I worked as a joiner in the Sulphuric Acid plant in 1962. What a dangerous place it was. Just walking around the plant your face itched through the atmosphere around. I once placed my bare hand on the top of a small wall and straight away I could feel something happening. My skin was changing to a yellow colour. I was new to the plant and one day with my labourer who had worked there for years, we were sent to work on the trenches. We had to inform the Process operators who blocked off the trench we had to work in. (The plant was very old and falling apart.) We heard a loud bang and my mate who recognised the sound said, “get out quick”. A pipe had exploded and the next thing sulphuric acid came pouring through the trench. These trenches were for the overspill of the acid and led to a chalk pit. No wonder they had a good pension scheme because anyone working there deserved every penny of it.
Far too clean, even the floor is shining and I never saw that, either is is just after construction of the new sulphuric plant before starting up or somewhere else. The old Sulphuric plant had its kilns outside. They would at times wander on their trunnions as the metal tyres warmed up or cooled. My Father in law, Tommy Wiley, was the dab hand at sending them back into position. A slight move on the adjusting screw of the trunnions (massive things) or a hose pipe with cooling water and he could move that Kiln wherever he wanted. He served his time at Blairs and worked at ICI from Blairs closing down, a fitter of the old school and I heard many stories about him when I went to ICI. The plant was not a favourite place to work for the maintenance squads, heavy dirty work, even the canteen was not as clean as the picture shown.
The air looks a bit clean for the ICI anhydrite plant, unless this was pre-production. We visited it and the nitric acid plant on the same day, from Teesside polytechnic, on the sulphuric acid plant it was like walking through a snowstorm.
I worked as a joiner in the Sulphuric Acid plant in 1962. What a dangerous place it was. Just walking around the plant your face itched through the atmosphere around. I once placed my bare hand on the top of a small wall and straight away I could feel something happening. My skin was changing to a yellow colour. I was new to the plant and one day with my labourer who had worked there for years, we were sent to work on the trenches. We had to inform the Process operators who blocked off the trench we had to work in. (The plant was very old and falling apart.) We heard a loud bang and my mate who recognised the sound said, “get out quick”. A pipe had exploded and the next thing sulphuric acid came pouring through the trench. These trenches were for the overspill of the acid and led to a chalk pit. No wonder they had a good pension scheme because anyone working there deserved every penny of it.
Far too clean, even the floor is shining and I never saw that, either is is just after construction of the new sulphuric plant before starting up or somewhere else. The old Sulphuric plant had its kilns outside. They would at times wander on their trunnions as the metal tyres warmed up or cooled. My Father in law, Tommy Wiley, was the dab hand at sending them back into position. A slight move on the adjusting screw of the trunnions (massive things) or a hose pipe with cooling water and he could move that Kiln wherever he wanted. He served his time at Blairs and worked at ICI from Blairs closing down, a fitter of the old school and I heard many stories about him when I went to ICI. The plant was not a favourite place to work for the maintenance squads, heavy dirty work, even the canteen was not as clean as the picture shown.
The air looks a bit clean for the ICI anhydrite plant, unless this was pre-production. We visited it and the nitric acid plant on the same day, from Teesside polytechnic, on the sulphuric acid plant it was like walking through a snowstorm.
Are these the rotary kilns which were used to heat anhydrite, so producing sulphur dioxide, for subsequent treatment in the contact process?