TRAMS GO SLOW

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 45, 21 August 1924, Page 6

TRAMS GO SLOW

A POWER HOLD-UP,

TROUBLE AT .EVANS BAY

STATION

FAULT LOCATED AND CORRECTED.

Suburban residents iwere.late- in get-, ting liome to..tea.last evening^ and .fhiy were later in arriving at work this morning, tfouble^developing at the Evans Bay power station just when the tramway 'loads were heaviest, at about 5 o'clock

yesterday afternoon and shortly before 8 ;.;;■ o'clock thij^morning. Yesterday, after- ! noon-'s""h'o}d^up^of "train-cars'' lasted for' something over an hour, with another less inconvenient hold-up shortly after 8 -: o'clock,-and thig morning crowded cars to the city came to a standstill with eight and half-past eight workers aboard, and ' there the cars and workers remained ; *"* about g o'clock), when the power came on again, and the lines of cars crawled on very gingerly. "Don't touch that buz- , zer, remarked one conductor, possibly -.i somewhat of a wag, "we've just about j enough power coming through to take us .; up the rise, but you touch that button i and you II stop the whole line." Some- . one apparently touched' it, for the line . stopped sure enough within a couple of ; hundred yardßj ■ . • '■ TURBO-GENERATOR GOES .; ■, ■ "HUNTING." .First-signs of trouble showed them- ; selves when.the big turbine at Evans ; Bay commenced "hunting" yesterday . . afternoon in-the midst :of the rush-hour , load,-"hunting" consisting in a marked" ; fluctuation above and under the standard revolution speed of 3000 per minute, and showing at once that the real trouble lay , somewhere in the governing mechanism. Ihe rising and falling in turbine speed iiad as "its result a consequent rising and falling in tha number of alternations per ! socond. (the-standard-being 50) in the „ .power supplied by'the main generator. ' .which is coupled-direct to the turbine and-this irregularlity in turn affected" , the rotary converters whose duty it is . . to transform alternating current to direct current for tramway purposes. The converters are so designed as to work within , a certain range of rate ol alternations say between 48 and 52 alternations per' second, and to cut out automatically vriien the range is exceeded at either end. ! These out-outs, then, canie; into operation yesterday aftrnoor. and evening and ■■ this morning, so that though the turbogenerator, might be running (at over and' . under the standard of 3000 revolutions per monute) no alternating power was .:.. being transformed to power suitable for ; tramway purposes. ■■ After the second batch of trouble last evening it was thought that the fault •had been corrected and that the full : *r.?mw^y load would be taken this mornwgvwithout trouble, but nevertheless a , careful;>atch;.:was:kopt upon the plant ; ; to-seerthat-all- was running sweetly. The ■• j fault had apparently been fully correct- ' ed, but shortly"; before a", o'clock. this morning the hunting commenced again < and the rotary, converters again went out . of action. . ; ONE GENERATING-SET AT EVANS ;;• BAY.. : At the present time there is no stand--by plant, apart, from boilers,, at the ■th^-h -Bay -station, and,- consequently, _15°555...%>r6. "was power in plenty as for as steam, was concerned, it was not possible to swifc c h.,oY.er on to another . turbogenerator- set. .Steam had been let ffown m the city station and could not,.be put.on .at wotJung pressure in a >w-m m utes r .th,s i .tvpe;;of;-boiler there -used .calling for-something like 48 hours' notice before Jieing required to deliver a i«U ..working..bead of steam,; whereas the 1- l*sr,igP<K°t?bodßr, as at-Evans Bay, will.-,daiver. steam at working pressure in nail an hour from /.'warmed up "The foundations for a standby generator are alrjady-laid^at-the-new-^ower-house, and the work of ."transferring "one of the city sets to Evans Bay will-be taken in . hand shortly... With a second generatingset ; to.fall back upon the city station will be its own standby! As the trouble lay in the governing •mechanism of ..the turbine, it was- not necessary to;close down .the.-generator last > evening while, investigations " and' repairs were being earned out; and with the_help of the city station the lighting ■load was carried with no great difficulty,- the night being clear and w«vn and the lighting demand consequently not; being particularly heavy. • • The governing mechanism, apparently P?*:out:of order by the carrying over by the oiling apparatus of grit or' sedi.ment, is now: tepor^d'.'byl.the: General Manager of Tramways and Power SH jNo further trouble is anticipated. r HOW PASSENGERS TOOK IT. j -■Generally speaking, tramway passengers treated the hold-up this morning as "■ » not particularly . unpleasant -.experience. A iew-expressed ""annoyance but annoyance carried -them no further, and „.;-tKey , sat on" or', got' out" and".' walked,' according to the. quality of annoyance with the whole tramway' system and the distance from place of business. Long-distance passengers, the suburbanites proper, did not walk; it was quicker they argued, to wait half an hour, if need be, than to get out for a full hour, but as .a matter of fact some of them waited almost the full hour and still had half an hour's stroll ahead of them. The" power which trickled through about 9 o'clock was insufficient to carry Unloaded cars round some of the track ■ bends, even where there were slight downhill grades, and here the passengers necessarily got out and pushed till , ;the;cars moved off again, .round tho corner and down the next grade to the

.. One section .of Wellington's tramway travellers this morning thoroughly enloyed the-hold-up, small boys and larger boys bound for school. An hour, providing the excuse was sufficiently sound as it was, was neither here nor there '