BLUEMOMENT

Shard wrote:ICI's huge cooling tower at the then nylon plant in Ardeer collapsed one night in a gale. It was never rebuilt but production continued for a few years. Seems it wasn't needed.

I remember that well as my father and just about every other relation worked there at the time. The strange thing was it fell down and no one heard or felt a thing. I had an uncle who lived in Limekiln rd abot 300m from the site. he woke up in the morning looked out his front window and it was gone, shouted to his wife and kids and they all thought he had gone bonkers.

It was biggy, my uncles house was one of the ones on the far right looking onto the plant.

Is that the place where they had a H acid plant? My Dad looked after some spray driers on a colours plant at ICI Huddersfield and went up to Stevenson to help when they were commissioning their driers.

lady_stormrider wrote:
If you see the water vapour & smoke that Drax pushes out you may well be glad that Kip never got properly going.

Drax is a coal-fired station and yes, they can be pretty filthy. I used to fly gliders in Yorkshire, and on calm days we flew through a layer of trapped sulfurous stuff at abouy 1,200' or so. The whole sky turned yellowy-orange as you went through it and the smell was appalling. At least one powered aircraft called mayday as they went through it, thinking they'd caught fire.

I understand that it's rather better now, as the real nasties as scrubbed out of the flue gases before release.

aquaplane wrote:Is that the place where they had a H acid plant? My Dad looked after some spray driers on a colours plant at ICI Huddersfield and went up to Stevenson to help when they were commissioning their driers.

yes that was one of the many things they produced there. It was original Nobel industries. Emplyed 10,000 at one point.

ubergeekian wrote:

lady_stormrider wrote:
If you see the water vapour & smoke that Drax pushes out you may well be glad that Kip never got properly going.

Drax is a coal-fired station and yes, they can be pretty filthy. I used to fly gliders in Yorkshire, and on calm days we flew through a layer of trapped sulfurous stuff at abouy 1,200' or so. The whole sky turned yellowy-orange as you went through it and the smell was appalling. At least one powered aircraft called mayday as they went through it, thinking they'd caught fire.

I understand that it's rather better now, as the real nasties as scrubbed out of the flue gases before release.

They also burn a lot more pelletted wood now. At least Drax has adapted - I doubt if Inverkip could. But Drax, Eggborough and Ferrybridge still pump enough water vapour into the atmosphere to create a micro climate

Booby Trapper wrote:

Shard wrote:I remember that well as my father and just about every other relation worked there at the time.

My grandfather was a labourer at the blackpooder, laid off at the end of the war. Mother was a secretary at "The Factory" in the30s and early 40's, and my aunt did the canteen accounts for most of her working life.