Steel rails for trains have been produced in workington for over 125yrs, those rails got ALL over the world, from the western fronteirs of america/canada/alaska, to jungles of south america, japan, franceland (
), eastern europe, bits of northern africa!
Production ceased permantly earlier this year/end of last year with the loss of the final 250jobs at the rail rolling plant.
The proccess loosely goes...
Blooms> Furnace to make em soft> Initial rollers> Bit of Cooling> more rolling> more rolling>dragged onto cooling racks and constantly turned to prevent warping> sent thru some fancy temporing/hardening/straightening/checking machines> sent to railstock> picked up and put on the back of massive long trains, which I've literally seen hundreds of over the years
Some more history can be found here...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cumbria/features/general/steel_workington/index.shtml
banklands.com is for sale | www.brandforce.com
ONTO THE EXPLORE!!!
Visited with Little Mike and Dempsey,
was an UBER covert mission, taking over 2hrs just to gain access to the good bits! Numerous close encounters with security where we had to play statues And some pure comedy moments, a quality explore if ever there was one!!!
Heres an aerial shot, showing the site we visited to the bottom right, and the tiny proportion that we got around in FOUR HOURS!!!
first glimpse! the furnace this bit, you can get underneath it (done in a previous explore back in june)
LOL
more of that loverly furnace
Quick looks down the back, a monster of a crane that you can walk inside!
part of F-Mill, the ONLY bit thats been removed from site, the rest is immaculate and COMPLETE! most of it still switched on aswell, conveyors, bloom runners, rollers the freaking lot!
This shot pretty much shows half way up the 'cathedral' defanatly the largest single structure/shed i've ever been in, its stupid tall, with about a dozen cranes in it
:
My favorite shot of not only the explore, but the entire 'northern cheese' roadtrip
unedited
Littlemike with some spare bloom tuggin cables!
random shot taken from when we were lurking away from security (less than 10m away!), I liked it
a big ass scale for weighing a railway wagon that I think was being filled with swarf from the massive pit underneath the big claw things!
more lurking going on...
finally a group shot that don't look gash!
A top weekend fellas! And corus was defo the jewel of the weekend, defo better than the inverkip diaster
), eastern europe, bits of northern africa!Production ceased permantly earlier this year/end of last year with the loss of the final 250jobs at the rail rolling plant.
The proccess loosely goes...
Blooms> Furnace to make em soft> Initial rollers> Bit of Cooling> more rolling> more rolling>dragged onto cooling racks and constantly turned to prevent warping> sent thru some fancy temporing/hardening/straightening/checking machines> sent to railstock> picked up and put on the back of massive long trains, which I've literally seen hundreds of over the years
Some more history can be found here...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cumbria/features/general/steel_workington/index.shtml
banklands.com is for sale | www.brandforce.com
ONTO THE EXPLORE!!!
Visited with Little Mike and Dempsey,
was an UBER covert mission, taking over 2hrs just to gain access to the good bits! Numerous close encounters with security where we had to play statues
And some pure comedy moments, a quality explore if ever there was one!!!
Heres an aerial shot, showing the site we visited to the bottom right, and the tiny proportion that we got around in FOUR HOURS!!!
first glimpse! the furnace this bit, you can get underneath it (done in a previous explore back in june)
LOL
more of that loverly furnace
Quick looks down the back, a monster of a crane that you can walk inside!
part of F-Mill, the ONLY bit thats been removed from site, the rest is immaculate and COMPLETE! most of it still switched on aswell, conveyors, bloom runners, rollers the freaking lot!
This shot pretty much shows half way up the 'cathedral' defanatly the largest single structure/shed i've ever been in, its stupid tall, with about a dozen cranes in it
:
My favorite shot of not only the explore, but the entire 'northern cheese' roadtrip
unedited
Littlemike with some spare bloom tuggin cables!
random shot taken from when we were lurking away from security (less than 10m away!), I liked it
a big ass scale for weighing a railway wagon that I think was being filled with swarf from the massive pit underneath the big claw things!
more lurking going on...
finally a group shot that don't look gash!
A top weekend fellas! And corus was defo the jewel of the weekend, defo better than the inverkip diaster
Last edited by a moderator:
