Sunday History Photo / WA

Thanks Doug

Alan

I love stuff like this. Thanks for the effort mate.

Excellent work, Doug. I love the bit where they said it wasn't lack of maintenance etc, but simply 'old age'. From my reading, the governor failed to catch the machine when it suddenly went off load and the thing simply accelerated, until some components failed. Very lucky that no-one was hurt - either inside the station or in the surrounding areas. They have fairly sophisticated overspeed devices to shut the machines down in such an event. Maybe these devices had not been maintained?

Good article, Doug. Here's some additional info.

Politicalisation: The East Perth power station was abandoned and left to decay and to be vandalised for over 20 years.
Then the W.A. Labor Govt of the early 2000's decided it was too important an industrial heritage item to be allowed to go to ruin - so a plan was devised to restore it and develop it into a museum and art centre. The project cost was expected to be $500M.
A substantial sum of money was spent on refurbishing and cleaning up the buildings and the site.

At the W.A. State Election of 6th Sept 2008, the Liberal Govt of Colin Barnett was elected. Barnett immediately canned any further work (Feb 2009) and the entire project was placed on hold, because Barnett had different priorities.
The power station site and project has languished, unloved and unwanted by Barnett and his Govt since that date.

Recently, Barnett has decided to sell the entire site to the private sector in the Liberal Govts asset-selling programme designed to substantially reduce W.A.'s sizeable Govt debt (this debt was $3B under the previous Labor Govt, it is reported that the W.A. State debt level will reach $28B by 2016.)

Interested parties in the purchase of the power station range from a Jordanian businessman who wants to turn it into a world trade centre, to Kerry Stokes, who wants it for his private art collection.

East Perth Power Station buyers emerge

2. The power station originally produced power at 250 volts and 40 cycles (40Hz). The station and all of W.A. was converted to Australia-wide standardised 50 cycle power, in a major programme in the late 1940's.
There are possibly still a few 40 cycle electric motors left in use.

I acquired a V8 Cadillac-powered standby genset from the Metro Theatre that was demolished in 1970.
The genset was installed in 1939 and it produced 250V, 40 cycle power.

In the 1980's, the power supply for W.A. was reduced from 250V to the Australia-wide standardised 240V.
The actual definition of the supplied voltage is 240V, plus or minus 6%, measured and averaged over 5 mins.

3. There is a large plume of contaminated sandy soil deep under the power station, that stretches out under the Swan River.
This plume of contamination contains heavy oil hydrocarbons from the numerous decades of the power stations operations.
It is impossible to remediate this contaminated soil. However it is believed the contamination is stable, and it poses no immediate threat to health.

4. The East Perth power station sold distilled water for many decades, as a by-product of power generation.

5. The power station had it's own locomotive and coal trucks, to transport coal from the main WAGR line, and around the depot.

6. The generator explosion of June 1947 was sheeted home to inadequate maintenance due to a shortage of labour and spare parts during WW2.
It was the only accident of note in the entire history of the power station, which was unusual in an era where industrial accidents were common.

Here is an excellent website on the power station, its history, and the stories of the people who worked there.

East Perth Power Station history

Cheers, Ron.