as the Buildwas power stations refers to a series of two power stations that occupied a site on the banks of the River Severn at Buildwas in Shropshire, England. The Ironbridge B Power Station was operated by E.ON UK but the site is now owned by Uniper. The station stands near the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site. Originally powered by coal, they were converted to use 100% biomass fuel. Ironbridge B Power Station stopped generating electricity on 20 November 2015, with the decommissioning process continuing into 2017. The main phase of the 27-month demolition process began at 11:00 GMT on 6 December 2019, commencing with the razing of the four iconic cooling towers. This was to make space for over 1,000 homes, shops and other buildings.

The Explore
What a saga this turned out to be so I feel obliged to share the whole story.
I had been given some excellent info on this from @prettyvacant so was feeling quite confident on the morning of our visit as we arrived early on site & started navigating through the darkness.
The access details proved good "in an opening", "up a flight of stairs" right up to the point we arrived at a cavernous drop at the corner of the building to transfer through from switch room to boiler room as this part of the immense structure appeared to be missing... but thats what u get for visiting mid demo!
A stretch & leap of faith over a whole lot of potential (dying on a pile of rubble) & we were in the main boiler house.

We spent a while scoping out, had a quick look at the Turbine hall then decided to head up as high as we can & work our way back down. Up at around 200ft we got some great views out the freshly cut access holes & external lift openings, the wind at these points was quite horrendous & I struggled to take this shot over the substation.

It was milling about on these upper floors that I heard a loud bang! nothing to worry about until I heard the distinct sound of voices under us.
The place is massive so it was difficult to asses the position of said voices, but with the addition of more banging we realised these were coming from the tirbine hall & were what we later discovered to be scafolders.
Ok situation check head back through boiler house the way we came in should work but it didnt take long to find the lower floors here were now flooded with demo crews & the hydraulic wrecker had started up outside too.
We found a nice hiding place at this point on top of a boiler & began the waiting game. This didnt last long, maybe half hour before we were both bored & didnt want to potentially be there till 5pm as we had a big weekend planned ahead.
We were well & truly trapped on the higher floors but slowly our confidence grew as we worked our way back down floors getting closer to the workers until we were in a good positioin to see their movements & look for potential exits.
The wind & general noise helped as we could move about freely without arousing suspicion, we were just hoping no one came up to the higher floors.

We grabbed what pictures we could through out all this so apologies if they are not the best.
Anyway I realised there was no chance of us exiting the south side of the building due to the amount of people, I also noted there were only 3 guys in the central area of the turbine hall & the far end bay was sort of separated by a wall (although this had large openings along its length), there was also a half open roller shutter on that side of the building although we knew this was leading out to where the demo crews were.

After going back up a few floors to scope out escape routes outside, it was noted that again mother nature had intervened & a haras fence had been blown over & was laying at a 45 deg angle on the sloping wooded hillside.
We decided to go for it & hot footed down into the end bay of the turbine hall, only pausing briefly at the bottom when we noticed a rack of hi viz jackets & hats & wondered if there was an easier option but realised this was no time for a plan change.
We got out without the scafolders noticing & a quick scan showed no one in view outside so we hastily went for the haras fence.
We made it.... about 10 ft before "oi you stop" & the guy driving the machine started blasting his horn!
Then it was just a case of run & hope for the best, the aforementioned haras laying at an angle proved slippier than I had anticipated, but we made it across this, jumped the wooden fence & sprinted up the hillside through the woods.
Now Im pretty fit so when I turned around all I could see was my mate 30ft behind with 2 guys in hi viz just behind him. They gave up though pretty much as soon as he was over the fence so we went on with our weekend with a reoccurring chuckle & a shortness of breath!

So far as the power plant itself its a pretty amazing place on a scale thats difficult to comprehend.

Note the Aplant generator in the distance, this was running since our arrival powering lights on the lower levels

Thanks For Looking

 

[wolfism]

Great stuff, and a nice little adventure too. We had the same trapped-on-the-upper-floors scenario many years ago at the Philips factory power station in Eindhoven. Sadly I missed the boat completely on getting inside Ironbridge, although IIRC Uniper's security had fixed up some trail cams in the woods close to the route explorers were using.

 

[BikinGlynn]

Great stuff, and a nice little adventure too. We had the same trapped-on-the-upper-floors scenario many years ago at the Philips factory power station in Eindhoven. Sadly I missed the boat completely on getting inside Ironbridge, although IIRC Uniper's security had fixed up some trail cams in the woods close to the route explorers were using.

Had they really thats nuts lol. yeah it was a good morning outing.

 

[john1975]

What lunatic country sells its power stations to foreigners then lets them close them down???

Shameful..

john..

 

[Cuban B.]

What lunatic country sells its power stations to foreigners then lets them close them down???

Shameful..

john..

Apparently coal is bad or something. Net zero and carbon footprints as well. Now if it was up to me...

 

[Hayman]

What lunatic country sells its power stations to foreigners then lets them close them down???

Shameful..

john..

What lunatics think what happens in a small country the size of the UK can counter the effects of changes of the path of the Earth around the sun, and changes in the heat output of the sun? The same lunatics who think the constant need for electricity can be met from the electricity supplied by wind turbines that are subject to the ever changing speed of the wind; some days that figure is zero. If all the money and scientific development put into wind turbines had gone into tidal generation of electricity, it might have made some sense.

We have had a week of freezing weather. A town in China has recorded the lowest temperature ever known. That is China, which has umpteen coal-fired power stations. And all living plants depend on the carbon dioxide in the air to stay alive.
Doh!

 

[john1975]

Thank god for common sense...

I used to drive an artic lorry once, 3 years ago. Anyway, when i was going along i liked to listen radio 4. They had lots of scientific stuff on there. There was this one programme where the bloke being interviewed was a scientist of some sort. He said about this crazy idea ]for it was starting to take hold back then] of trying to get rid of CO2, that fi the levels in air were reduced to the levels these idiots wanted, that half the agriculture on earth would stop, there would simply not be enough for the things to live on..

john..

 

[Hayman]

Thank god for common sense...

I used to drive an artic lorry once, 3 years ago. Anyway, when i was going along i liked to listen radio 4. They had lots of scientific stuff on there. There was this one programme where the bloke being interviewed was a scientist of some sort. He said about this crazy idea ]for it was starting to take hold back then] of trying to get rid of CO2, that fi the levels in air were reduced to the levels these idiots wanted, that half the agriculture on earth would stop, there would simply not be enough for the things to live on..

john..

Thanks, John. I used to drive vans and 7.5 tonners - and also used to listen to Science Now, Medicine Now, etc - when Radio Four had programmes that presented
facts as facts. The whole BBC seems to have jumped on the 'blame humans for every change that happens to the Earth'. Just as schoolgirls are no longer taught
basic cookery at school (it would be sexist), so neither boys nor girls are taught basic scientific facts. So much for Blair's "education, education, education".

 

[Scattergun]

I'm afraid I too am all for King Coal. Certainly until such times that a viable, sustainable solution can replace it. We are not there yet, not even close. We as a nation are phasing fossil fuels out far too quickly with no direct replacement that will generate the quantities of fuel/energy we need. Renewable energy generation is good, but it's nowhere near reliable or efficient enough.

A good set and interesting story that, I enjoyed it. Pretty intensive cat and mouse game by the sounds of things! Good job getting away, I think you did well to stay hidden for so long. I'm surprised to see so much of Ironbridge still there in 2020. We had a good run round the place in 2016, at that time the overzealous external patrols were all we had to worry about. Once you'd learned their patrol pattern and were up for some short bursts of speed across the more open ground it was fairly easy giving them the slip. Our issue was that we visited at night and in the summer, so once inside we had limited exploration time if we wanted to be out and away whilst still having the cover of darkness to aid escape.

I might throw a few of my pictures up if I can dig them out. I'm not much for reports these days.

 

[BikinGlynn]

Imo the only solution is to use less energy, but with a ever increasing world population & peoples unwillingness to do so this itself is problematic.

 

[Hayman]

Imo the only solution is to use less energy, but with a ever increasing world population & peoples unwillingness to do so this itself is problematic.

In my lifetime the only part of 'progress' that has been put an end to is supersonic passenger flight - i.e. the Concordes. Whether it is people in central London or a small village in Africa, Asia or South America, they all want the latest invention, whether it be some unneeded electronic gadget or the fastest mobile phone connection. As for the total world population, those who control China are terrified that its people are not having enough children; in some parts of the country the population is dropping. Good for what gets called 'the Planet', but bad for all of China's manufacturers of 'consumer goods': anything from clothing to cars.

China's state capitalist economy is as dependent on an ever-increasing market as are the West's company-dominated capitalist economies.

We get told the UK 'needs' immigrants to make up for the falling number of children
British people are having - again, to keep the economy 'in the black'. This allied to
the madness of 'net zero' and wind turbines that only turn when the wind blows.
And humans think they are at the top of the evolutionary tree. "They would say that, wouldn't they".

 

[Scaramanger]

Interesting site/report thanks. I was watching progress on this one as always wanted to visit. Seen pretty vacants report back then and so secca was about.. shame i missed those coloured chimneys. Theres been a few power stations of late so hope to get bac out there before there all gone…

 

[egmonton]

A good place, I think this place would be great for clips

 

[Just-jo]

Thanks, John. I used to drive vans and 7.5 tonners - and also used to listen to Science Now, Medicine Now, etc - when Radio Four had programmes that presented
facts as facts. The whole BBC seems to have jumped on the 'blame humans for every change that happens to the Earth'. Just as schoolgirls are no longer taught
basic cookery at school (it would be sexist), so neither boys nor girls are taught basic scientific facts. So much for Blair's "education, education, education".

I didn't know cookery had gone but i do know the crazy Educationalists (damn them) have got rid of the traditional wood and metalwork courses, now kids are coming out of school knowing nothing, no minds eye visualisation and with severe inability to concentrate / focus and FINISH a task. Sixteen year olds with the practical ability of five year olds.

 

[Pincheck]

Very surprised like scattergun and Cuban, green energy is a falsehood nothing out there is better if equal to what we have or in way of coal had.

As scatter said we had fun on our visit

 

[wolfism]

Folk might be interested in a book called Black Start by Andrew Cook - Black Start: Amazon.co.uk: Cook, Andrew: 9780993407741: Books

It's a fictionalised account of re-starting a coal-fired power plant that had sat idle for a long time, think of Fiddlers Ferry or West Burton as they were in the last year or two. He points out the folly and stupidity of the government's energy policy, which is drawn up by people with no practical experience of how the economy actually works or how things are made. Good example from today's news – soon this country won't even be able to make its own pig iron.

In a previous life I briefly dealt with Andrew Cook, a really impressive character who is an industrialist (his firm William Cook Cast Products makes tracks for the army's Challenger tanks, among lots of other things) and also a railway enthusiast whose firm makes lots of castings for steam locomotives, without which we wouldn't have any working preserved railways in this country.

 

[Hayman]

Folk might be interested in a book called Black Start by Andrew Cook - Black Start: Amazon.co.uk: Cook, Andrew: 9780993407741: Books

It's a fictionalised account of re-starting a coal-fired power plant that had sat idle for a long time, think of Fiddlers Ferry or West Burton as they were in the last year or two. He points out the folly and stupidity of the government's energy policy, which is drawn up by people with no practical experience of how the economy actually works or how things are made. Good example from today's news – soon this country won't even be able to make its own pig iron.

In a previous life I briefly dealt with Andrew Cook, a really impressive character who is an industrialist (his firm William Cook Cast Products makes tracks for the army's Challenger tanks, among lots of other things) and also a railway enthusiast whose firm makes lots of castings for steam locomotives, without which we wouldn't have any working preserved railways in this country.

 

[Hayman]

Folk might be interested in a book called Black Start by Andrew Cook - Black Start: Amazon.co.uk: Cook, Andrew: 9780993407741: Books

It's a fictionalised account of re-starting a coal-fired power plant that had sat idle for a long time, think of Fiddlers Ferry or West Burton as they were in the last year or two. He points out the folly and stupidity of the government's energy policy, which is drawn up by people with no practical experience of how the economy actually works or how things are made. Good example from today's news – soon this country won't even be able to make its own pig iron.

In a previous life I briefly dealt with Andrew Cook, a really impressive character who is an industrialist (his firm William Cook Cast Products makes tracks for the army's Challenger tanks, among lots of other things) and also a railway enthusiast whose firm makes lots of castings for steam locomotives, without which we wouldn't have any working preserved railways in this country.

"soon this country won't even be able to make its own pig iron". Today's news is that thousands of south Wales steelworkers are going to lose their jobs because their Tata plant is now considered "too polluting" with the carbon dioxide it creates!. Even though all the trees and bushes and fields in Wales depend on carbon dioxide to survive. Yes, the lunatics are now in charge of the asylum. The pity is that the asylum in question is not derelict!

 

[TeeJF]

What lunatic country sells its power stations to foreigners then lets them close them down???

Shameful..

john..

Welcome to Britain! Farcical isn't it!

 

[TeeJF]

Almost missed the boat on this one!

Nicked from WIKI
The Ironbridge power stations (also known as the Buildwas power stations refers to a series of two power stations that occupied a site on the banks of the River Severn at Buildwas in Shropshire, England. The Ironbridge B Power Station was operated by E.ON UK but the site is now owned by Uniper. The station stands near the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site. Originally powered by coal, they were converted to use 100% biomass fuel. Ironbridge B Power Station stopped generating electricity on 20 November 2015, with the decommissioning process continuing into 2017. The main phase of the 27-month demolition process began at 11:00 GMT on 6 December 2019, commencing with the razing of the four iconic cooling towers. This was to make space for over 1,000 homes, shops and other buildings.

The Explore
What a saga this turned out to be so I feel obliged to share the whole story.
I had been given some excellent info on this from @prettyvacant so was feeling quite confident on the morning of our visit as we arrived early on site & started navigating through the darkness.
The access details proved good "in an opening", "up a flight of stairs" right up to the point we arrived at a cavernous drop at the corner of the building to transfer through from switch room to boiler room as this part of the immense structure appeared to be missing... but thats what u get for visiting mid demo!
A stretch & leap of faith over a whole lot of potential (dying on a pile of rubble) & we were in the main boiler house.

We spent a while scoping out, had a quick look at the Turbine hall then decided to head up as high as we can & work our way back down. Up at around 200ft we got some great views out the freshly cut access holes & external lift openings, the wind at these points was quite horrendous & I struggled to take this shot over the substation.

It was milling about on these upper floors that I heard a loud bang! nothing to worry about until I heard the distinct sound of voices under us.
The place is massive so it was difficult to asses the position of said voices, but with the addition of more banging we realised these were coming from the tirbine hall & were what we later discovered to be scafolders.
Ok situation check head back through boiler house the way we came in should work but it didnt take long to find the lower floors here were now flooded with demo crews & the hydraulic wrecker had started up outside too.
We found a nice hiding place at this point on top of a boiler & began the waiting game. This didnt last long, maybe half hour before we were both bored & didnt want to potentially be there till 5pm as we had a big weekend planned ahead.
We were well & truly trapped on the higher floors but slowly our confidence grew as we worked our way back down floors getting closer to the workers until we were in a good positioin to see their movements & look for potential exits.
The wind & general noise helped as we could move about freely without arousing suspicion, we were just hoping no one came up to the higher floors.

We grabbed what pictures we could through out all this so apologies if they are not the best.
Anyway I realised there was no chance of us exiting the south side of the building due to the amount of people, I also noted there were only 3 guys in the central area of the turbine hall & the far end bay was sort of separated by a wall (although this had large openings along its length), there was also a half open roller shutter on that side of the building although we knew this was leading out to where the demo crews were.

After going back up a few floors to scope out escape routes outside, it was noted that again mother nature had intervened & a haras fence had been blown over & was laying at a 45 deg angle on the sloping wooded hillside.
We decided to go for it & hot footed down into the end bay of the turbine hall, only pausing briefly at the bottom when we noticed a rack of hi viz jackets & hats & wondered if there was an easier option but realised this was no time for a plan change.
We got out without the scafolders noticing & a quick scan showed no one in view outside so we hastily went for the haras fence.
We made it.... about 10 ft before "oi you stop" & the guy driving the machine started blasting his horn!
Then it was just a case of run & hope for the best, the aforementioned haras laying at an angle proved slippier than I had anticipated, but we made it across this, jumped the wooden fence & sprinted up the hillside through the woods.
Now Im pretty fit so when I turned around all I could see was my mate 30ft behind with 2 guys in hi viz just behind him. They gave up though pretty much as soon as he was over the fence so we went on with our weekend with a reoccurring chuckle & a shortness of breath!

So far as the power plant itself its a pretty amazing place on a scale thats difficult to comprehend.

Note the Aplant generator in the distance, this was running since our arrival powering lights on the lower levels

Thanks For Looking

That's an epic exploration bud, it's pristine! Well done.

Your story about avoiding demo workers reminds me of one we did in Brum many years ago when we literally walked in through an open door - we couldn't believe our luck! Anyhow we had only been inside about ten minutes when we heard banging and sawing, so we crept down the corridor and peeped round the stairs only to see that workmen had just finished boarding up the door! So we waited until we heard them drive away and contemplated our quandary. Then in the end we decided, fc*k it, at least we aren't likely to be disturbed and got on with finishing the exploration. Getting out was a bit hairy though but we did manage it without breaking anything least of all our necks!