Battersea Power Station Station Opens
I took these pictures at Battersea Power Station station today, after it opened.
Note.
- Access between platform and train is level.
- There are a pair of up and down escalators between the platforms and the ticket hall level at both ends of the station.
- Three more escalators take you to and from the surface.
- There are lifts at both ends of the platforms.
- The tracks appear to have been laid with slab track.
Two things surprised me.
The first was the number of escalators and lifts, make me suspect, that the station has been designed as a high capacity station.
There is also probably space to put another set of three escalators pointing the other way, at the other end of the intermediate level, away from the current set of three escalators, that lead to the surface.
The position of the station on Battersea Park Road. I had got the impression, it would be nearer the power station and the river. another set of escalators would explain my confusion.
This Google Map shows the wider Battersea site.
Note.
- This map is certainly a few months or even years old.
- Battersea Power Station is in the top-left corner of the map.
- There is a grey arrow, which is labelled Battersea Power Station Underground pointing to a site on the North side of Battersea Park Road.
- There are also two more grey arrows, which are labelled Battersea Power Station. Are these future entrances?
- Between the three arrows, is the massive station box, which in this image, hasn’t received its roof.
It looks to me, that what I saw, will be just a small fraction of the completed station.
Moorgate To Battersea Power Station With A Change At Kennington
These pictures tell the story of my journey from Moorgate station to Battersea Power Station station, with a change at Kennington station.
Note.
A Memory Of Jimmy Greaves
I have many memories of seeing Greaves play, but i some ways one memory stands out, as I’ve never seen anybody else do anything similar.
As a game was approaching ninety minutes, Greaves was preparing to take an inswinging corner from the right, as he often did in his latter years at Tottenham.
But the referee blew for time.
Greaves then picked up the ball and bounced it in front of himself. He then kicked it in to the middle, hit the penalty spot and as he’d applied so much spin, the ball rolled into the goal.
I have never seen another player, who controlled the ball as well as Greaves.
No Trains To And From Battersea Power Station Station Yet!
Looking at the trains through Goodge Street station at 06:25 and they’re all turning at Kennington station.
It could just be the information as the BBC has said trains are running!
Will Some Word Processing Software Object To Someone Typing Battersea Power Station Station?
It is quite likely, that someone will need to type “Battersea Power Station Station” into a document.
I’ve just tried to type it into Word and it objects!
When Does The First Train Run To Battersea Power Station Tomorrow?
This paragraph from Wikipedia describes the opening of the Victoria Line.
The line opened from Walthamstow Central to Highbury & Islington on 1 September 1968. There was no opening ceremony; instead the normal timetable started. The first train left Walthamstow Central for Highbury & Islington at 7:32 a.m. The line proved to be popular; more than 1,000 tickets were purchased at Highbury & Islington within its first hour of opening.
When I went to the opening of Whitechapel station in August, it was very much a low-key opening that had been flagged-up on the Internet. I wrote about it in Whitechapel Station – 23rd August 2021. The only thing out of the ordinary was extra staff and cups of teas and biscuits, that could be purchased.
Surely, that is the way to do it! No fuss! No long boring political speeches and no keeping the plebs out of the way of the Great and Good!
Everybody just gets on with using the station or the line.
But I can’t find any information on what is happening tomorrow about the opening of the Northern Line Extension to Battery Power Station station.
Does this mean that there’s a big do with all the Great and Good?
As with the Victoria Line in 1968, there must be people who want to use the new extension.
Kennington Green Head House – 19th September 2021
I took these pictures this morning.
Note.
- The actual head house is the lighter modern building in the corner of Kennington Green.
- The external works appear to be almost complete.
This certainly looks to be a more stylish building than some I’ve seen.
Kennington Park Head House – 19th September 2021
I took these pictures this morning.
Note.
- It looks like a garden is being created, where major works were done.
- The head house appears to be at the other end of the site away from the digger.
The head house doesn’t appear to have been completed yet.
Is Kennington Station Ready For The Extension?
As I passed through Kennington station, this morning, I took these pictures.
Note.
- Trains turning at Kennington in the loop are signed as not in service.
- Some of the signage has been updated.
- It does appear that there is some need for some decorators.
But the biggest problem is that if you need to change direction , at the station, it’s up one steep staircase and down another. The step-free route would mean changing at London Bridge or Waterloo, as these stations have the platforms between the tracks.
Could Drax Power Station Solve The Carbon Dioxide Shortage?
Drax Power station is the largest power station in the UK, with a 2.6 GW capacity when burning biomass.
It has also been a regular target of environmental activists complaining of the power station’s carbon dioxide and other emissions.
But could it be an unlikely saviour to replace the carbon dioxide that comes from two fertiliser plants run by the CF Industries, that have been shut down by high gas prices?
I wrote about the shortage in Food Shortages Looming After Factory Closures Hit Production.
Two and a half years ago I wrote Drax Becomes First Wood-Burning Power Plant To Capture Carbon, which was based on an article in the Financial Times.
I said this about the report.
This news has been treated in a more sensationalist way by other news media and sites, but the FT gives it very straight.
Drax power station is running an experiment, that removes a tonne of carbon dioxide a day.
But that is only the start of the process and most of it is released to the atmosphere.
They are currently, looking for profitable and environmentally-friendly ways of disposal, including selling it to beer manufacturers.
Didn’t we have a carbon-dioxide shortage a few months ago?
Now is probably a good time to dig a little deeper into what Drax is doing.
The Wikipedia entry for Drax power station has a section called Carbon Capture And Storage.
This is the last paragraph of the section.
In May 2018, Drax announced a new carbon capture and storage pilot scheme that it would undertake in conjunction with the Leeds-based firm, C-Capture. The focus of this pilot will be on capturing carbon post combustion from the biomass burners as opposed to the coal burners. Drax will invest £400,000 into the project. The company, C-Capture, is a side company of the Department of Chemistry established at the University of Leeds. This would yield about 1-tonne (1.1-ton) of CO2 stored per day from the process, which could be sold on for use in the drinks industry. The pilot scheme was launched in February 2019. The capture of carbon from biomas burners is known as Bio Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS).
Who are C-Capture?
Their web site is very informative and this page is called Our Story, which explains the project at Drax.
We designed, built, and installed a pilot plant and have been operating it on site, with real flue gas, since early 2019. The data gathered from this trial is feeding directly into the design process for a full-scale plant, with a target of 10,000 tonnes of CO2 per day captured from one of Drax’s four biomass fired boilers. A recent development has been the installation of equipment to bottle the captured CO2 to allow other organisations to test their own developing technologies with genuine Drax derived CO2.
That looks like a result to me for C-Capture.
This page is called Technology and has a very neat interactive guide to how the technology works.
Conclusion
This company has some very special technology, that has a lot of applications.
It is also significant that Drax and BP have taken a shareholding in C-Capture.
The Anonymous Widower 