FERRYBRIDGE COOLING TOWER COLLAPSE

ADDED 16 DECEMBER 2005

Although not working at the power station I remember the day well.

When three of the eight cooling towers collapsed at Ferrybridge ‘C’ Power Station on 1st November 1965, I was working in the Goods Department at Pontefract Monkhill railway station as Chief Delivery Clerk. Someone in the passenger department gave us a shout that one of the cooling towers had collapsed and it could be quite clearly seen from the down platform where the Knottingley and Goole trains departed.

It was of particular interest to the Goods Department staff because several thousand tons of steel reinforcing rods had been received by rail at Monkhill station from Staveley steel works in Derbyshire before being delivered from Monkhill to Ferrybridge power station by road.

The driver, Harry Scaife, had been seconded from Leeds Hunslet Lane goods station with his lorry, which had a double bogie trailer for this work. The steel was transferred from the railway wagons to the lorry by a ten-ton electric crane for delivery – the crane driver being Bob Ponsonby from Ferrybridge.

I know that over the years your memory plays tricks with you, but now it only seems minutes before the other two cooling towers collapsed, but it may have been two or three hours.

Incidentally, thousands of tons of similar steel reinforcing rods were received at Monkhill Station a few years earlier, also from Staveley steel works, for delivery to Kellingley Colliery when the shafts were being sunk there.

Alan Rhodes
16 December 2005

<PREV | NEXT>