Ravenscraig

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Re: Ravenscraig

Postby cell » Sat Feb 25, 2012 5:02 pm

Power station technical details

The power station was the control centre for all power and fuel distribution throughout the works.

BOILER PLANT
4 X 125,000 lb/hr (1954) and 1 x 200,000 lb/hr (1959) blast furnace gas/coke oven gas/oil fired Babcock & Wilcox bi-drum units. Stop valve conditions of 420 psig at 820°F. Automatic temperature and combustion control. I believe there were 2 more waste heat boilers added in 1960 and another blast furnace gas/coke oven gas/oil fired unit in 1973.

TURBINE PLANT
1 x 20 MW/30 MVA; 1 x 12.5 MW/28 MVA; 3 x 10 MW/ 11.6 MVA generators with automatic voltage control.
2 x 90,000 cfm / 32 psig and 2 x 90,000 cfm / 40 psig turbo blowers.

AUXILIARY PLANT
3 back pressure turbine pumping units exhausting steam at 160 psig into works process steam system and driving main power station circulating pumps and blast furnace cooling water pumps in tandem. 4 sets water treatment plant - filtration and zeolite base exchange units.

SWITCHGEAR
3 main 33 KV switchboards and 27 x 11,000 volt substations. Grid supply to plant - 275,000 volts, 180 MVA capacity
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Re: Ravenscraig

Postby Dexter St. Clair » Sat Feb 25, 2012 5:16 pm

Human touch, Cell. It's a reminiscence. Photos with people in them might be helpful.
"I before E, except after C" works in most cases but there are exceptions.
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Re: Ravenscraig

Postby moonbeam » Sat Feb 25, 2012 10:13 pm

Got hold of old copies of Steel News. The monthly free steel paper with lots of info from football teams to am dram groups. There were lots of technical leaflets produced over the years. I have one re the opening of Tollcross Steel Foundry in 1954. Also are any of the old technical reports in some dusty archive? There were dozens of these every year covering items like noise control, air pollution, oil spillage/leakage into Strathclyde Water Park, asbestos,plus loads on different types of steel-ie sound deadening steel for lorry cabs,steel in service failures,quality of iron ore, coke. blast furnace slag to mention just a few topics. I wrote a few of these. A couple of mine spring to mind on noise control and vibration white finger.The technical guys used to be able to get copies from a monthly list that came from somewhere within Colvilles than from "down south" when it became the British Steel Corp "empire".Re the "air pollution". I had to climb to the top of the open hearth furnaces and take air samples of what was going up the lum! Also sampling water that went into the boilers of the steam engine pugs. Sulphur prints. Do any old lab guys remember doing these, plus Izods, Charpys etc etc.
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Re: Ravenscraig

Postby cell » Sun Feb 26, 2012 3:24 pm

Dexter St. Clair wrote:Human touch, Cell. It's a reminiscence. Photos with people in them might be helpful.

I remember a blast furnace operator who had been attacked and stabbed 20 times (not at work) he was on the large side and reckoned that his fat had prevented the knife from penetrating any of his vital organs. He used to joke that being grossly overweight had actually saved his life and would have no truck with healthy eating.

I used to get a lift from one of the production managers who really put the hours in, it meant a long day but I used to take advantage of the subsidised canteens and get my breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, which for a poor summer student with little experience of cooking for myself, was great way to get fed and eke out the beer vouchers. I must have put on a stone that summer, if anyone had stabbed me with a 2” blade up level 8, I’d have been fine.

There was also a “black” canteen, so called because you didn’t have to wash before your meal and you could sit in your dirty work clothes. Not sure if that would allowed today but quite a sight then for a fresh faced student to see what “real” work actually involved.
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Re: Ravenscraig

Postby moonbeam » Sun Feb 26, 2012 10:24 pm

Ah the "black" canteen. Same food as the clean canteen. But due to the shifts worked you would see guys tucking into soup and pie and beans at 9am. At Corby they had subsidised beer in the canteen. Did quite a few night shifts myself. Worst ever in a vast steel works was the 10pm to 8am Saturday night Sunday morning on maintenance.I seem to recall they asked for "volunteers" for these shifts. I think it was around £20 for that shift in late 1960s. But often I was repairing furnace linings. If I recall two guys were repairing the ore conveyor into the blast furnace. Somehow it was switched on. Some time later the poor guys cars were located in the car park. Their jackets were still on the pegs.They found tools beside the conveyor.I dont think their bodies were ever found. There were quite a lot of accidents some fatal in these steel works. One I worked on was a report concerning carbon monoxide poisoning. Years later I met someone in the street and his comment was "I dont think anyone went anywhere near that place after you did the investigation. They put a padlock on the place". Then the colour coded hard hat business! Give the boss a different coloured hard hat and the workers can spot him coming a mile off and get back to work! Each section in a vast steel works was its own little world. Its own odd rules, customs and habits.One I recall at a meeting was " My faither done it that way and his faither as weel so thats how we dae it". In response to one of many management bids to improve efficiency! It concerned adding additives to the furnaces. Rather than shovel additives in they were to be weighed after the lab had sent down the precise quantities and added with a mechanical ladle/charger! But no the guys had always done it "that way" and got it right.
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Re: Ravenscraig

Postby Research Girl » Mon Feb 27, 2012 4:31 pm

Thank you so much to everyone who has been kind enough to reply.

Just to keep you all updated, this project is hopefully just the start of a bigger outcome. This particular project will eventually be used as an educational resource for schools, as well as a means to store oral histories, from those with first hand knowledge, be that former employees, family, friends, etc. The organisers hope to expand the project and include other North Lanarkshire Iron and Steel works and possibly even further into other industries linked to the local area.

Also with regards to Moonbeam asking about the leaflets and things - sadly, when the Craig closed the majority of files and archives were sent to Colby, and now, well who knows what happened to them....? The Museum Service have some, but not as many as you would expect in that situation.

One more thing, I am based at Motherwell Heritage Centre on Mondays (only), the building is closed to the public, but for the purposes of this project, if anyone is around that area, please feel free to drop by and have a chat with me and the other staff.
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Re: Ravenscraig

Postby cell » Mon Feb 27, 2012 5:02 pm

I'm assuming you have seen Colin Findlay's excellent web site which has some great photos and details from Scottish iron and steel plants, there is a whole section on Ravenscraig.

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/steelworks/S ... scraig.htm
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Re: Ravenscraig

Postby Research Girl » Tue Mar 27, 2012 10:51 am

Hi
Thanks so much to everyone who has helped me so far, but I have one more favour to ask.

I am struggling to get accurate information regarding the jobs within Ravenscraig. I'll be honest I thought this would be one of the easier sections, but it's proving rather difficult. There just doesn't seem to be any info which tells me exactly what each job involved, particularly with reference to a more modern works like Ravenscraig.

If anyone has any information I would be most grateful.

Thanks
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Re: Ravenscraig

Postby MacotheIsles » Tue Mar 27, 2012 9:50 pm

There were literally trillions of ancillary jobs; some permanent and some transient. My uncle worked on The Crusher whose purpose was to crush the slag waste from the furnaces into hardcore sized chunks which I assume was used for road-building, etc. A friend of mine worked full time on asbestos removal: I assume that this job only arose when the dangers of asbestos in the workplace became known. I also think that they had somebody manning the sluice gates night and day down by the outflow on the River Calder, near Calder Park. What about getting in touch with Tommy Brennan (assuming he's still with us)? I would imagine if anybody knew every nook and cranny of the different roles it would be him.
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Re: Ravenscraig

Postby cell » Sun Aug 11, 2013 4:06 pm

This might be of interest to someone
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Re: Ravenscraig

Postby Lawman » Sun Aug 11, 2013 8:11 pm

Some brilliant stuff in this thread :D


I can remember the demolition, I was only about 7, was fascinated by the place though and can remember pedalling as fast as I could to get to the top of the local bing to get a decent vantage point. I can remember the demolition/dismantling of the sheds too, noisy work, could hear it from about 3 miles away, just the constant clanking of steel on steel.

Re: the redevelopment, I certainly won't be buying a house on the site :roll:

My dad's friend used to work there, love hearing stories about it and I've always had a keen interest in the place as a whole. I always think I would have worked there if it was still open at the time.


Driving towards Jerviston on Merry St still seems odd with the removal of the red bridge, so much more open now.
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Re: Ravenscraig

Postby moonbeam » Sun Aug 11, 2013 11:41 pm

A true story re the "craig". Ian McGregor the chairman/boss of British Steel-a Scot educated at the old Tech now Strathclyde Uni-drove up to the "craig" early one morning in an old Austin Marina-he had been vice chair of British Leyland-and the gate house man would not let him in. A boss in an Marina? McGregor went on to the NCB after BSC. I used to go to the "Craig" now and again as part of my job in British Steel.
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Re: Ravenscraig

Postby Josef » Tue Aug 13, 2013 8:01 pm

moonbeam wrote:A true story re the "craig". Ian McGregor the chairman/boss of British Steel-a Scot educated at the old Tech now Strathclyde Uni-drove up to the "craig" early one morning in an old Austin Marina-he had been vice chair of British Leyland-and the gate house man would not let him in. A boss in an Marina? McGregor went on to the NCB after BSC. I used to go to the "Craig" now and again as part of my job in British Steel.


Now there was an interesting man. I wouldn't be too complimentary of him in any of the post-industrial parts of the UK if I were you, mind.
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Re: Ravenscraig

Postby Lawman » Tue Aug 13, 2013 9:10 pm

I'm due a visit to the site, I have been spurred on by reading this thread and the past vs present thread. Will try to get some inspiration and background for locations for some past/present shenanigans while it is still reasonably desolate ::):
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Re: Ravenscraig

Postby MacotheIsles » Wed Aug 14, 2013 7:00 pm

Not the best pic ever taken of the Late, Great Ravenscraig; but a reminder of of its integration with its environs. This was taken from Merry Street, Motherwell (main road with houses, et al) and was taken from outside The Cleekhiminn Pub, Jerviston in the 1970s. Ravenscraig washed right up to the boundary fence, not many metres from the surrounding houses here. When the works were first built there was a valley betwixt the road and the complex: as time progressed the valley was filled in with slag and such until there was no geographic interposition 'tween the two. It was a massive, bulging thing of a place.
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