Monticello, IN: Monon and Pennsy Depots

Monon: (Satellite, it was in the northbound lanes. The steet jogged around it.)

Pennsy: (Satellite, it was in the northeast quadrant of the intersection of the Monon tracks and Foster St.)

Both depots are long gone. So far, I have photos for just the Monon depot. The Pennsy route is now part of the TP&W. The Monon route is now abandoned. It used to do street running up a median in Railroad Street.

1962 Monticello South Quad @ 24,000

We are interested in the two rectangles labeled "Sta" in the above topo map. The Pennsy depot along Foster Street makes sense. The one north of Harrison Street on Railroad Street does not make sense. There is not enough room between the tracks and the northbound lanes for a depot. So I found an historical aerial photo.

EarthExplorer: May 29, 1960 @ 18,000, AR1VWN000020216

The aerial shows that the northbound lanes jogged east around the depot. In fact, the slanted driveway out of this parking lot is probably part of the old street's route around the depot.

Satellite

Model Railroader magazine posted
Linn Westcott's contributions to the railroad hobby were considerable, especially his photography, where his all-encompassing passions are visible in the scores of 8 x 10 prints that remain in the library. 
https://cs.trains.com/.../linn-westcott-knew-his-way...
"A pair of F3s is plenty of power for the Tippecanoe's five cars. Linn H. Westcott photo"

I like this photo because it shows that express freight was an important part of a railroad's passenger train service. 

Photo via trains
"Monon train 11 approaches Monticello, Ind., on a cold morning in December 1950. Linn H. Westcott photo"

Freemont, NE: 1895+1955 130mw Lon D. Wright Power Plant

(Satellite)

"Unit 6: 16.5 MW (1957), Unit 7: 22.0 MW (1963), Unit 8: 91.5 MW (1976)" [gem]

Street View

remontne-generation
The first five units were in their downtown plant, which was retired in 1976. "Units 6 and 7 were designed with natural gas as the primary fuel and coal as the backup fuel. Coal is the primary fuel for Unit 8, with natural gas as a supplemental fuel. With the gas shortage occurring in mid-1970, the operation has been using coal as primary fuel, with natural gas and propane used only for startup and flame stabilization."

fremontne-plant
"When number 6 and 7 boilers operate at full capacity, they can convert 50,000 gallons of water per hour into steam at a pressure of 900 pounds per square inch and at a temperature of 910 degrees. At full load capacity the No. 8 boiler can convert 81,000 gallons of water per hour into steam at a pressure of 1,800 pounds per square inch and at a temperature of 1005 degrees."

Wheelabrator-spray-dryer-absorbers
This was added in 2015 to remove up to 90% of the SO2.

power-eng, Photo courtesy: Amec Foster Wheeler
They added equipment to Unit 8 in 2016 to comply with "the EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule. The upgrade included a new pulse jet fabric filter, along with a spray dryer absorber and an activated carbon injection system."

Oct 27, 2021: FremontTribune [paycount 1]
By Dec 31, 2023, they are required to add improved ash handling equipment to Unit 8 because of an EPA rule.
[I presume that the metallic stuff in this photo is pollution abatement equipment.]

Caleb Johnson posted two photos with the comment: "Couple shots of our largest unit with the turbine house off."

Bill Rymers: These units were made to last except for cracks the control valves under the hp was a bear to remove,lots of beers were sweated out on outages.

Scott Laugel: Love the old Turbines and Generators. I see the hydrogen coolers sticking up. Our GE Generator was bigger but configured similarly. The Hp bowl and steam governor are old school.

1, cropped

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Manitowoc, WI: Wisconsin Central Depot and Freight House

(Satellite, as with most passenger facilities in the USA, the buildings and tracks are long gone)

I put a blue rectangle around the depot.

1954 Manitowoc Quad @ 24,000

The roundhouse would be out-of-frame to the lower left.

StoryMaps, image clicked

These passenger facilities west of 10th Street explain why Wisconsin Central ferries had to go so far upriver.

Dennis DeBruler-ferry

And the depot, ferry and freight house explain why WC had tracks across the peninsula.

Dennis DeBruler-bridge

A purpose of  these notes is to save this link to a nice collection of historic photos of Manitowoc, WI.

StoryMaps

Delphi, IN: Andersons Grain Elevator Fire and Bin Collapse

(Satellite)

There were no injuries and the incedents were unrelated. Andersons had a bad day on Sep 19, 2022. In the morning they had a fire and in the afternoon a bin collapsed.

James Hall, Aug 2022

Delphi Fire Department posted six photos with the comment: "Delphi Fire, Camden Fire, Flora Fire, Rockfield Fire, Burrows Fire, Carroll County EMA, and Carroll County EMS responded to a fire at Anderson Grain this morning just after 640am. Fire was discovered in a large filter canister, the associated conveyors, and a connected storage bin. Firefighters were on the scene for about three hours working to gain access to the fire and to ensure there was no risk of fire spread to the rest of the facility."

Source: wishTV

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In the group of six bins, it is the northern most that collapsed. I think that the fire was east of the group of two bins.

Satellite

Delphi Fire Department posted five photos with the comment: "Delphi Fire, Camden Fire, Carroll County EMA, and Carroll County EMS are currently on the scene of a major grain bin collapse at the Anderson Grain facility in Delphi. All employees are accounted for and no injuries are reported. No further information is available at this time."

The Farmer's Life shared with the comment: "Bin down at our local facility. Seems nobody was hurt which is great. They also had a fire early this morning. Pure speculation on my part, but the fire was at the cob mill which is pretty far away from this bin and I assume they are not connected. I can't say. I haul there, but I don't work there. Double whammy of a day though. And just before harvest. Bin next door not looking too great either. Then there's all the conveyors and attached structures."

[I wonder what they do with cobs.]

Jeffrey Anderson: No the fire is not connected. My family owns the Anderson Grain Co., the bin that collapsed was a fairly new bin. We are in contact with the constructor to find out exactly what caused this incident.

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It must have been holding wheat because soybeans and corn have yet to be harvested this year.

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[It looks like the bin next to it is compromised. Hopefully, they can quickly repair the conveyor that feeds the three bins in the other row.]

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The facility did not exist on a 1962 topo map. By 1979 they built the concrete silos and the group of six bins. And they had connections to both the N&W/Wabash and L&N/Monon.

1979 Delphi Quad @ 24,000

Today they would have connections to the NS and CSX if CSX had not abandoned their route.

Since 1979, they have added a couple more bins, two ground piles and a long building. The long building is in the lower-left corner next to their railyard.

Satellite

NS had three locomotives parked at the facility when the satellite passed overhead. I wonder if they had just finished putting cuts of empty cars into the elevator's yard or if they are waiting to put some cuts together to create a loaded train.

Satellite

Andersons, Accessed Sep 21, 2022
"Due to a bin collapse at our Delphi facility on September 19, the facility is currently closed for deliveries. Please contact your Merchant at our Clymers facility at 574-737-2480 if you have any questions. We will continue to post updates here as more information becomes available. Thank you for your patience during the beginning of a busy harvest season while we focus on assessing the damage and ensuring the safety of the site."

The bin had 500,000 bushels of wheat. [newagtalk]

Update: On Sep 27, 2022, The Farmer's Life posted the comment:

Update on the bin collapse locally. What we heard today was at this time they don't plan on taking any grain this fall. If they can catch the tail end of harvest they'll be happy. From what I can gather their electrical is compromised, the two main dump pits can't be used, and possibly can't even dry corn anyway. So that's 9,000,000+ bushels currently out of commission. 

Probably won't affect our personal harvest logistics too severely, but will have to see how this backs up traffic at other locations once everyone is full bore in the fields. We store a lot of our crop on the farm, and all the popcorn goes to Weaver from the field. We'll still have 50-60 truckloads that will be delivered during harvest though. Add to that INDOT has some portion of about every highway in the area shut down. Could be fun!

Spring City, 1900 TN: Museum/L&N Depot and TVA Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, 2016 1.15gw Unit 2

Depot: (Satellite)

Power Plant: (Satellite)

Jim Pearson Photography posted

Norfolk Southern 189 Autorack train heads south at past the NS CNO&TP Third District as they pass the old depot in downtown Spring City, Tennessee on April 28th, 2024.

According to https://theclio.com website: The restored railroad depot was built In 1900 by the Queen and Crescent Railroad Company that extended out of Cincinnati Ohio built for the purposes of extending travel and commerce to the south. 

In addition to it's function of providing access to the southern areas of the United States, the Depot eventually became a museum that chronicled the story of a group of female rebels dubbed "The Rhea County Spartans." During the course of the Civil War these Women Served as spies for the Confederate Army. However they were eventually caught and as a result of their actions they were arrested and sent 54 miles to the Market Street in Chattanooga. It was there that they were forced to swear allegiance to the Union before being sent back home on foot.

Today it houses the Spring City History Museum.

Tech Info: DJI Mavic 3 Classic Drone, RAW, 24mm, f/2.8, 1/2000, ISO 100.

https://fineartamerica.com/.../norfolk-southern-189...

TVA posted
Columns of water vapor rise from both cooling towers at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant near Spring City, TN, in this gorgeous photo taken from one of our helicopters with the Tennessee River in the foreground.
Watts Bar Nuclear Plant provides nearly 2,300 megawatts of carbon-free energy, enough for 1.2 million homes.

Oct 19, 2016: TVA-news
Watts Bar Unit 2 Complete and Commercial
TVA's seventh operating nuclear reactor took 20 years and $4.7b to build. It was completed on budget. 
Their timeline of the construction has quite a few photos.

 

Scene in Rhea County posted
Watts Bar Nuclear Plant during construction (1970s)
Photos courtesy of Charles Morgan
Ted Lyons shared

Bob Ciminel posted
Plants where I've worked. Watts Bar, TVA, Spring City, TN

bechtel
Unit 2 was delayed between 1985 and 2007 because of a projected decrease in demand. The plant was 60% done in 1985.

The steam generator had to be replaced after just 8 years of service? Evidently the plant was not properly "mothballed" in 1985. [powermag] They should have consulted with the US Navy as to how to mothball equipment.

Jul 15, 2022: Brad Santaniello posted
Watts Bar Nuclear. Unit 2 Steam Generator Replacement

It is unfortunate that TVA's 2016 news release explicitly claimed the unit's construction was on budget. Because once you catch an organization telling a big lie, you can never trust them again.

Apr 5, 2012: power-eng
"The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) on April 5 provided an update on the progress of construction at the Watts Bar 2 nuclear power plant near Spring City, Tenn. Expected to be completed by 2013 with a total cost of $2.49 billion, TVA President and CEO Tom Kilgore said the estimates on both cost and time were wrong."
[Costing almost double the 2007 budget is not "on budget!" They did meet their 2012 estimate for cost, but not their date for being operational.]
Unit 1 was started in 1973 and finished in 1996. Unit 2 was also started in 1973, but halted in 1985.

TVA via eia
I don't think the $4.7b cost includes the $1.7b that was spent before 1985.
[So their clim in the Oct 19, 2016 news release that $4.7 was "on budget" is off by another $1.7b.]

Jun 14, 2016: eia
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on the International Atomic Energy Agency's Power Reactor Information System
"Although Watts Bar 2 is the first new U.S. nuclear generator to come online in 20 years, four other reactors are currently under construction and are expected to join the nuclear fleet within the next four years. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant Units 3 and 4 in Georgia and Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station Units 2 and 3 in South Carolina are scheduled to become operational in 2019–20, adding 4,540 MW of generation capacity."

TVA
How Watts Bar Works
"The plant supports approximately 1,000 full-time jobs."
[A coal-fired plant of comparable capacity would need less than a tenth of that many jobs. And ComEd plants need "only" 400 people.]

A couple of  the TVA photos from powermag.

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On Apr 1, 2014, TVA tweeted a couple of photos with the comment: "Watts Bar Nuclear Plant crews lift a low-pressure turbine rotor during the plant's outage." (I assume this is not an April Fools joke.)

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TVA posted five photos with the comment:

Here is something you don't see every day! Highly skilled teams direct the safe loading of 88 fuel assemblies into the Unit 2 reactor core at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant during the recent maintenance and refueling outage. The blue glow is called Cherenkov radiation and is normal.

Unit 2 is back in operation with the rest of the nuclear fleet, which supplies over 40% of the region's electric load with carbon-free energy. 

We're going to need it because summer isn't over yet!

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Tennessee Valley Authority posted four photos with the comment:

The Watts Bar Nuclear Plant team is beginning to wrap up the scheduled maintenance and refueling outage for Unit 1. Part of the work included installing two HUGE steam rotors, each weighing over 320,000 pounds! 🏗️ 

The new rotors will help Watts Bar provide carbon-free, reliable #NuclearEnergy to our region for at least the next 30 years!

Stephen Weber: I believe they are called turbines.

Ricky Seals: Stephen Weber double flow low pressure spindles, Westinghouse terminology, GE refers to the same component as rotors. Or i might have that backwards, been 40 years since I worked turbine jobs. But yes part of the turbine.

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["If it doesn't fit, use a bigger hammer." I wonder what he is trying to "persuade."]

 

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Unit 1 had "an incident" in 2015. [ans-2020] The article explains that two managers and a plant operator were punished for prioritizing money over safety. But it did not explain what went wrong.

 

I found this in a Google search result, but the link was broken.

FIRE SHUTS DOWN WATTS BAR NUCLEAR PLANT - 105.7 News Crossville Rockwood Byrdstwon TN

I finally found:

According to NRC documents, on Nov. 11, 2015, a shift manager at Watts Bar directed the control room to begin heating up a reactor even though the plant's usual pressurizer system, which keeps the reactor water from turning to steam, was out of service. When trying to heat up with an alternate system, the pressurizer rapidly began to fill with water. Staff then had to “take actions outside of proper operating procedures” to bring the water level down.

The incident wasn't recorded in the plant's logbook and managers later misled NRC investigators about what had happened. The shift manager told investigators he wasn't truthful with them at first because he feared that whatever he said would be relayed back to management. The shift manager has since relinquished his senior reactor operator's license, according to the letter.

The NRC determined that several of the violations were willful, writing that managers allowed “production and cost to override safety."

“The problem is not so much the way TVA handled the startup — it wasn't like we were 30 minutes away from losing Knoxville, or something like that — it's that TVA managers misled or lied to the NRC investigator,” said Dave Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer who has worked with both TVA and the NRC as well as the Union of Concerned Scientists.

[manufacturing]

1:32 video

That's a wrap on the Watts Bar Nuclear Unit 1 scheduled outage! 🛠️

The team at Watts Bar safely worked long days to complete over 12,000 work activities. The crews installed two new 320,000-pound low-pressure turbine rotors and three new transformers and loaded 92 new fuel assemblies. These upgrades added 24 additional megawatts to Unit 1's typical 1,200 megawatts of carbon-free energy!