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Electricity Generating Station Cut-Aways

This page contains cut-away illustrations scanned from engineering college books from the 1930s and 1940s. The equipment shown would serve for any larger power station built from the 1920s on.

Fig___ Large power station cut-away




Fig___ Cut away of large three phase transformer




Fig___ Cut away of large three phase on-off switch


One point to remember is that prior to the later 1980s computers played very little part in industry, the power station would have a separate gauge for each routine measurement of temperature or pressure. The photograph below left shows the main control room at Battersea power station in the 1930s. Note there are no chairs and everyone is wearing a boiler suit. All the equipment was controlled manually from local control wheels and levers, most of the staff would be working on the equipment although at any given time there would be at least two engineers in the control room keeping an eye on the frequency and voltages being supplied. The photo below right dates from the early 1950s and shows the central control room (of the British Electricity Authority) for London and the South East, by this time 'instrumentation and control' systems had evolved, allowing staff to operate the various switches from the control room itself. The big dial on the wall to the right shows the frequency, by this time keeping that steady at 50 cycles per second was an essential part of the job.

Fig___ Large power station control room









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