As for the pumping house, water treatment plant Kevin, it shows you have the same passion for history as me. The connection with the great transatlantic liners in particular is a fascinating link, that for me leads on to the great boat trains that fed those liners with their passengers. Also the first class passengers in their grand Edwardian, and later 1950s glamour clothes, arriving in their cars with mounds of luggage. All would be fed on the ship by the tons of produce loaded over the preceding days, and the gallons of water piped on from that water softening plant!!
Everything links perfectly, within an historic picture, that I could add to for hours, of grander times 
Indeed. I'm a bit gutted that I was unable to get any decent shots of the lovely triple expansion steam engine that they had.
it was a bit tight in the engine house and surrounded by people most of the time. Time to invest in that 10-24mm lens I've been promising myself, perhaps?
They reckoned that the steam engine was no less efficient than the electric pumps that have replaced it, but they did away with the staff, of course. A staff in shifts of 8 used to run the place. It must have been hard work when you think of the jobs to do:
1) oiling and running the steam engine
2) Stoking the boilers
3) Mining the lime and transferring it and the coke up an inclined plane to the kilns
4) Filling, firing and emptying the lime kilns to make quick lime.
5) Mixing the quick lime into slaked lime to feed the softening tanks
6) Periodically draining the softening tank, digging out the chalk slurry and refilling.
.. and that's just when things were going to plan.
They earned their living, I bet.
Kevin
Author
Topic: A few pictures for the nostalgists (Read 2143 times)