This film made of behalf of the Central Electricity Generating Board is part of the Bradford Technical College Collection and follows the construction of the Drax coal power plant in Yorkshire as well as the construction of an oil power station. Title-The Central Electricity Generating Board presents This is over an image of a factory with a tall chimney on left-hand side of the screen. Title-Titans of tomorrow Title-The story of building a power station. The film opens with shots of an...

This film made of behalf of the Central Electricity Generating Board is part of the Bradford Technical College Collection and follows the construction of the Drax coal power plant in Yorkshire as well as the construction of an oil power station. Title-The Central Electricity Generating Board presents This is over an image of a factory with a tall chimney on left-hand side of the screen. Title-Titans of tomorrow Title-The story of building a power station. The film opens with shots of an older man wearing a black hat with `R.H.' on it; he looks at the camera and then it zooms out to reveal man sitting on a bench in a uniform of a red coat with a crest and black trousers. He looks at the camera, gets up and walks down a busy city street and over to the pedestrian crossing. The voice over says that when this man was born around 80 years ago electricity was just starting to be supplied to houses. He continues on to talk about the importance of electricity and that in the future the prosperity of a country may well be measured by how much electricity it consumes. Next shot is taken from a height inside a factory. There are lots of metal machines and equipment on the factory floor which stretches into the distance. The men working on the machines are all different ages; some wear overalls and some of them wear over coats. There is a brief shot of a man monitoring a machine with spinning sections and wires going into it. On another section of factory floor, men work on machines that look like engines. Beside them is a more crowded section where men turn handles on machines and carry out other jobs while smoking pipes. In the next scene four men sit at a desk in a control room and covering the entire wall in front of them is a grid map; along a side wall are graph monitors and clocks. One of the men is on the phone and he gets up and walks out of the shot. There are shots of the different graph monitors and their readings. The next shot takes place in a woman's sitting room; she sits on the sofa reading a book. She rubs her arm to indicate that she is cold and then she reaches over to her electric fire and switches it on. Voice over says that the Generating Board is spending £1 million on building new chimneys for nuclear and coal plants. Shots from the sky looking down onto a power plant; the chimneys and buildings are visible. There is a brief shot of the chimneys taken from the ground level; steam pours out of them. There are shots taken from different parts of the plant looking down and some shots taken from fields beside the plant looking up onto the power plant. The next piece is an animated sequence and follows the process from fuel going into the plant, into the furnace which burns off the energy, the energy then going along pipes and into a transformer and eventually leaving the factory on electricity cables. The voice over describes what happens in the following piece. Shots from inside the plant looking down onto the converters and other machines; men are visible in the background working on the different pieces of equipment,. There are some brief shots of the surrounding area including a river, the electricity pylons, and the farm fields that they cross. This is followed by another shot of the entire power plant taken from the air. The voice over comments on the fact that power plants can't just be located anywhere and that the ones in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire are based near coal and water supplies. In the next scene there are shots looking across a bridge which crosses a river; then there is a shot of a small village with a man walking along a road. Two men are in a field with cows; they have lengths of white tape and hammer the tape into the grass. One of the men looks through a piece of equipment on a tripod and indicates to the other man who is holding up a piece of wood. The voice over says that it takes two years to fully plan and secure a site and many more years to actually build it. Shot of a building with a sign which reads `Central Electricity Generating Board Midlands Project Group'. Following this is a shot of three men inside a room in the building looking at a scale model of the planned power plant. The voice over says that this helps them to work out possible problems before they build it. There are shots of different parts of the model. The last shot in this scene is of an analysis machine which prints out records; some women are in the office monitoring the machine and typing. A truck pushes mounds of mud off a site and then drives off away from the camera on a newly constructed by-pass road. There are also some shots of reservoirs near the site which is to be built upon. The voice over says that in order to help the power plant to be integrated into the countryside, a huge project of tree planting gets underway. There are shots of the builders arriving at the site, shots of the facilities that have to be built to facilitate them (a canteen, sleeping accommodation, small hospital). Then follow shots of the initial construction work; the piles being laid into the ground to serve as the foundations. The voice over says that the concrete piles are custom made on site which saves time and money. There are shots of them being cut and put into the ground. There are shots taken from above of the coal power plant and the oil power plant. There are shots from different angles and from up in the air. The voice over talks about the importance of good working conditions and this is followed by shots from the construction site and of the piled up and organised materials that are to be used for the project. Three men stand in an office in front of a large white board which is covered with diagrams. They point to different parts of the board and one of the men takes a phone call. The following shot if of the model plant and shows the progress that has been made. The voice over says that they colour the model different colours in order to indicate what parts have been built and what sections are on site. In a shot of the site taken from above, the foundations and concreting processes are visible. There are shots from different parts of the site; the piling, the builders and water supply pipes are visible. Shots of the cement being made and transported to different parts of the site by dumper truck and by pipelines. These shots are followed by several more of the steel works being constructed in the plant. A boiler drum is transported to the site on a long train and then there is footage of it being hoisted up onto the steel works and all of the piping connected to it. The voice over describes the entire process of converting water into steam in order to create electricity; he also describes the water treatment plant and where they get their supply of water. Then there are shots of the construction of the water cooling towers that will be on the power plant site and the voice over talks about their function. The next section describes the water cooling system at an oil power plant and this is accompanied by shots of the location of the power plant near a natural water source. There are more shots of the different parts of two power plants and then the voice over talks about the methods that engineers use to transport the transformers over long distances. There is footage of the machines in a specially constructed ferry and on big trucks on a bridge. The engineers are in one of the power plants and they supervise as a generator is installed into the building. Following this are shots of many builders working to lay huge amounts of cabling in the power plant. The men pull cabling from holes in the ground and lay it along walls and floors. There is a shot from inside a computer room; a man sits at a desk surrounded by terminals and screens. The voice over reveals that it is only a mock-up of a control room and that it is there to make sure that each dial and button is put into the best place. A man sticks up pictures of the buttons and then talks to a young controller. A train carries coal to the power plant along a specially constructed continuous track where the coal can be unloaded into containers and used. According to the voice over, another method of transporting coal to the plant is by barge. The barge is lifted up many floors to a building where the coal is unloaded and then the barge is lowered back down into the water. In the next scene there are shots of the different chimney types in three different power plants. Some engineers test the parts of the plants before they are put into use and the voice over says that the chimneys have steam blown through them several times a day in order to make sure that they are perfectly clean. The next scene is in the control centre of the power plant; the camera takes shots all around the room in order to give an idea of what is contained all around. Two men stand beside a unit with a switch and two dials; one of them turns it and the needle on a dial moves. In the final scene there is a shot of an old windmill in a field; the camera moves to the right and the new power station is visible behind. The voice over says that in the past the wind was used as energy but now it's electricity. The final shot is taken from one side of a small pond with the power plant reflected in the water. Title-Directed by Marc Broadway Title-Scripted by Neil Ewart Title-Photographed by Norman Roundell Title-Production supervision for the C.E.G.B. Tom Snasdell Title-Advisory panel: Fr. Hunt, P.J. Whitelock, V.J. Speller, R.F.Allwright. Title-Produced by Marc Broadway Productions Limited. Title-The End. Title-Central Electricity Generating Board Copyright Title-Titans of Tomorrow End Part 2.