Railyard: (Satellite and Satellite, once again, the brownland of a rail yard is now used by cleanup companies)
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| Russ Hawkins posted That is a power plant right across the river, right at — 2 mile south of the arch in ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI. It is still there, it had 24 boilers, that provided steam to a common steam header, - - > > that went to 6 turbine generators. All of those boilers and turbine generators made - on a good day - 240 Megawatts. The picture was taken in 1953. Tim Stehle: Multiple boilers feeding a common "low pressure" header in early days was fairly common. Esp as boiler tube metallurgy was still developing, so loss of a boiler wasn't a huge hit on capacity, as Boilers were often "under rated". If 24 truly were common headered to 6 units, turbines and FW were clearly simple cycle. Of course, dedicated FW heating to improve efficiency in a 24 -to-6 arrangement would be complicated - extraction stage steam quality from many identical units at different loads would not provide a stable FW inlet temperatures for distant boilers. All of that said, one header could have been used but normally segregated between groups of four boilers to feed two units, and the ties lines opened only when "emergent". Plus process improvements in later years could be hidden behind the brick. If not for plant like this, "Chinese Laundries" might still be using scrub boards and clothes lines 🙂 All in all, a nice post and source of wonder on how we got to today from the initial plant facilities such as this. |
John P. Kohlberg posted two photos with the comment: "ICG(GM&O(M&O)) Tolson Yard - East St. Louis, Ill., circa 1982, Long Photography Kodachrome. Cahokia Power Plant looming in the foreground."
Darion Fox: Do you have anymore of that yard? [Responses with images below.]
John P. Kohlberg shared
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| John commented on Darion's comment |
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| John commented on Darion's comment |
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| Dennis DeBruler commented on Darion's comment I included the Alton & Southern because it reminded me that the Tolson Yard was originally just M&O. The GM&O merger of 1947 has yet to be reflected on the map. 1949 Cahokia Quadrangle @ 1:24,000 |
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| stltoday, 1947, Post-Dispatch file photo [In the center is the MacArthur Bridge.] |
A photo showing lighter smoke coming out of the stacks.
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Joel Flickr, 2009, License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA)Cahokia Power PlantThis monolithic coal powerplant was completed in 1939 and deactivated in the 1970's. Since this is such an imposing landmark, I'm sure some awesome photographs have been taken of this structure, this is not one of them. Lol.
This was taken from the Missouri side of the Mississippi River looking across into Illinois. Apparently the property is still being used by a river transportation company. I'd love to take a look inside. |
I've seen the same text on multiple web sites. I believe this is the source of the description.
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| BuiltStLouis [This page has several more photos] The power plant circa 1954. Scan from "St. Louis Views", Will Shelly, publisher. "The Union Electric-operated plant first came online in 1923; it was built in stages and completed in 1939. Designed to burn Illinois coal, it was the largest power plant in the Mississippi Valley when it opened. Its boilers consumed a ton of coal every 30 seconds, and over 600 million gallons of water a day. Underwater cables fed the electricity produced to the thriving city across the river. The plant later converted to oil burning. "By 1976 the plant had been replaced by newer facilities and was decommissioned. Union Electric sold off the property in 1979. Extensive asbestos insulation used in its construction remained a problem for at least a decade, acerbated by careless salvage work. "The site today is home to Cahokia Marine Services, a multi-modal transportation business run by SLAY Industries; it functions as a bulk commodity transfer site, loading river barges. The site offers a large volume of indoor storage, presumably referring to the power plant building." |
I was not able to find the rated megawatt capacity of this plant. I did find some details about its coal consumption.
Constructed in stages between 1923 and 1926, Cahokia was the largest electrical power plant in the Midwest upon its completion and was the first designed to burn low-grade Illinois coal in pulverized form....The Cahokia Power Plant was equipped with fourteen boilers and consumed coal at the rate of one ton every 30 seconds. This represented seventy-six carloads of coal every day and 1,250,000 tons of coal per year. After arriving at the plant in train cars, the coal was dumped, run through a drier, and then crushed into a fine, pulverized powder that was blown into the boilers (East St. Louis Daily Journal 30 November 1924, sec. 4, p. 1, col. 5; 11 May 1930 p.10D, col. 8; Federal Writers’ Project 1983:492). Much of the coal consumed at the power plant came from a company-owned strip mine located outside of Freeburg in St. Clair County (Department of Mines and Minerals 1929:166, 170).6 [IllinoisArchaeology]
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| JakubStepanovic, this is one of many photos of the St. Louis area. Near the end are industrial ruin photos. |
I don't see petcoke in this list, so I guess the black piles in the satellite image are coal instead of petcoke.
Cahokia Marine Service:-84-acre intermodal river terminal in Sauget, Illinois-Bulk liquid and dry products transferred in and out-Barge, rail & truck enabled-Products include coal, copper, steel cement & iron-32,000 feet of railroad track with 6 locomotives-Served by BNSF, CSX, Gateway Western/KCS & UP railroads-5 million gallons liquid storage-Drum and distribute chlorobenzene products
This photo confirms what I saw in a 3D Satellite image, they unload barges as well as load them. They also handle tanker barges. I'm presume that these silos handle cement. The powerplant building is now used as a warehouse. The coal goes to trucks, not rail.
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| Cahokia Marine Terminal, Mar 2021 |
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