Glasgow's Gasworks

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Re: Glasgow's Gasworks

Postby cell » Sat Mar 26, 2011 8:10 pm

Dalmarnock works was built by the City and Suburban Gas Company of Glasgow in 1843 and was remodelled and extended many times. It was taken over by the Glasgow Corporation in 1869 along with the Townhead and Tradeston works of the Glasgow Gas Light Company. In 1904 it was closed when the new Provan Works was put into operation, however it was reopened in 1911 to meet increasing demand before finally being closed in 1956. At its peak it produced 7.5 million cubic ft/day and had storage capacity of 4.26 million cubic ft.
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Re: Glasgow's Gasworks

Postby Lucky Poet » Sat Mar 26, 2011 11:16 pm

I love this thread. [insert cat with wool jpeg here]
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Re: Glasgow's Gasworks

Postby Josef » Sun Mar 27, 2011 12:41 am

Lucky Poet wrote:I love this thread. [insert cat with wool jpeg here]



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Re: Glasgow's Gasworks

Postby Mori » Mon Mar 28, 2011 2:51 am

Has anyone got any diagrams as to how these gas systems worked and how they supply the users ? do they still work or are they ready for the scrappy.

I always wonderd why the internal cylinder part of the gas holders varied in hieght.
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Re: Glasgow's Gasworks

Postby cell » Mon Mar 28, 2011 11:39 am

Thanks guys for the encouragement and I'm glad it's of interest as it gives me a reason to go digging around in the Mitchell and see bits of Glasgow I would not normally get to.

As far as I'm aware all three at Provan are still used regularly and I believe the one at Helen St is still available if required. If you see them up in the air that means they have gas in them. They are effectively a telescope that expands when pressurised gas is pumped in, this allows both the gas and the pressure to be stored. The older ones are supported by the external framework, the newer ones are self supporting by using spiral guides. The clever part seems to be the water/oil seal between the segments, with a single lift it's the same as having an upturned can in a bucket of water and blowing in air, but I'm not sure how the multiple lift ones at Provan achieve this seal between segments. It might involve a double skin on the lower segment however it is defiantly water/oil as you can see the dirty oily marks on the outside.

In general the use of gasholders has declined over the last few decades, with natural gas there is less of a need to store it as where you extract it from is effectively a massive store, however I presume it is advantage to keep a buffer in the system to deal with peaks in demand. Although they contain huge volumes of gas, they are not as dangerous as you think, because they don't have any air in them and because they are pressurused no air can get in, so they can't explode. If they were punctured they would deflate, but probably with a large flame at the hole ignited by whatever created the hole.

If you are interested wikipedia has quite a good description but they don't have a cross section through a multiple lift one, so if anyone knows, I'd be keen to hear how they work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_holder

There is even a German couple, Bernd and Hilla Becher, who as one of their favourite subjects for years took pictures of gas holders, they are well worth checking out if you are into your industrial photography, personally I could look at their blast furnaces all day.
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Re: Glasgow's Gasworks

Postby Doorstop » Mon Mar 28, 2011 12:40 pm

cell wrote:but I'm not sure how the multiple lift ones at Provan achieve this seal between segments. It might involve a double skin on the lower segment however it is defiantly water/oil as you can see the dirty oily marks on the outside.


Imagine an upturned can with an interlocking lip that is sitting in a tank of water and pipe the gas in.

As the gas pressure increases, the cup rises and then picks up the overturned lip of the next cylinder. The lips hold a channel of water and so forms a seal and so on with the next cylinder.

It is really much more complicated than that and mechanisms are in place to ensure that when it is coming down, the outer cylinders fall first.

There are counterweight systems to help move the cylinders and to increase pressure if needed.

Heaters to keep the whole thing warm in winter are also needed to prevent freezing of the water in the lips which would obviously break the seals.
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Re: Glasgow's Gasworks

Postby cell » Mon Mar 28, 2011 2:36 pm

Give that man a watch!
That makes perfect sense and a good explanation, I was forgetting that the whole of the pit below the holder is filled with water, therefore as long as the overturned lip of the next cylinder is submerged, you are going to make the seal when the first cylinder gets to it's maximum height. Simple theory exercised on a grand scale, those Victorians knew a thing or two when it came to engineering!
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Re: Glasgow's Gasworks

Postby the researcher » Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:44 pm

cell wrote:Researcher, it could have been either depending on where you were coming from and your route, Provan had two large gas holders with a capacity of 16 million cubic feet, I believe the plant had a daily production capacity of more than 30 million cubic feet, Tradeston had three holders with a total capacity of 7 million cubic feet and a daily plant capacity of 7.5 million cubic feet, so I imagine if either works were not operating at full capacity over a weekend, then the holders could easily be emptied by normal consumption over a couple of days.

Robert, I like the paper work, I have a reference to the Dalmuir, Kilpatrick and Bowling Gas Company situated at Old Kilpatrick which was bought by the Partick, Hillhead and Maryhill Gas Company in 1890. I wonder if this connected to your West Kilpatrick company?

Ben, that crane is indeed a cracker, I suppose the benefit is that is partially self balancing. Do you have any other Tradestone pictures?

we would have been travelling from shields road back to cupar fife but this was in the days before the kingston bridge was built(i think) after passing the gasometers we used to pass hogganfield loch then travel through stepps towards the kincardine bridge this was in the days before the present day motorway network was established there was a pull in either before or after stepps which had toilets which we always used think it was just before a stretch of dual carriage way or motorway its that long ago now its lost in the mists of time
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Re: Glasgow's Gasworks

Postby cell » Mon Apr 04, 2011 6:04 pm

Here are the locations of the Townhead and Partick Gas Works, nothing of which now remains. Both had very restricted locations as far as expansion was concerned and the Corporation closed them soon after they were taken over in 1869 in favour of developing other sites, Townhead was closed in 1874 and Partick in 1879. When it was first built in 1817, Townhead had one bench of 25 cast iron retorts with a capacity of 35000 cubic ft/day and one gas holder of 25000 cubic ft, which at that time was the largest in the UK. A second retort bench of the same size was installed in 1819 and additional gas holders erected, doubling the production to 70000 cubic ft/day with 100000 cubic ft storage. It is probable it would have been expanded and remodelled several more times before its closure.
Old map showing Townhead Works
http://maps.nls.uk/townplans/view/?sid=74416228&mid=glasgow_1_northeast&zoom=4&lat=5543&lon=5977&layers=B
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Old map showing Partick Works
http://maps.nls.uk/townplans/view/?sid=74415933&mid=glasgow_1_centrewest&zoom=3&lat=5101&lon=13432.5&layers=B
Current location on Google Maps
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Re: Glasgow's Gasworks

Postby Toaster » Wed Apr 06, 2011 11:19 am

Anyone interested in Glasgow's Gasworks should read about one of the city's rare terrorist incidents, which took out one of the (then three) Tradeston gasometers back in 1883. Given that there's a specific date, a good one for digging around in the Mitchell archives, perhaps.

http://www.theglasgowstory.com/image.php?inum=TGSA05247&remove=99&t=2
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Re: Glasgow's Gasworks

Postby cell » Wed Apr 06, 2011 1:50 pm

Toaster wrote:Anyone interested in Glasgow's Gasworks should read about one of the city's rare terrorist incidents, which took out one of the (then three) Tradeston gasometers back in 1883. Given that there's a specific date, a good one for digging around in the Mitchell archives, perhaps.

http://www.theglasgowstory.com/image.php?inum=TGSA05247&remove=99&t=2



Great find Toaster and a fascinating nugget of info, I wasn't aware that Irish Republicans had targeted Glasgow that long ago or even ever. Not sure why it would have exploded, perhaps it was a fixed structure and didn't deflate as described above or more likely because of the large volume of gas realesed at once forming an explosive mixtute outside the holder.
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Re: Glasgow's Gasworks

Postby RDR » Wed Apr 06, 2011 5:18 pm

It's amazing to see that there was a gasworks nearly opposite the oldest part of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.
I can't imagine it was particularly good for the hospital for it to be there, and given the oldest part of the hospital is 200 years old I would think the hospital was there before the gasworks.
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Re: Glasgow's Gasworks

Postby cell » Fri Apr 15, 2011 11:04 am

I believe the gas holder at Helen Street was erected in 1949 to help supply the new Hillington Industrial estate, it had a booster station to maintain pressure and was remotely controlled from the Tradeston works. Capacity was 5 million cubic ft but no gas was actually produced at this site. My picture shows the ridged free standing section with the holder in the down position and the booster station visible to the right.
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Re: Glasgow's Gasworks

Postby cell » Tue Apr 19, 2011 5:59 pm

Dave has put together some really good past present pictures of the Tradeston Gas Works, if you’ve not seen them check them out. http://www.hiddenglasgow.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5736&start=825#p232251
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Re: Glasgow's Gasworks

Postby excoriate » Tue Apr 26, 2011 12:38 pm

This thread is fascinating!
I love the old gasworks industry and even managed to involve it in my dissertation for an Msc.

You may not be aware, but there is a gasworks museum in Biggar. The last (I believe?) intact gasworks in Scotland?
I've been down once, when they had the boilers lit. Obviously as it supplied only Biggar and the few rural homes in the area it is tiny. But it still has the feel of being something impressive.

The thing that worries me about the gasworks, is where they have been covered over and developed as housing. The stuff these places churned out as waste products is horrific!
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