For those who are interested - here's my attempt at a report.
It holds no light to dsankt's, but hey.
I've had troubles starting this report. The actual exploration aside, the history and proportion of the building is in itself daunting.
Just under one mile from the Horseshoe falls on the mighty Niagara lies an awkward building. It has a period façade; but it is too slim to be a library or town hall.
It's too close to the river to be any public building, and it's most certainly not a private building.
The building itself
Each day, it is likely that hundreds of tourists stream and bustle past this building to shuffle for prime viewing locations of the falls.. yet upstream from the columns of mist that
rise without end, the Toronto Power Company power station still stands, as it has done for over one century.
Charged with the task of harnessing the power of the millions of liters of water that make the perpetual plunge, 1906 saw the beginning of construction for TPC.
The task was monumental and unprecedented in more than one aspect: the technical challenges of building a station so close to the river, the efficient production of the still green AC
generation technology, and the manpower required to implement such a building.
tailrace tunnel during construction. Source Niagara Falls Public Library
Hydro electricity is simple in theory: Water is fed in, pushed through turbines, and then returned to the natural water system. What makes TPC so interesting is how it went about
this. Bear in mind that the station sits directly adjacent to Niagara river - in fact, literally half of the power station was flooded as the water source.
This in itself was one of the most awe inspiring scenes I've ever witnessed.. underwater arches let the river flow in, shadows of playing fish flickered in the bright green depths,
and were met by the submerged sluice gates. Sadly, this forebay has been long since filled with concrete and gravel.
The forebay, before it was filled with crap.
To power turbines, the water requires significant kinetic energy. In TPC, this meant dropping the water in vast pipes over eight floors underground, where it would erupt into the
turbines. The turbines were connected to shafts that ascended the eight-floor distance, and turned the generators to produce the current. It's an interesting side-note, and one that
is not well known that the generators in TPC were the first AC generators of the genius Nikola Tesla. Sadly, these too are now gone.
Tesla's first AC generators.
By now, the scale of the infrastructure required for this operation should be starting to emerge. Down the entire length of the stations huge columns of water roared into the
darkness, and their energy was return the height of the drop. Like an iceberg, 9/10ths of the station is underground, underwater, and below the natural water table. Even to
successfully build the so-far discussed elements is an amazing feat -
But what of the water? Now deep underground, the matter of returning the water to the river is problematic. The solution, incredible as it may seem, was simple by design: build a
tunnel that ran the distance to the Horseshoe falls, and expunge the vast volumes of water back into the falls. Two converging egg-shaped tunnels of giant proportion were blasted,
carved and inched out of the rock below the waters above. Scores of men paved these giant hidden tunnels brick by individual brick, and created the forgotten secret: Confluence.
I only know of two other groups of people who have entered this tunnels in recent years. I came to know of the tunnels about a year or so back, when I saw a photo that blew me away. I
knew I had to go down and experience them myself. Ten months later found Siolgen, Infectoid and I standing in TPC, and making our way into the depths below the generator floor.
I've never been in a more daunting environment. As we entered the spiraling stairs, we couldn't help but notice, even in the absolute black, that it was raining hard - a regular
downpour - inside a building. Over the last hundred years, streams of water from the river and the water table have fingered their way through cracks and concrete, and have eaten away
slowly at everything. Iron bars broke in our hands. Stairs of thick steel rotted and fell beneath our feet, crashing into the dark below.
Somehow, we made it to the bottom, but it was so flooded and ruined, our hopes and courage faded with our torches, and we made our way back out of the beast.
One year later, I was back at TPC. This time, there was seven of us: dsankt, skaut, nel58, kowalski, micro, KAOS and myself. We made the icy journey from Toronto to Niagara.
Accommodation and food became irrelevant details on our quest for confluence. We drove past - and how it had changed. Silhouettes of construction vehicles poised for imminent
destruction were cast on the windows, and an ever present security guard was positioned opposite the station. Four hours later, we returned. The guard had the heat on in his car: he
wasn't going anywhere.
While we waited, Kowalsi, Skaut and micro made the attempt to recon the inside. Hours later they returned to the hotel with bad news: The hole that had once led directly to the stairs
had been emptied of its scaffolding, a steel plate had been placed over the staircase, and it had been bolted. Plans were put on hold, and we all took some restless sleep.
The next day we prepared: batteries, road flares, food, drinks, and a huge shifting spanner were purchased. We passed some more hours in the hotel, distracted ourselves with a pacman
machine at a local pizza place, then made the final trip to the hotel. Bags were packed. Layer upon layer of clothes were put on: it was -13 degrees C outside, and the water of
Niagara was bound to be colder. Passports were pocketed - if dsankt or I were caught, we would need them for our guaranteed deportation order.
We parked and made the walk to the station. My waders slipped in the ice. We caught our breath, regrouped, and prepared for our entrance.
In plain sight of the security guard, we ducked and clung to the fence line, painfully contrasted in black to the snow, despite the dark. Around one fence, we followed the tracks of
the guard’s previous round, and ducked the final fence to the now rubble filled forebay of the station.
Taking no chances, we moved swiftly to the stairs below the generator floor, and faced our next challenge: the metal plate. dsankt and I unbolted the nuts, painfully aware that every
noise had 8 stories of infrastructure to bounce and amplify off before reaching the main floor. Plate ajar, the descent into absolute dark began.
"Remember stair discipline" hissed Kowalski. The rotting stairs would struggle with the weight of just one with gear - we couldn't risk any more. We made our way through the
artificial rain, down a final ladder, across the rotten wooden flooring, to the rusted iron gate.
We were hit by the wind, and immersed in the distant roar of water. We squeezed past the door, and came to the gap, our torched probing into the dark below.
dsankt and I began to rig our SRT lines. Two lines, one for people, one for gear. One for us, one for safety. If you were to get stuck in Confluence, it would surely suck - probably
worse than just being stuck in a drain. In confluence: you have an choice - the raging falls, or the enveloping darkness.
Gear double checked, Skaut began the descent. Halfway down, woops of excitement filtered up to us over the roar of the water. Over the space of an hour, gear and explorers gently
dropped from darkness to darkness.
We hesitantly pressed forward - we were in confluence.
The place was - is - amazing. You can easily overwhelm yourself if you try to bring it identifiable terms: how many bricks, how many men, how many hours, how many lives..