Course Lighting Embraces The Most Modern Ideas

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30286, 12 November 1963, Page 19

Course Lighting Embraces The Most Modern Ideas

Each evening of night trotting at the Addington Raceway will consume as much electricity* as the average household would use in about five months. The Raceway now incorporates the most modern and efficient lighting available, and this follows months of intensive and detailed planning of this project. The designers have planned for a peak load on the course on race nights of well above 1000 kilowatts.

Lighting around the track is provided by a tall pole system from banks of floodlights. Six of the 17 poles around the track are 80ft high, and the other 11 are 60ft high. On top of these poles are batteries of floodlights arranged in two cages lift long. Each of these cages contain 12 1500-watt floodlights, and on some poles there is an extra 1500-watt floodlight mounted on the pole between the cages.

Altogether there are 343 floodlights on the track, drawing 514 kilowatts. Because of the high winds in- Canterbury during the winter, the poles are mounted on specially-rein-forced concrete foundations strong enough to withstand the highest gusts. There are six “hinged” poles which can be lowered during daylight meetings to avoid their casting shadows on the track. Wherever possible, the contractors have used materials which have been manufactured in New Zealand, and the imported value has been kept to a minimum. Both the floodlights and the poles were made in Auckland and the poles were assembled on the site. Altogether there are 557 floodlights on the raceway. The lighting arrangements have been designed to cater for all the amenities, including car parks, interior lighting, totalisator areas and entrances.

About 45 40ft lighting poles have been erected round the grounds. All the lighting is controlled from a central switchboard under the stewards’ stand. This can be operated by one man. Arrangements have been made with the Municipal Electricity Department for power for the floodlights to be delivered from two sources. This is so that, in the event of a power failure, half the lights will, remain on.

The power all comes through a sub-station on the grounds, but through two separate transformers. It comes from two independent sources of supply, one through Addington and mainly from Lake Coleridge, and the ' other through Papanui and mainly from the south, from Roxburgh and Waitaki, For both to fail at once, leav-

ing all the floodlights without power, would need a complete shut-down over the northern part of the South Island, says a Municipal Electricity Department officer.

Should one source fail, one-half of the floodlights every second light—would go out. However, the whole of the lighting system can then easily be switched on to the other source, although some of the less important lights, such as those on car parks, may have to be foregone while the racing is in progress in such a case.

Further emergency lighting is being considered as an additional precaution against the possibilityvery remote—of a total power failure. This could embrace some lighting set into the rails to guide drivers.

In daylight racing, a balloon is sent up to advise the judge that the totalisator has closed and the race may begin. For the night trotting, this signal will be given by a beacon flasher. There is a novel system of photo-finish. This illuminates the horses from either side of the track, with eight floodlights on one side and four on the other. These replace the more usual idea of lights over the track at the finish. Such an arrangement will prevent shadows in daytime racing. These lights are put on as the horses approach the finish.

Lights illuminating the concourses below the stand and on the track itself will go off when a race starts, so that patrons in the stands can get a better vision of the race with no glare. Though the bulk of the lighting will be from floodlights, fluorescent light will be used for internal lighting and in a few special areas, such as around the entrances. Some of the floodlights around the totalisators are mounted on poles and others are mount-

ed on existing buildings. On the track, the most brightly-lit area is the front straight. It is thought that these lighting arrangements are as modern as any in the country. They have been designed by the same firm as designed the lighting systems used at the Epsom and Forbury courses, although Addington, six furlongs long as opposed to the five furlongs of the others, has posed some special problems.

Because Christchurch is the home of trotting, and because bigger crowds have attended trotting in Christchurch, the amenities have been spread over a wider area than at the other two courses. This has also increased the complexity of the lighting system.