The CSO Pump Room visit was a first for us, as it’s the only drain here that hasn’t (to my knowledge) been explored by Kowalski. We first supposed at its existence when we encountered the CSO tank for the first time. We knew that we were in an overflow, but we knew that the tank must also have several inflows, and some way of regulating what gets stored and what gets processed. It was with this in mind that we located a considerable sized drain, serving the area between James St and Dundurn, and found a good entrance point in the Locke St. neighborhood.
In surveying this drain from the surface, we noted that all of the manhole covers were marked 1922, meaning that not only had we found an unexplored drain, but also one of the oldest in Hamilton, probably built at the same time as the Duke of Wellington.
One evening then, “Kyle” and I, finding ourselves with nothing to do, decided to go scout out the entrance and maybe take a brief walk. Little did we know how long our night would be.
We suited up, and headed down to the area where we figured we’d find a good access. It took about half an hour, but find one we did, and with minimal effort, descended down into it. Amusingly, as we were entering, a fellow rode by on a bicycle and asked, “Are you doing what I think you’re doing?” and answered himself: “You are!” before promptly riding away. We reached the bottom of a considerable descent to find ourselves in a poured concrete box drain, classified 1650mm. Comfortable for walking, and delightfully cool after a hot summer’s day. There was less than an inch of water in the drain, moving slowly.
We proceeded east for about 4 blocks, before veering right to pass under the railroad tracks. The nature of the area is such that the railroad tracks are set in a dug-out trench, over which bridges cross at street level. To give you a sense of how deep we were; the sewer passed underthe railroad tracks, meaning that we had climbed down about 50 feet from street level to pass beneath the level of the railroad tracks safely. Despite this depth, we found the concrete arch underneath the area of the tracks to be shattered in the locations of both tracks, with large chunks of concrete partially dislodged from the ceiling and hanging with very little support. There were very few debris on the bottom of the drain, though, so either it had been cleaned recently, or the damage was not sufficient to actually fully dislodge any sections of pipe.
We continued in that direction for another 6 blocks or so, before turning left to continue down Main St. towards the CSO tank. At this point, the drain grew to a comfortable 2400mm, and had long sections of the same brickwork we had witnessed in the Duke of Wellington- only this time larger and in much better condition. There was a several inch thick deposit of mud and leaves on the walls, possibly due to all of the brief-but-violent storms we had been having for the past couple of days. No signs of any unreasonable pollution or sewage.
After another 20 minutes or so of walking, we came to a chamber that mirrored identically the one that we had encountered when we first visited the CSO Overflow. We knew, from looking at the GIS maps, that this chamber lay directly next to the one we had been in, and that now the pipe we were following would run parallel to the one that we took on our way up the CSO overflow. Walking down this massive smooth concrete pipe was pleasant, until about ten minutes later, when our lights encountered a void up ahead.
We stepped out into a massive room, easily the largest I’ve ever been in underground. To guess at measurements, it would have been about forty feet across, thirty feet wide, and sixty feet high. The drain we were in (and the one that entered the room directly above ours) emptied out onto a wide shelf, after which was a small (3 ft) drop, and then a larger area where another pipe came in from the left and combined with the small waterfall pouring over this shelf. To our immediate left upon entering the room, about five feet up the wall, was a large metal door, which mirrored exactly the one that we had encountered next to the “Wall of Anguish”. It became clear that, should this room ever fill with storm water, that door could be automatically raised, and the water would exit directly through the overflow and into Cootes Paradise.
One of the most interesting elements lay straight ahead of us from where we entered, through another large metal gate (which was open) there was a pump room, set about 4 feet lower than the room we were currently in. We watched as the basins around each of these three small pumps would fill up, and then the pumps would activate and the water would be sucked up through the ceiling in large steel pipes. Through the pump room and to the left, was another gate and passage, but we did not want to risk skirting past the pumps to get to it.
First we went down the passage to the left that I’d mentioned earlier. This was quite long, and about six inches deep with mud, sewage, and other less savoury wastes. This seemed to be another sort of holding tank that encircled the CSO, but I’m still not sure as to its utility. After getting very nasty and decided that we probably weren’t going to see anything interesting, we headed back into the larger chamber.
I spent some time photographing the machinery and configuration of the room. While this was going on, we noticed a stiff breeze start to blow out of the 2400 we’d come in on. While this troubled me, I figured the safest place to be was in the large room, at least for the moment, and so I carried on. A few minutes later, as Kyle was taking a picture of me with my back to the 2400, the slow rumbling we’d been hearing instantly grew significantly louder, accompanied by a large “wooosh”, as the small trickle in the 2400 instantly attained enough volume to encompass nearly a quarter of the pipe.
Slightly alarmed now, I shoved my camera down into my bag and climbed up the small ladder towards the 2400, pushing myself against the current which had now turned the entire length of the shelf into a substantial waterfall. Kyle and I fought our way back to the point where we could put our backs to the wall beside the 2400, figuring this was the safest place to wait it out. After about five minutes, just when the flow through the 2400 seemed to be diminishing, another “woosh” was heard and the pipe above the 2400 began shooting out its own considerable volume of water. We decided to wait for about 15 more minutes, and if nothing had subsided by then, we’d just have to fight our way back out the way we came in. Meanwhile, the room was quickly filling with a dense cold fog, which I captured as best I could in a photo at the right.
It was about 5 minutes into this waiting that I happened to catch a glimpse of the pump room, which was now under about twelve feet of water. The place where we had been taking photos from was about six feet deep. And where we were standing was beginning to rise past a foot. I decided that now would be a good time to leave, and so we jumped through the waterfall and fought against the current in the 2400 as best we could, until we reached that junction room we’d encountered earlier. As much as I wanted to go back the way we’d come further, especially to get pictures of the brickwork, I was afraid that another storm might mark the end of us, and so we climbed up a considerable height and found ourselves, once again, across the street from the Spectator building, at about 1:00 in the morning.
We took a few minutes to lie on the ground and enjoy the feel of being alive, before changing and making our way home. Having been completely soaked through this time, both of us smelled worse than we’d like anyone to ever know about, so we made sure to walk back on the smaller and less populated streets.
I must stress here that we were stupid not to check the weather beforehand, and that you should always do so before going anywhere like this. We were lucky that we were in such a large space, and that the storm was over with in a few minutes. You may not be so fortunate.
Photography
This was not really a photographic expedition, at least artistically. I made substantial use of my flash while documenting the machinery and support structure within the pump room and junction room, but I didn’t go far beyond that. I would like to go back here someday when the weather is better and capture the damage underneath the railway, as well as make an attempt to go through the pump room and into the passage on the other side, which I strongly suspect leads into the CSO proper.
Followup
I went back to the same park again the next day, with Kyle, to try and get our bearings. I told him about the pump door being open, and went to show it to him. Surprisingly (or not, knowing the City of Hamilton) the door was still unlocked. I didn’t go in this time, for fear of setting off the alarm, but it went off anyway (the door was sensored). This time we decided to stay, as we hadn’t done anything wrong and I wanted to tell these people to lock their door. We spent nearly an hour walking around the park, the alarm kept ringing, and no one showed up.
Towards the back of the park, we encountered one of the many metal hatches we’d seen in the area. Giving it a pull, it too was unlocked, and we were able to look in at the ladder/firehose that we’d encountered on our first visit to the CSO Overflow, right at the end of where we were able to explore. We didn’t go in, for lack of lights, but it’s still a bit disconcerting that just anybody could open up this hatch and climb down into a (potentially) very dangerous CSO tank.