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But only half as dastardly as a pair of back-to-back zener diodes across a pilot lamp -- Thereby ensuring that it doesn't become too brilliant!

My dad remembers 32VDC wiring communties in Saskatchewan, Canada. Next time he calls to ask for money, I will ask him for more details.

Most of the info is from notes and correspondence. That is why I said it brought back memories.
The DC in St. Louis was supplied by Union Electric (POCO) to several older buildings for elevators.
The 2 phase was in a school in Manhattan. I recall that the neutral was much larger than the phase lines and that was due to the neutral carrying the sum of the phase lines, not the unbalance. Trying to adapt 3 phase equipment was tough.
The 6 phase double delta was for the Cline-Westinghouse rotary press drive system. In order to get 550 DC there were phase shift xformers, large banks of silicon rectifiers, and 6 ignitron tube rectifiers (water cooled no less) for each of 2 systems, and misc other parts. Amplidyne sets were utilized for control integration. Each of the rotary newspaper presses had a 50HP motor and I seem to recall that 75,000 papers per hour could be produced by each system. I was called in due to arc-overs on the ignitrons. It turned out that the water cooling the ignitrons was flowing too fast and was too cold. Sometimes trouble shooting has interesting results.
Rowdy

I also would like to get some of the scanned documents to post here!

Oh, and ya - the ø displacement on the 2Ø System is 90°...
L1 & L3 = ØA,
L2 & L4 = ØB

Adding my $0.02

Scott35

the 32V systems were used in rural areas with local (as in per property) generators and storage batteries. The towns may have been
32V with neigbourhood generator systems, but I suppose more probably 110V.

They were called Delcos, for a popular brand of the system.

I've seen a reference to 32V being the lowest voltage which is on record as having proved lethal.

It seems likely that this fatality was caused by one of these rural systems -- Maybe to someone who was up to his neck in mud and water?