Tai Koo Dockyard – 1950s general engineering including Kai Tak hangars, tramcars and wireless masts…
IDJ has sent extracts from an in-house Taikoo Dockyard book of the 1950s which covers a wide range of company facilities, workshops etc.
The section of the book shown in this article covers General Engineering and reveals that the yard’s manufacturing skills extended beyond the obvious shipbuilding into a wide range of heavy engineering…and more surprising delights.
General Engineering
Many and varied types of work are undertaken which may be classified under this heading, and full scope is given to test the ingenuity of the staff in using the very extensive facilities of the dockyard to produce articles which in most parts of the world are considered the product of specialist firms only.
Borneo, Malaya, Indo-China, the Philippines and China have in the past been the source if orders for new plant and replacements for machinery used in the rubber industry, rice mills, paper mills, paint manufacturing, dye factories, electric power stations and water-works.
Complete sets of gearing for sugar mills; crankshafts up to eight inches in diameter and up to eight throws for diesel engines; conveyors; circulating water pipes; heat exchangers and fabricated steel parts of all descriptions are but a few of the many parts handled.
Pacific Air Maintenance and Supply Company – Kai Tak hangar [see article linked below]
Cast iron sluice valves for an electric generating station and a half casing for a sugar refining plant filter
Hong Kong Tramways Ltd – tramcar
Fabricating tubes for water service
A Corliss engine for a sugar mill [see link below]
Sugar Mill – cane crushing rollers
Sugar Refinery – coil vacuum pan
Hong Kong & China Gas Company – Lancashire type boiler unit
Cape D’Aguilar – wireless masts
North Point Wharves Ltd – steel work
Source: Fifty Years of Shipbuilding and Repairing in the Far East: The Taikoo Dockyard & Engineering Company of Hong Kong Ltd, Technical Advertising Services, published by the Taikoo Dockyard & Engineering Company of Hong Kong Ltd 1954
See:
- Corliss steam engines – Wikipedia
- Lancashire boilers – Wikipedia
This article was first posted on 23rd August 2016.
Related Indhhk articles:
- Taikoo Dockyard 1950s workshops, plant, utilities and facilities – Part One
- Taikoo Dockyard 1950s workshops, plant, utilities and facilities – Part Two
- Taikoo Dockyard 1950s workshops, plant, utilities and facilities – Part Three
- Taikoo Dockyard – photos of staff and workers’ facilities – c1954
We have several articles about both the Hongkong and China Gas Company and Hong Kong Tramways.