Ravenscraig

[engineer]

regarding contamination, the area i worked on had relativley minor problems, certainly a lot less than the site i'm on just now (old explosives factory) there were however numerous underground structures and tunnels. all gone now.

my dad worked there for 30 years and i remember in the last few years he regularly brought home commemorative glasses that were issued for production records being broken. and my physics teacher (who worked as a chemist at ravenscraig) told me that as the workforce was reduced by a factor of 7, production increased by a factor of 7. he was adamant the plant made money, and some of the finest steel in europe.

when i worked in structural steel most of it bore stamps from USA, Germany, Austria and Finland

[Ally Doll]

I noticed some more on the Ravenscraig redevelopment on the BBC website today...

[Vladimir]

Just more of the same. Shops and houses, no real jobs being created here...

[swavmcav]

I was just reading Konstantin's recollection of growing up in Newarthill. Brought back memories.

When I was a nipper we lived in Jerveston just across from the miles of slag heaps that surrounded the Craig and we used to play footie on the pitches just across the road from them, next to the dog track (no longer there). I can't quite remember the name of that big hill up to Carfin now..Cleekamin Brae or something is it?

Anyway, on a winters night, you could feel the heat from the slag being tipped, it fair warmed you up, and it must have been about a mile away.

We moved to EK later on and my next recollection of the Craig was my higher Geography project on the steel industry. A friend of my aunt's worked there and he sneaked me in to the big blue shed.

That is the biggest building I have ever seen. It was massive from the outside and I think it was dug down deep into the ground on the inlside so it was even taller and god knows how long it was.

Anyway I got a good old unnoficial tour of the place. The continuous casting was amazing. I remember the heat and the noise and I think the guy let me work the machine !

I work occasionally with a steel company up in Mossend now finishing pipes for oil wells. Not a patch on what it used to be as the pipes are made elsewhere but still a fascinating industry.

Real mans work!

(I do the poofy IT stuff)

[onyirtodd]

Just more of the same. Shops and houses, no real jobs being created here...

and the relocated Motherwell College (so they can sell of the current site for housing)

[Vladimir]

That is the biggest building I have ever seen. It was massive from the outside and I think it was dug down deep into the ground on the inlside so it was even taller and god knows how long it was.

Anyway I got a good old unnoficial tour of the place. The continuous casting was amazing. I remember the heat and the noise and I think the guy let me work the machine !

I work occasionally with a steel company up in Mossend now finishing pipes for oil wells. Not a patch on what it used to be as the pipes are made elsewhere but still a fascinating industry.

Real mans work!

Its so much more 'heroic' than the buying and selling that seems to be all we do now. No more of the mighty industries of production, the kind of places so enormous and powerful that they really put you in your place as a human being, the individual really a just small part of the giant machine that is mankind and human civilisation... ...

[HollowHorn]

Its so much more 'heroic' than the buying and selling that seems to be all we do now. No more of the mighty industries of production, the kind of places so enormous and powerful that they really put you in your place as a human being, the individual really a just small part of the giant machine that is mankind and human civilisation... ...

With the best will in the world, Vlad, those places were hell on earth. Unless you have worn a Welder's helmet, weilded a Caulker's gun, lit a Burner's torch, baked in the heat of a Foundryman's furnace, 6 days out of 7, year in, year out, you will thankfuly never know the desperate boredom of heavy industry. Especially when your family & mortgage were dependent on it. Perhaps Lennon got it wrong when he said that "Woman is the nigger of the world"

[Vladimir]

With the best will in the world, Vlad, those places were hell on earth.

Hell on earth is the wasted communities they left behind, and the sad excuses for communities they are building on the basis of service sector retail jobs... I fail to see how working in a shop or office is any more interesting to be honest, sitting on your backside all day passing things through a checkout is really not interesting. Hell on earth they may have been, they still paid better than your average job and employed thousands rather then hundreds of people. This is the age of snobbery when it comes to industry, hostility to industry, people look down their noses no matter which line of production you happen to be in...

[onyirtodd]

................Perhaps Lennon got it wrong when he said that "Woman is the nigger of the world"

Wizzat Neil Lennon?

[HollowHorn]

I fail to see how working in a shop or office is any more interesting to be honest, sitting on your backside all day passing things through a checkout is really not interesting. Hell on earth they may have been, they still paid better than your average job and employed thousands rather then hundreds of people. This is the age of snobbery when it comes to industry, hostility to industry, people look down their noses no matter which line of production you happen to be in...

Grow up.

[Sir Roger DeLodgerley]

Vlad, you are Fred Kite.

[Vladimir]

Grow up.

Eh, why. Did I say something you didnt understand? If 'grow up' means to accept things in the pathetic way they are just like you probably do then I dont intend to! Oh, and lay off the personal criticisms, it makes you look like youve run out of ammunition...

[drjrd2000]

In all this discussion about Ravenscraig, has anybody got any photos of the railway unloading facility at the plant?

What I am after is a photo showing the wagons of iron ore from Hunterston being unloaded. These were run in block trains and each wagon could be rotated in some kind of tippler to unload the ore without being uncoupled from the rest of the train. Photos showing a tipplered wagon would be really useful for a modelling project.

Cheers,

James

[glasgowken]

These are the only wagon tipper photos I could find, the first is Comrie Smokeless fuel plant, and the other one is at Westwood crude oilworks, I couldn't find any of the tpper at Ravenscraig.






Incidently, there's a lot of decent Ravenscraig photos on Scran, and some video.

[Alycidon]

This is as close as I can find to some thing that looks like the discharge facility. I have seen a photograph of a model drum type machine but I cannot lay my hands on it

http://www.rowa-ag.ch/images/PDFs/ref_SedrunRotationskippen_e.pdf