GOING OUT OF BUSINESS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 109, 4 November 1926, Page 12

GOING OUT OF BUSINESS

.DISMANTLING OLD TRAM- : WAY POWER STATION

SOME PLANT GOES TO EVANS BAY

(i-ffBE TEPID BATHS QUESTION.

J After over twenty years of good serjriee to the people of Wellington, and, iiuring the last few years of its work•iaf, extremely heavy service, the old iirannvay ppwer station at the corner of 'Jfwvais qnay and Wakefield street is rbeing dismantled. Much of the plant 'Ss still sound and good for more years ;icf service, but no longer could the ;»team-driven direct current motors of 'this'station shoulder the load carried by the up-to-the-minute rotary convert- : era which are whirling round in the new Jervois quay sub-station, at Thorndon, Riddiford street, at Evans Bay, and which will shortly be in operation also at the Karori sub-station, transforming as they whirr the alternating | current as supplied from Mangahao j tor the municipal steam plant at Evans j"Bay to the smooth flowing direct cur- • rent which drives the motors of trams and hoists. The nine boilers, some of them dating back to 1903, have been dismantled and are being put to other ' purposes. The most modern of them, installed ten years ■or so ago, are to be set up again at Evans Bay, to carry on again with the supply of the latest of humanity's prime needs, electricity. Two more will in future have less to put up with than during the post-war years when the city's demand for power increased almost beyond the capacity ;of city stations, for they are to go to I the Public Hospital to supply hot water for the heating of the buildings. Much of the plant will also be set tip again for auxiliary use,. but other , appliances will be written off the active ! list and will go to the storehouse pending their disposal to other local bodies or companies. It is expected that a big proportion of this machinery will be so disposed of. Later on again tho dismantling of the old electric lighting power station in Mercer street will be proceeded with, but this work will probably wait several more months. A good deal of- the plant from this station has already been removed to Evans Bay, and has there been altered to generate the new style of power (50-cycle in.place of the former 80-cycle alternating current), but the remaining Parsons turbine will remain in commission through this summer and possibly on into next winter, helping out with the supply of lighting power to those parts of the city not yet changed over to the new voltage. This will mean a further postponement of the city tepid baths scheme, for until the Mercer street building is vacated nothing can be done with the baths. In any case it is not at all certain that the baths will be erected, on this site, for this is a question on ■which there is a good deal of difference of opinion among" members of the City Council. The policy of it has not been discussed by the full council for a considerable time, but several members have indicated that they consider the Mercer street station land to be too Valuable to be used as a baths site. ; Apart from that aspect, town-planning comes into the question, and therefore no decision may be reached in regard to baths till the wider questions of city rearrangement have been talked 9ver- '