A New Liquid-fuel Distributing Station.
Page 11
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AT THE invitation of the British . Petroleum Co., Ltd., we were present last week at a private inspection of their new installation at, Hackney Wick, London, N.E. This plant forms the seventh link in the chain of resting• places temporarily occupied by B.P. motor spirt and other products of the company, from the time they leave the wells of the Anglo-Persian Oil Co., Ltd., in the form of crude petroleum. • The installation has been necessitated by the wonderful increase in the use of petrol-consuming vehicles in the London area. • It will serve the City of Landon and the area of Greater London north of the river and to the east, as well as the suburban districts of Essex. It &ricks a fourth to the existing main waterside depots at Angerstein, Wandsworth and. Pimlico, which serve the south-eastern, south-western and north-western di. tricts respectively, and, like all new B.P. installations, it has been designed to. provide for future expansion.
The area selected adjoins Hackney
Cut, so that supplies of motor spirit. kerosene and fuel oil can be transported by barge from T-hameshaven, or, in the case of kerosene, from other down-river storages, the fuel being pumped direet from the barges by three pumps, each with a capacity of 100 tons per hour, and the motor spirit being stored in concrete-covered underground tanks, 4.,,f which there are 10, in a concrete enclosure, giving a storage capacity of approximately half a million gallons. From these it is pumped up to gravity tanks and thence led 'to various parts of the depot, from which it. is tapped to fill railway tank wagons, road transport tankers, cans and barrels for the districts served.
Of great interest are the fillers for the two-gallon cans by, which the correct, quantity of spirit is -.automatically ensured. These fillers are periodically tested and sealed by the inspector of weights and measures.
The greatest care is taken to retain •
the original purity of the spirit. For instance, in the case of the cans, these are first " sighted " by means of. at' _electric. torch to make certain that no dirty or rusty cans reach the filling section. Every can is then, tested by means of compressed air and petrol, the most miuute leak being revealed. Thoso cans which require repainting, or which . have been too thickly painted, are cleaned in hot 'caustic sisda and repainted in the familiar khaki and blue colours, the painting being effected by means of pistol sprays. 'Beforefilling, every can is -thoroughly washed out by a whirling jet of petrol under high
pressure. .
Ingluded in the installation is garage space for .30 moter tank wagons, which _Supplement the usual motor lorries used for distribnting the spirit in towns. It :is interesting to note that when the tanks are filled a small pipe conducts the vapour back to the main supplies, where it is condensed into liquid.