Boiler Room at Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal
Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal played a major part in the development of modern Holland. Most of the land in the Netherlands is below sea level. This means that a lot of work was done to keep the water away. While windmills were good, large industrial sized pumping stations make for more efficient and reliable pumping. Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal stands guard ready to drain water from Friesland when the need arises. A pumping station doesn’t just try to pump all the water out. It still needs to maintain the water level on either side of the pumping station. The water retained is usually used for irrigation. It is considered the largest steam pumping station in the world and it is still in operation.
One of the Massive Boilers at Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal
We joined a tour group here at the Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal, unfortunately our guide doesn’t speak too much English but she tries her best to help us understand. We were led to the boiler room. When it was first constructed, the pumping station was designed to use coal as it is fuel. The coal is fed to the these massive boilers we can see here. It is very impressive to see how well maintained they are. It is impressive to know that there were build in 1920, almost a hundred years ago. I don’t know much about these kinds of machines but they seemed intimidating but beautiful at the same time. The boilers weren’t in operation at the time, in fact, they are seldom in operation at all. There would be instances when it would be called into action such as when there is unexpectedly heavy rainfall.
[xmlgm {http://www.worldwanderings.net/kml/Ir.D.F.Woudagemaal.kmz} zoom=19]