The Big Freeze

[capney]

A little more history for you, but history in my time.
I have been scanning a load of pictures I have taken from the days I was with the York Waterworks.
Now I can bore you all with some of the images. ;D

I think it was1982 when we had the big freeze at the waterworks. As you can imagine it is difficult to treat water if it`s frozen...

This first and second picture shows the River Ouse frozen bank to bank.
As far I know this is a rare occurance although it did happen last December.


Another frozen river, but not quite all the way across


Ice breaking and removal on the clarifiers.
Clarification is a essential part of the process and it was a 24 hour job to keep them clear as can see.
A very dangerous job as well with ice everywhere and some very deep tanks..




These large tanks are called Slow Sand Filters and are about 6 to 8 foot deep. Water enters at the top and filters through layers of sand, carbon and gravel. What we should be seeing in this pictures is loverly clear water. What we see is many inches of snow on top of ice.


I trust you are now suitably bored by my picture If not ...
I have plenty more, including some Petter pump engines DAG.

[kedigato]

I think I need to put a sweater on after looking at your pics, Robert. These are the sort of pics we need to see to cool us off in the upcoming heatwaves - that is, if we get any more really hot weather this year.

Seeing your pics taken at the waterworks, it does make me appreciate things that are otherwise taken for granted. A belated Thank You, Robert.

[capney]

Thanks Kedi
And it was a 24/7 business as well. I lost count on how many christmases and new years, bank hols and weekends I lost because of workload.
And the longest call out I had was for 25 Hours duration....
Not having a go of course, but I dont miss days like you see above.!

[nazimundo]

Interesting pictures Robert, Looking forward to the Petter engines

You say that you worked a 25 hour shift, that reminds me of a guy I worked with on the highways. It was winter and he had been out on a gritter, (this was before tachographs etc) and his time sheet said he had worked 25 hours in one day. When questioned about it he said that it was right because he had worked his dinner hour ;D ;D Don't know if he got paid for it though.

[capney]

A Vickers Petter two cylinder oil engine. Attached to a water pump.
This is one of the small ones. There was also a much larger four cylinder engine that after having a main bearing re faced it totally destoyed itself. I dont think I have a picture of the engine....shame.


In this picture there are two VP engines and in the back there is a two cylinder horizontal engine. What a delight to see them run. Smoky but sooo smooth and powerful.


Coming up to 1975/76 these two generating sets were installed to supply standby power.
Vee 8 Rolls Royce marine diesel engines adapted for the site.
Notice the smooth glazed tiles on the walls.
I can tell you it was noisy in there when those generators where outputting 1200 Amps and using 60 Galls of diesel fuel and hour !


These two are now removed from site and where last seen heading for somewhere in Africa.
I wish them well

I have flood pictures if you can take any more..

[kedigato]

Nice pics, Robert, thanks for showing and explaining as obviously I have no idea. This is a guy-type thing. ;D

Just one question though, the machines all look so clean and shiney. Were they, and the floors and walls, cleaned and polished before the pics were taken? Or were they not used anymore and were now in a museum?

Yes, please, more pics, always interesting. Thanks for sharing these.

[capney]

"cleaned and polished before the pics were taken? Or were they not used anymore and were now in a museum?"


What you see is how they were.
We had a proud team in those days and the treatment works boss was ex Navy as was a few of the shift men. It was a pleasure to work there and show round any visitors.
It all changed when the big boys took us over.