I often wondered about the sort of estblishment a chap like CFH would purchase staionary and typewriters from. Now I know, thanks CFH. I was in the market for some 1980’s graph paper 😀
I had the good fortune to wander round one of the turbine control rooms at Battersea power station back in 2010, I still kick myself for not taking a shed load of photos! The labelling in it made me chuckle a bit, various areas of London with an on/off lever next to them.
The control room on an offshore facility I visited recently (commissioned 1995) was not all that different excepy for flat screens on the cctv and computers nowadays.
some of the control room/ panels I have seen on my travels. 1st one is battersea [url=https://flic.kr/p/hfPLK9]Running on empty[/url] by Matthew Hampshire, on Flickr [url=https://flic.kr/p/VSwbwd]Cauldron control[/url] by Matthew Hampshire, on Flickr [url=https://flic.kr/p/SxqYTa]Loosing control[/url] by Matthew Hampshire, on Flickr
[url=https://flic.kr/p/HPTe7a]Tracking station 63, Can you hear me Madrid ? Can anybody hear me ?[/url] by Matthew Hampshire, on Flickr [url=https://flic.kr/p/Ct5srw]Shut it down[/url] by Matthew Hampshire, on Flickr [url=https://flic.kr/p/F3ksaV]Looks like No.4 is running hot[/url] by Matthew Hampshire, on Flickr [url=https://flic.kr/p/u7rkQx]Control central[/url] by Matthew Hampshire, on Flickr [url=https://flic.kr/p/KDJ3Cq]Dont touch anything. It could get messy[/url] by Matthew Hampshire, on Flickr [url=https://flic.kr/p/GkwiQi]Shutdown[/url] by Matthew Hampshire, on Flickr [url=https://flic.kr/p/BZWuvo]Graffiti busters[/url] by Matthew Hampshire, on Flickr [url=https://flic.kr/p/Byp138]Totally in control[/url] by Matthew Hampshire, on Flickr [url=https://flic.kr/p/DHwbEC]How to make steel[/url] by Matthew Hampshire, on Flickr [url=https://flic.kr/p/G9TXQu]Hello Nasty[/url] by Matthew Hampshire, on Flickr [url=https://flic.kr/p/rcCrPr]Loosing control[/url] by Matthew Hampshire, on Flickr [url=https://flic.kr/p/DN6r88]Live view[/url] by Matthew Hampshire, on Flickr [url=https://flic.kr/p/DzhWVr]Control freak[/url] by Matthew Hampshire, on Flickr [url=https://flic.kr/p/CjeLxQ]Just another control room[/url] by Matthew Hampshire, on Flickr [url=https://flic.kr/p/PkHVM9]Kraftwerk[/url] by Matthew Hampshire, on Flickr [url=https://flic.kr/p/NwcbrL]Powering what ?[/url] by Matthew Hampshire, on Flickr
Who writes all the operating manuals and procedures for that lot?
I bet 80% of the buttons and dials no one actually knows what they do, nor have been “pressed” since the day it/they were installed 🙂
OP you’re going to have to dispatch sofaking silently with a gentle karate chop to the side of the neck before pushing switchbackfrog over that handrail into the pirana tank.
What I find amazing is that so few people in the pictures had so many different dials to monitor. The advent of a digital screen with 20 or so traces has made things a lot easier!
What I find amazing is that so few people in the pictures had so many different dials to monitor. The advent of a digital screen with 20 or so traces has made things a lot easier
Look up Three Mile Island on Wikipedia to see what happens when you have complicated instrumentation.
I think they used dolls heads and sticky labels to Indicate stuff you might need to find in a hurry.
These there’s enough smarts (in theory) to only display what’s important at the time, and leave all the non critical stuff buried in some other displays you never get too. Back then an operator was trained to “sweep” across everything in their regular scan, but as it was all needles and dials, it was surprisingly easy to spot something off-nominal
That’s the control room for two reactors, what you can’t see is below where the photo was taken are the grid and site electrical switching panels. No idea what they were up to there, probably risk of trip work or load changing for refuelling.
If you think that’s a lot you should see the Reactor Shutdown Sequencing Equipment. Not so much a computer as banks and banks of reed relays. Hackproof though 😀