John Beale, Post-Gazette James Pope of Brentwood takes a photo of new steam generators as they are delivered by barge to the Beaver Valley Power Station in Shippingport. The parts traveled from Spain and were brought from Mobile, Ala., to the facility. Mr. Pope, who works at the plant, was standing next to a cooling tower.

Employees of the Beaver Valley Power Station brought pocket cameras to work yesterday, eager to record the arrival of an oversized river barge that brings with it more job security. The barge was carrying nuclear reactor parts that should extend the plant's life at least three decades, ensuring that the birthplace of the nation's nuclear energy age will continue to go strong.

"It's a rebirth, a renewal,'' Clifford Custer, an engineer with FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co., said as a "Paul Bunyan" barge eased into a narrow slip at the plant along the Ohio River at Shippingport, the site of the nation's first large-scale nuclear power plant that opened in 1957 and was decommissioned in 1984. "It's a big day for Beaver Valley."

The barge was carrying three 370-ton steam generators and an 80-ton nuclear reactor vessel head that are key parts of a $250 million project to extend the life of the power station's Unit 1, a pressurized water reactor designed by Monroeville-based Westinghouse Electric Co., which also designed the first reactor at Shippingport.

Installation of the equipment is expected to temporarily employ at various times 2,000 construction and trades workers. FirstEnergy Nuclear's parent, Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corp., estimates the payroll for on-site workers during the project will exceed $100 million.

The station, located 22 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, contains two nuclear power plant units. The one being refurbished began producing electricity in 1976 that is sold to consumers in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Unit 2 began production in 1987.

The replacement equipment designed by Westinghouse in Monroeville was fabricated in Maliano, Spain, by Equipos Nucleares S.A. The United States no longer has the capacity as it once did to produce such parts.

But there are some local subcontractors. The Curtiss-Wright Electro-Mechanical Division in Cheswick, a former Westinghouse business, supplied control rod drive mechanisms. Penn State Tool & Die, of Mount Pleasant, also supplied components.

The steam generators and reactor head, covered in a special blue shrink wrap to keep out moisture during the long voyage, were loaded into a special Dutch-operated large cargo ship that left Maliano on Sept. 3 bound for New Orleans.

The shipment was headed for the Atlantic Ocean when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast region, devastating New Orleans. The ship dodged storms across the Atlantic and, because of the damage to the Louisiana port, diverted course to Mobile, Ala., shunning Galveston, Texas, because of approaching Hurricane Rita.

The double-sized barge used to move the equipment via the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the Mississippi and Ohio rivers was lost temporarily during Hurricane Katrina. It later was found intact by a helicopter crew and transported to Mobile to meet the ocean ship.

Lew Myers, FirstEnergy Nuclear's executive vice president in charge of special projects, kept close tabs on the weather during the ocean voyage and the subsequent trip by river barge from Mobile. Changes in course were made with the weather.

"We were having to figure this stuff out every day,'' said Mr. Myers, who made the decision to choose Mobile as Hurricane Rita was approaching. "The hurricane did throw us a curve. It was interesting.''

After the cargo is inspected, the barge will be lowered or sunk to the river bottom, allowing the equipment to be driven off on a special transport vehicle. The parts will be installed during a scheduled refueling outage at the plant beginning in February.

The steam generators, which use water heated in the nuclear reactor to make steam that drives electrical generating equipment, are each 68 feet long and nearly 15 feet in diameter.

Plant manager Bill Pearce said the old generators were nearing the end of their useful life, and that the reactor head was being replaced as well since it is more economical to do it at the same time. The reactor head caps the heavy duty metal vessel where the nuclear reaction takes place and provides access for control rods that regulate the reaction. It is more than 15 feet in diameter.

To replace the equipment, construction crews will create what Mr. Pearce called a $25 million hole -- a temporary opening in the Unit 1 Containment building, built of concrete several feet thick and poured around large interwoven steel rebar. A spray of water under very high pressure will then be used to remove the concrete walls, exposing the rebar and a liner plate that will be reused.

The reactor head has been upgraded with special metal alloys to avoid problems of the type that occurred at FirstEnergy's Davis-Bessie nuclear plant east of Toledo, Ohio. When that plant was shut down for maintenance in 2002, workers discovered a leak had allowed boric acid to eat nearly through a 6-inch thick steel cap on the plant's reactor head.

The existing steam generators and reactor head will be removed from the containment building through the hole and moved to a long-term storage facility with 30-inch thick concrete walls on the site. The replacement components will be installed in reverse order.

To complete the job, the opening will be closed using the liner plate and reinforcing bars that were removed earlier. The hole will be sealed with concrete and tested to make sure it meets original design requirements.