Naphthalene

[berger]

hi col i thought i would just put these on from work many years ago, oven tops , pushing an oven , by products where the first gas coolers are and the temp of the gas dropped from mid 90's c  to about 35- 40c and the majority of by products drop out and where most of the naphthalene dropped out , my mate opening a big gas valve , a couple of part of my job that i had for years before going in the stores, the benzole plant, overhead low pressure steam pipe leaking forming the ice and some steps next to the benzole and creosote oil coolers, we had to go up the steps.

[muskrat]

G'day Bergs.
I did my apprenticeship at Australian Gas Light Co. We had 4 catalytic refining plants, serviced every year, one at a time for 3 months each. One of my jobs was to clean the filters (16" diameter x 24" long). The lids were 1"steel flange held by 8 x 3/4" bolts. The whole plant is supposed to be purged with air. Working 3 stories up on the Naphtha gas line I had 7 of the bolts out and loosened the last to have the lid pop open. Naphtha gas is heavier than air and colourless (looks like a heat haze)and extremely volatile. Just 10' below me was the welders doing repairs! I jumped on the lid and screamed STOP. Lucky they did, I could have been the first kid in space 
Cheers

[berger]

Musky who would have thought that the moth balls in your mums drawers started off as something so violent and dangerous . a fitter on the benzole plant took four bolts out of a 2 inch pipe flange for us to steam it out , the pipe sucked the nasty non condensing gasses from the job i think they called it devil gas, there is a name for it but i can't remember . he  fell to his death after breathing in the odourless and colourless vapers. back in those days the foreman fitter told him to go and look at the job, but in those days it meant do it. the plant was supposed to be shut down for this to be done but it was still live, the union did a very good job of getting his wife and children looked after, [ he was only early 30's and a great chap ] but there was much emphasis on the sentence said of looking at the job so the coal board wasn't at fault. [ in those days it was a given thing " look at the job "was do it ]

[Colsbeeza]

Bergs, What memories. My first was just one week after I left school, start of 1969. A 9-day strike started and we staff (trainee engineers included) had to operate the Coke Ovens. I was given Hot Car Driver. There was about 5 broom handles of various lengths leaning in a corner. I was shown how to use them to override  limit switches (which badly needed adjustment). On my third Night Shift, I went to sleep. The Foreman yelled out and I saw a full oven full of coke at one end of the hot car. Delay of two hours as everybody had to shovel the spillage to clear the track. I was even less popular when I did the same later in the shift. Somehow I kept my job. As a senior trainee a few years later I graduated to Ram Driver. That was the cream job. Years after retirement, wifey was ironing one of my old shirts and the smell of tar drew me back with a tear of nostalgia.

[Joolstacho]

No wonder many of the men died young eh?
About the most dangerous hazard I had to encounter was glimpses of models changing clothes in the photographers changing rooms.
 

[Rex]

Pffft. Napthalene and explosions? You boys ought to try ship-building for a dangerous job back then..

[berger]

Col a few more, i wanted to be a ram driver but you had to do oven top work and wait your turn to come down which could take lots of years and you went onto the next down stairs job so it wasn't a given i would be on the ram, anyway a pic of a fitters favourite spanner and some filthy workers near my job. small steam pumps in the benzole yard sump, the pump at the top was super quiet and cute i wanted to take it home. Benzole plant vessels ,pre heaters etc, pusher car 150tons with a 5 ton ram head, if an oven stuck and you didn't get the ram beam out quickly it would buckle in the 1400c heat and if the operator kept reversing it out and putting it back in it could push the oven walls in so it was down to manual shovel work to dig loads of coke out, { i did it and it was BAD } another pic of the steps without ice , in the background are two big torpedo tanks that used to be used for butane that was added to the coal gas in pre north sea gas days, these thanks were later moved to the benzole yard to store benzole that went out to be refined.  a pic of the plant on a non pollution day there must have been a visit, in the foreground are the farmers fields where i rode my field bikes until they built houses. Col i remember the limit switches and the cheating methods and i also nearly had an oven in the track when i was a 16 year old trainee, one day the operator was snoozing and i caught the oven and set off to the quencher , it started to rain and i had got some speed up , when i came to brake the multi ton car started skidding and didn't stop until i hit the buffers at the back of the quencher, the operator and me nearly went through the window and we had to check everything out. gripping nostalgia ,

[berger]

i hope you like pics a few more, grease on the coal charger car on fire on nights, catching an oven with the quencher in the background, coke guide cage doing its job helping the coke into the car,- the one i hit the buffers with , pusher ram beam just visible after an oven had been successfully pushed out, the big electric driven pump that pumped liquor to the ovens so the gas could be cooled when it directly left the ovens into the collection box and brought the 1400 c down to 90 - 100c , this pump at thousands of revs was ear splitting noisy , the one next to it was steam driven and noisier. and lastly a sunny day with a quencher throwing out the water vapour and my old local pub the hunloke arms at the far right the flare stack is lit burning off excess gas, after north sea was introduced we just supplied 5 local factories with gas.

[Colsbeeza]

Great to see those photos Bergs. We were not allowed to have cameras on site. Somehow we got conditioned to that and never took opportunities later on to get photos, so I never got any. 
Another memory (or should I say nightmare) was my second shift as lidman. I had to sweep the surplus coal back into the charging holes, then push the lids back over the holes and seal them with a wet mix of clay. As the trainees were not experienced, the oven tops were so smoky you could hardly see your hand in front of your face. One night, I could hear the charging car coming out from the coal bunker to fill an oven. They had chains hanging off the axles to hit a steel plate like cymbal. I panicked and ran blindly and over several open holes, tripped over a rail line, got up and kept running. A man could easily fall down one of those holes and a few did over the years. It was a very dangerous place. I could tell you some horror stories. I was very glad to end my shift and ride home on my 1957 BSA A7. I was wondering how I could get some BSA stuff into that.! 
Col

[Joolstacho]

we got photos hehe heh heh.

[berger]

jools you durty old maan , COL a bloke i worked with used to run across the top of the mushroom lids in his clogs, we had nightmares and death as well, one guy fell in and died of the burns after being pulled out by his mate,  and another got trapped between the guide and the ovens but the safety limit flexible rod was not working. when i started i thought the lids were made of pot because of the grout, then i operated the charger car controls wrong and pushed the mushroom straight down onto the lid, those hydraulics were very powerful as hydraulics are! , when i was in the stores years later i found out how heavy those lids were to pick up  .  dragging them about on the oven tops with a well made brush and head was pretty easy, also you have just brought that clanging sound back to me and the pusher had a sound with the chains as well, the guide was an electrical operated siren and lights and so was the coke car. when i trained on the sulphuric acid plant it was just after a chap fell in an open topped vat full of concentrated acid, there were no lids on them but you had to take samples off of old wooden steps, on the funny side the burner house was so nice and hot the operators cut out the insides of the lockers out and brewed strong spirits in them , one chap got the sack for stealing the recently introduced plastic dustbins to make vast amounts of brew in his house, he was a mad head called Reg who lived on barley wine, oh my goodness it's all coming back now...one last one is the burner house had platinum grids in the vessels and they were worth thousands of pounds, some lads on nights took all the double nutted 1 inch bolts out of a 3ft diameter flange and pinched the platinum and scrapped it, there was hell to pay then and the management had the nuts spot welded , i heard years later no one was found guilty but a few lads had  a jolly good time in  Antigua for their  2 weeks holidays  ps the photos i have about a 100 were taken on sat/ sun when no management and nights and christmas , here is one or two in the fitters cabin with the asbestos roof and a pot bellied stove for heat  having a laugh with my ostrich egg i had given to me when i was 9 years old. yes that's me in the scarf  [ 19 years old] it was freezing that night hence the ice on the steps in other pics, thankyou for listening have a nice day.

[Colsbeeza]

Bergs You looked so young innocent. What happened????

[berger]

Col maybe i look a bit younger than you in your forum pic . i think 7 days a week on shifts /Christmases / new years / bank holidays on 8/ 10 /12 /16 hour shifts made me a rebel without a cause, most lads my age went to the pit for 5 days a week and overtime IF they wanted it, we HAD to cover the job when  people were on holiday or sick. all this for 2/3rds a pit mans wage. i think i stuck at it because i was a 10 minute walk away or 3rd gear in the car ,,,,, when i had to borrow things from work. part of my shed bench is a big lump of hardwood i borrowed when i was 17