Although not open to the public, you can observe the Machine Room from the mezzanine level.

Every breath you take in the Bunker today is courtesy of this room. As the beating heart of the Bunker, the engines here kept all systems going, especially in the event of a nuclear strike. Outside the Bunker, infrastructure such as power stations and pipelines would doubtlessly have been damaged. Fallout radiation would have poisoned air and water.

Power to the Bunker usually comes from Ontario Hydro. During a lockdown, the Bunker could generate its own power using four diesel engines—the green engine on the main floor. There were five fuel tanks, four outside and one inside. When standing on the platform, the four metal valves for the outside tanks are located behind you.

Fresh water for the Bunker came from two wells. The silver tanks were part of a heat recovery system, which provided hot water.

At the end of the main Machine Room floor is the Air Filtration room. The filters worked in three stages: first a coarse filter, secondly a HEPA filter, and then an activated charcoal filter. A radiation detection device located on the surface—or a “Rad sniffer”, as it was known—sent a signal to this area if radiation levels were toxic. The Bunker would then be sealed and would have to rely on its own systems for the next 30 days.

The engineers and machine operators who worked here were essential to survival. Wayne Byrne, a Machine Room operator between 1967 and 1983, describes the crucial work of testing the machinery for a lockdown situation:

“...there was no room for mistakes. You had to know what you were doing. And it was sort of, uh, it was nerve-wracking the first two or three times. But after you had a few test runs, and a few especially the real power failure where we had a humongous storm outside and all of a sudden everything would just go black, it was a shock to the system.”