Making our way inside the towering structure of the turbine building we find ourselves in what must have been the buildings basement. Even with the large window openings gracing three of the walls, the entire floor was very dark and damp. Standing in the middle of the room was four thick concrete pillars, which must have been there to support the weight of the turbine above. Unlike most of the ruins we have come across, this one was very heavily marred with graffiti on almost every surface. Obviously the building is visited frequently by vandals, which is no surprise considering its proximity to the road. Even through the damage we could still make out remnants of its former use.

In that archive photo of the building I posted yesterday you could make out a pair of large pipes entering this building on this level. Here you can still see where one of those pipes once entered the building, through this large circular hole in the wall. The turbine that was installed in the building was of a mixed steam type, and had blading for both high and low pressure. The low pressure blading would be driven by exhaust steam from the stamp heads, while the high pressure blades must have been driven by steam coming directly from the boilers. I’m not sure if there were two separate pipes for these two types of steam or they used the same pipe for both. Either way the pipe that once came through this hole probably supplied one or the other.

Here is the second hole for that second pipe. This one sits along the ground, while the other runs across the ceiling. This pipe here either supplied steam in one form or another, or perhaps returned condensed steam back to the boilers. I’m not sure.

Whatever those pipes carried, at least one of them made their way up through the floor by means of this semi-circular opening. Above here would have sat the turbine, so this hole might have been for a steam pipe. Looking up through it you can make out the trapdoor to the roof, and the short section of ladder that once brought you there.

Moving around to the other side of the building we found the remains of ductwork making its way through the window to the outside. These ducts either brought fresh air into the turbine to cool it, or exhausted heat away from it. My guess is that it vented heat in order to keep the temperature inside the building somewhat bearable.

Along the backside of the building we found a great deal of electrical connectors lining the ceiling, as you can see here. To the left of these connectors you can see pipes that ran wire down from the turbine above. To the right you can see similar pipes along the wall that ran wires out to the connectors outside. Somewhere there should have been some type of transformer, either inside here or out back. I don’t know if these have anything to do with that.

Also sitting along the ceiling here is this interesting contraption. No idea what it does, but I assume it’s electrically related.

Here I drew up a small map of what this floor looked like. Its essentially an open floor plan, with a small door on the front (probably used for workers), the steel loading doors to the rear, and a collection of floor to ceiling windows along the walls. In a few spots this floor is open to the floor above, including a large area above what must have been a loading door of some type. This door and opening might have been how they got the turbine and related equipment up to the floor above. There is also an opening sitting above the large pillars that help up the turbine itself. This opening might have been for pieces of the turbine.

While most everything is labeled here there is one notable omission: stairs. Thats because we didn’t find any. People had to get up to the floor above, I just don’t know exactly how. My best guess is that the small opening on the north-east corner of the building (bottom right on the map) was for that staircase, possibly made of steel. It also could have risen up between those large pilings in the middle of the building – but that would bring someone right up under the turbine itself.

Lucky for us some enterprising people had built a stairway of their own up to the second level, as you see here. This hand made structure makes its way up the turbine pillars and up through a hole above. Throwing my camera behind my back I decide to take the rickety (and very unstable I might add) stairs up to the top myself. Check out what we find, tomorrow.