ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Electrical Nostalgia 1898 Hydro Plant

Top of falls. Hydroplant is 270 feet below:



Built in 1898:



Total of 5 horizontal generators
Walls are hewn basalt rock:



This DC generator creates the field:




Wheels on top are set to brass contacts which change field voltage. Panels are made from marble:



Fan controller - Note rock walls
Speed set via handle:

see Brochure (450k file)

I still find myself somewhat in awe at the design and work that went into building places like this a century ago.

There's so much push these days for "renewable" energy sources, and here our forefathers built a wonderful plant like this which has been providing electricity from natural energy for over a hundred years.

I second that, everyting that is designed in our time now, seems to only last only a few years yet this was built 100 years ago and is running perfect. If only we could take the time in building such a design now it would end alot of problems there are present.

Most people don't want to invest the time in doing that kind of work anymore. Unfortunately the get it done and go on mind has taken over.

Some of the work done in the 20s and 30s was funded by the WPA or similar organizations, as my uncle used to say "I got two dollars a day because I was the foreman, but everybody else was just as happy to one dollar a day."

Sadly we live in the era of the "fast buck". No one thinks more than a year down the road. Used to be that Europe was better about this than the Americans, but it seems that lately even the Euros are sliding into the US mentality more and more. Oh well, guess thats what museums are good for.....

The biggest fiasco of modern times has to be the Milennium Dome, built in London England to commermorate er.... well whatever.
This was little more than a giant plastic tent, the roof fabric of which only had a design life of 25 years. In practice it started to disintegrate after 1 year. The cost to the British taxpayer/charities* was over US$2,000,000,000!
Our population is 60 million - you do the math!
Alan
*A lot of the cash came from 'Lottery' money earmarked for so-called 'good causes'.

ps. The whole sorry mess is now effectively scrap.

[This message has been edited by Alan Belson (edited 07-22-2005).]

I just came across this thread, and found it really fascinating. I'd never heard of that particular plant.

In my limited experience, hydroelectric plants are good places to see old equipment, because most hydro sites were developed long ago.

An especially interesting aspect of these plants are the turbine governors, which are sometimes the original electro-mechanical-hydraulic units. These intricate servomechanisms provided precise speed regulation, controlling powerful hydraulic cylinders to operate the wicket gates.

Have seen these pictures before, my only comment,

SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL

I have an interesting idea. Back before calculators engineers often were less certain of figures than today, so it was not unsual to add 10% (or so) to most figures. To me (today) it seems that 10% is what causes a lot of old buildings to stay standing while a lot of the "enough to get by" buildings of today fail early. Just a thought.

Yup... the extra % of safety margin are what makes old things keep working. Last Tuesday I crawled under a 1927 electric loco... now that's sturdy steelwork!

Very good point; I can think of two examples from recent times:

(1) Some years ago, there was a proposal to reduce the width of nominal "2 by" lumber for wall studs from the present 1-1/2 inches to 1-1/4 inches, thereby cutting building costs. The idea was supported by engineering studies showing that the narrower studs would still have ample strength, given the conservative nature of code-prescribed wall construction.

But practical-minded reviewers noted that carpenters sometimes fail to hit current-size studs when nailing on sheathing, and could be expected to miss more frequently with the narrower lumber.

(2) After hurricane Andrew hit Florida, inspectors noted that a surprising amount of stapled-on roof sheathing had blown off. Theory and tests showed that the staples should have held as well as nails.

But they failed to take into account human laziness. The proper method of stapling was for the crown of the staple to be parallel to and centered on the the rafter, so that both legs of the staple would penetrate solid wood. However, this entailed holding the staple gun in an uncomfortable position, so some carpenters shot the staples perpendicular to the rafter. This practice greatly increased the likelihood that one leg of the staple would miss the rafter, thus reducing the holding power of that staple by half.

Relevant to both the topic of older technologies sometimes being more resilient, and the original topic of old hydro plants: the latest issue (Vol. 6, No. 4) of Rexel's "Power Outlet" magazine includes an article about the company furnishing materials for a replacement cooling-pump control panel at Pacific Gas and Electric's Tiger Creek plant in California's Sierra Nevada mountains.

The article said that PG&E specified relays, rather than a PLC for the panel due to the lack of appropriately skilled technicians at the plant's isolated location, and because PLCs could be more sensitive to power fluctuations. PG&E's project manager stated "We've found that relays are tried and true, so we stick with them."


[This message has been edited by Albert (edited 10-04-2006).]

A digitized copy of the entire book "American Hydroelectric Practice", from
1917:
http://books.google.com/books?vid=O...p;lpg=PA1&dq=hydroelectri c#PPP16,M1

Has some good descriptions of hydro plants of the era.

Albert LaFrance



[This message has been edited by Albert (edited 02-18-2007).]

This is all good stuff - but our memories serve us so badly - we forget about things from yesteryear that were truly terrible. A couple of things important to me:
Thank goodness we finally came up with an alternative to the automobile choke and carburetor - notoriously unreliable and extremely sensitive to the cold, when was the last time you had difficulty starting a car and it was because of a fuel problem? Come to think of it 40 years ago we would have been thrilled with 100 000 miles out of a car - now they regularly do 200 000 and more. Digital tuning of radio and TV receivers (not to be confused with digital radio) - how I hated trying to turn the knob to get the station tuned correctly - they always seemed to drift. Car batteries that always needed topping up with water. Give me my electronic programmable thermostat for my home heating any day - the mercury filled electro-mechanical one I replace was a piece of work that bounced the temperature around all over the show. Answering machines with tapes in them - actually anything with tape in it - my car stereo ate tapes up for breakfast regularly. Leaded paint, fuel. My grandparents had a coal fired kitchen oven and range - took one person about an hour each day just to keep the thing running (clean out stoking etc). The steam iron - the guy (gal?) who invented that deserves a medal. Automatic washing machines, bagless vacuum cleaners and DISHWASHERS Woo Hoo! Diapers!!!! In short you couldn't pay me enough to live in my parents or grandparents generation - it sucked big time.

Vienna working class housing in 1890... a single bedroom apartment, consisting of a room (maybe 20 sq. m, 25 at best, i.e. roughly 200 sq. ft.) and a kitchen. No bathroom (shared water closet out in the stairway for at least 3 apartments), no running water (one sink per floor in the stairway). And around 10(!) people living in such an apartment, sleeping in shifts.
Nowadays those apartments make for nice student and single accomodation, often upgraded with a bathroom. However, some elderly people still live in those things without a bathroom and running water!
Those houses have special cast iron sinks with integral backsplash called Bassena (from the French bassin). Bassena gossip was a fairly common word as the housewives would meet there getting water...



At least it's got something to do with water, so its not completely OT

Wow. Thats a really awesome sink!

What's that little gimmick that's stuck in the faucet? Did they seal the sink off or is that for attaching a hose to the faucet?

That's for a hose. Besides, without a hose attached it makes for a somewhat straighter stream.

Yep, replications are expensive, and originals are close to inaffordable!

It's likely that there are transient spikes of unexpected stress that rarely happen, but eventually will happen. And that that extra margin that engineers added in the old days was what got buildings and other such things thru the transient spikes of stress without any problems. Take away that margin, and you'll start getting failures from time to time.

Machines may be more user friendly and last a lot longer. Buildings have shorter lives now but then our forefathers were profligate with materials, engineers more conservative in stress allowances and labor was cheap. Not that I want the past back- No Siree Bob! - you can stuff washing in cold water, eating US Army PK rations as a treat and cleaning your teeth with salt! But in making our lives less physically demanding, there's one thing that isn't lasting so long. Us.


Alan