MIGHTY POWER SCHEME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20366, 21 September 1929, Page 11

MIGHTY POWER SCHEME.

GREATEST IN THE WORLD.

EUROPE'S BIGGEST WALL.

VAST SWISS • ENTERPRISE.

On a recent excursion in tho Alps the Zurich correspondent of the London Observer interviewed one of the leading engineers of tho "Grimselwerk," Mr. Stampfli, and was shown by him over the premises of what is going to be the biggest power station of tho world. Just below the summit of the Grimselpass tho valley of tho Aare is being blocked by a dam of" concrete with iron reinforcements 248 metres long and 113 metres high. At its base it will be 78 metres thick. With its 340,000 cubic metres of iron and concrete it will be the biggest wall in Europe. The lake whose pressure it will have to resist will be over three miles in length and half a mile in breadth, and will contain 100,000,000 cubic metres of water, the cubic metre being equal to 1308 cubic yards. By a three-mile tunnel blown into solid granite this water is conducted to the Gelmersee, a basin containing another 13,000,000 cubic metres. It will fall 540 metres—nearly 1800 ft.—on four turbines, each of 30,000 h.p., and be conducted through another tunnel of nearly five mijes to a power station producing 88,000 h.p., and thence through another three-mile tunnel to the third power station, producing 52,000 h.p. Though there is more water available further down the valley its efficiency will be reduced because of the lower water column on the turbines, which is 400 metres at the second power station and 240 at the third, which will be at Innertkirchen. From there the current will be conducted at a tension of 150,000 volts across the Bruhigpass and on to Berne and Bale, tho two cities chiefly interested in the undertaking. The Scone of the Work.

But it is not these figures, impressive; as they are, that amaze one most. It is the boldness of the enterprise which the visitor admires, the intrepidity with which the obstacles have been overcome and the foresight that has been shown. Practically all the work has to be done far above the last dwelling-places, in a wilderness of granite, where winter reigns for three, quarters of the year, and'even the Dog Days are liable to heavy snowstorms. The; climate permits work for five or j#, months; it is then carried on continuously,; Sundays not excepted. The 500 workmen are accommodated at the old Grimsel Hospice and the new hotel erected high above the lake. It took three years of preparation before the enormous dam itself could be tackled. For the transportation of materials a railway had to be built from Meiringen to Innertkirchen, which runs in a, tunnel parallel to the well-known Aareschlucht, as the gorge, itself affords no room for a line. Then the traffic swings on to an iron rope fixed on hundreds of boldly constructed masts enthroned on rocks and promontories. At intervals of 150 yds; one watches the three-ton cars gliding steadily up. their airy course. From the side of the mountain the onlooker sees the gigantic pipe line descending to the plant at Handeck, whore, the turbines are now ready to start their work. At its side one can see the funicular climbing up the rocks at an angle which seems almost perpendicular. It can carry 60 people up to the Gelmersee at a time. *At regular intervals there are caves high up the- slope. Those are the places where the material taken out of the tunnel was thrown out. There is hardly a turn in . the road where ..there is not machinery, workshops and barracks. , •

A Most Wonderful View.

The correspondent, writing on July 10, goes on to say.:-r"But the most wonderful view awaits you when you come on to the new road : which had to be built. 100 ft. above the present .road, as' the lat-; ter will be submerged by the reservoir,; along with the buildings of the old hospice. Whd would expect »such giant engine-houses nearly 8000 ft.. above sealevel, in the immediate neighbourhood of eternal snow and ice ? You see a dozen iron ropes spanning the valley 300 ft. above the river., "You see the cranes gliding along them and dumping their loads of concrete into kennels, in which they rush down on the dam. ' The workmen down there . steel helmets and look quite warlike. As there is much fog in the. valley the mechanics control the movement pf the cranes on a board of indicators.

"You follow the double track of a railway line for three miles, which brings you to the very mouth of the Aare Glacier, whore the sand and stones are fetched which must be mixed with the cement. It seems " a very slender wooden structure indeed on which the 18-ton locomotives cross over right into the en-gine-house. In the beginning the drivers did not trust it, and the engineers had to stand on the bridge when the first locomotive passed it.

"Near by one sees a sand-hill, now about 200 ft. high. I asked my guide what it was for, and was told that it is the material which will be required in the last period of building when the lake will submerge the railway line. This will bo in 1931 or 1932. This week the floods of the Aare will be dammed. The river will take about a month to fill the basin up to the present height of the dam, and then the production of electricity can begin."