Electricity Notes.

Progress, Volume I, Issue 8, 1 June 1906, Page 208

Electricity Notes.

The new 600-k.w. generating set for the Wellington Tramway power house is to arrive early this month. ****** Mr J. R. Templin, who erected the Curtis turbines in Christchurch, on behalf of the General Electric Co., left for Siam on the 12th nit , accompanied by his wife. J ****** The De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company claim to have transmitted a wireless telegraphic message on March 30 last from Manhattan beach to the naval station, Colon, where it was correctly deciphered, being a distance of 2,150 miles. ****** Two hundred tram cars were recently loaded and despatched from the Randwick racecourse in Sydney, in 20 minutes. ****** This was the position when the holiday traffic was heaviest, and to cope with the expected exceptional demands upon the transport service the commissioners had every available car on duty, and a staff of 2400 drivers, conductors and officials. ****** The tramway superintendent (Mr. J Kneeshaw) has submitted an exhaustive report to the commissioners dealing with the holiday traffic on the tramways, and information as to the extent of the loading is comprised in an official statement furnished by the department. The superintendent had nearly 760 cars in service, which, if placed end on, would extend for a distance of over seven and three-quarter miles ; the cars devoted to the eastern suburbs, the Randwid: racecourse and the showground accounting for three miles of the total. Until recently the Sydney system was the largest electrical one in the British Empire, [t is now slightly behind Glasgow. The whole Df the cars in Sydney, excepting 25, are equipped with the General Electric Co 's controllers and circuit breaker^. ****** The British Thomson-Houston Company Limited), claim that they have supplied to electric -ailways m England more than twice as many >lectnc motors for operating these than all the )ther manufacturers combined, and that one of he most successful main-line surface electric ailways, that of the North-Eastern Railway, was ■ntirelv equipped by their company.

The British Thomson-Houston Company is associated with the Allgememe Elektricitats Gesellschaft in the electrification of the South London line of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway which contract has been given to the German firm. The Wmter-Eichberg single-phase system is to be used, the British rights for which are owned by the Thomson-Houston Company, and a large amount of the work for the equipment will be carried out at that company's works. ****** The Wellington Tramway system is deficient m rolling stock. There are now 44 cars running, and the traffic warrants at least 60. The consequences are that excessive overloading takes place at busy times during the day, resulting in the loss of fares, which has been computed at 10 per cent, for those trips, and the shortening of the life of the cars. The system requires certain improvements which should not be overlooked in reckoning with the ever-increasing traffic. For instance, passengers are not allowed to enter or leave the car where the motorman is standing. The result of this is that only one door at the end of the car may be used by the public, and the waste of time which this involves, when there is a crowd waiting to enter the car at a stopping-place whilst another crowd is leaving, is considerable. The bar on the " danger " side of a car is ill-ad vised as a means of preventing passengers alighting on the wrong side, for the reason that in all systems where both sides are used no two cars arriving at a stopping-place simultaneously can leave until the signal has been given m the usual way by either of the conductors. If, of course, people get out the wrong side of a moving car, in neglect of the simplest thought for their own safety, the system must not be blamed. In the Sydney service, in which 760 cars are employed, passengers alight or embark at either side, and no record is existent of any casualty having occurred where ordinary care has been exercised in this practice. Were it to be enforced in Wellington an immense saving of time and a maximum of convenience would be reached. ****** The General Electric Co are just building six 7<;oo-kw. static transformers, the largest ever built m the world These are for the Great Northern Power Co., Duluth, Minn., U.S.A. Each transformer, when built and filled with oil, will weio-h 60 tons, and will require 4000 gallons of oil Wilder forced circulation. The ratio of transformers is 12,000/6,000 volts to 60,000/30,000 volts. The same company are also getting out six huge Boof-kw. steam turbines four for the Chicago-Edison Co. and two for the New York Edison Co ****** So greatls- has cbe Genera] Electric Co 's apparatus increased in weight during recent years, that they have been obliged to build special freight cars to hold much of their product, and the company now have twelve of these special cars particularly designed to carry parts of the largest turbines ****** The power-station building situated at the WTaipori falls is practically complete and roofed 111, and at the present time the foundations are being finished off ready to receive the machinery. The building is located on the bank of the Waipon river and is constructed of reinforced concrete throughout, the metal, sand and gravel for the same having been obtained on the site. The pole' have been delivered along the route of the transmit ion line between Waipon generating station and the sub-station at Half-way Bush, a distant of 28 miles. The work of erection will be proceeded with forthwith. The transformer sub-station is being erected at Half-way Bush, and a start is being made to lay portion of the underground transmission line within Dunerhn. * * ¥ * m * It is by the gradual accretion of minute economies that central-station engineers are endeavouring to reduce their generating costs, and it should therefore, be of interest to them to learn that the hitherto disappointing attempts to introduce methods of consuming coal dust are at last approaching success In the erection of a large power station recently equipped, the adoption of coaldust firing was only abandoned reluctantly at the last moment owing to anticipated difficulties in regard to a minor detail of the apparatus, which has since been found capable of improvement, and under the most recent patents it would seem that the cheapest and most rubbishy coal, now thrown aside as waste, can be used for firing boilers after being first pulverised, with the additional public advantage that its consumption is quite smokeless Coal suitable for this method can be delivered at from 2s. 6d to 3s. 6d. per ton, to which is per ton must be added to cover the cost of ornnrlinu to nnwrier

It is characteristic of the progressive tendencie' of Japan that, outside of Europe and the Unitec States, the Island Empire is the largest user o steam turbines m the world. With the industria awakening of the empire has come a need for electric power, not only for manufacturing purposes, bu for transportation and for lighting. Japanese engineers' enterprise is nowhere more clear]} indicated than in their adoption of steam-turbm< electric-generating units. The first shipment o American steam turbines arrived in Japan from Sar Francisco last year. The machines were of 500-k.w capacity, of the Curtis type, and were for operating the Shigai Railway in Tokio. Four weeks aftei their arrival they were in full operation. There have since been ordered by the Japanese from the General Electric Company of New York thirty-sever Curtis steam turbines, with electric generators, witr a total normal capacity of more than 35,000 h.p Of these, eleven units are now installed and lr operation. It is stated that the coal mines o Japan will be eventually operated electrically Some of the turbines mentioned above are intendec for the Miike coal mines on the island of Kyushu These mines will use two 200-k.w. Curtis steam turbines. The Osaka Electric Light Company which furnishes electricity to a city of over 800,00 c people, includes six steam turbines of the same make in its equipment. One of the largest electrical interests in Japan is the Tokio Street Railway Company, which furnishes transportation facilities for a population of 1 ,440,000. English and German material is used on this road, but practically all the electrical equipment is American, and includes five 2000-h.p. Curtis turbo-generator units. There are also a few small dynamos, which were made in Japan. ****** The hope sustained in certain quarters that the opening of shallow underground tramways will solve some of the transit problems of London, by enabling the central area to be intersected by the eioctnc traction systems already m operation on the surface routes, north, south, east, and west of the congested district, will, we fear, says the Times Engine, ring Supplement, receive little support from the pracrcal results of the London County Council subway, the opening of which for traffic has been so long delayed. The engineering features of this work, no less than its probable financial results, promise poor encouragement for similar enterprises. It would appear to be an essential condition of usefulness that the ordinary cars m service in London suburban tramways should be able to make through journeys by means of the subways ; yet no accommodation has been provided under Kingsway for double-deck vehicles, and the sharp curves and steep gradients render it necessary that even single deck cars should be comparatively short for this typt of rolling stock It follows that if there is the large traiic awaiting the opening of this line as could alone justify its cost of construction, the cars provided will not afford an adequate service. The controversy that has arisen as to the responsibility for the delay is a matter of trivial importance by comparison ; but it may be remarked that the endeavour of the Council's representatives to throw the responsibility on the contractors for the steel cars cannot relieve them from blame. ****** The paper recently read before the Society of Arts in London on " The Progress in Electric Lighting," by Mr. Leon Gaster, will recall the article contributed by this gentleman to The Time* Engineering Supplement, and published on October 27 last, on " The Standards tion of Electric Light." The article in question was the cause of a good deal of correspondence, having reference to the proposal for standardising, and the provision of tegtmg facilities for the electric glow lamps now in! common use. The salient points of the discussion in The Times, with some editorial observations on the question at issue, were given by the author in the course of his paper. It is gratifying to note that the National Physical Laboratory has taken up the matter of standardisation of the electric li<*ht in what appears to be a thoroughly practical spirit. As Dr. Glazebrook pointed out at a Society of Arts meeting, there is at present no real standard for electric lighting 111 England. The English pentane 10-candle-power standard ranWng mth thr Hefner in Germany and the Carcel m France, appears to be suitable only for laboratory purposes, for which, no doubt, it is admirably adapted. But there can be no doubt that for 'commercial purposes a standard specification of the nature of those framed by the Engineering Standards Committee is urgently required. The National Physical Laboratory will be of real sen-ice in promoting this ; and it is to be hoped that the laboratory may be successful in securing uniformity of standard", if possible, not merely as between England and the United States, but with thp Continent also