Central-Station Electric Lighting: With Notes on the Methods Used for the Distribution of ElectricityHedges, Killingworth
History
Central-Station Electric Lighting: With Notes on the Methods Used for the Distribution of Electricity
Hedges, Killingworth
Electric light plants -- Europe
Travellers abroad are accustomed to find electric lighting installed in
the most out-of-the-way places, especially in Switzerland, where water
power is abundant and is utilised to generate electricity, so that in
small hamlets arc lighting is often employed, and the visitors to the
local hotel will find it lit throughout by electricity. Electric light
stations in England are, with one exception, small in comparison with
those on the Continent. The most important is that at the Grosvenor
Gallery, London, which has increased from small beginnings until
it now supplies 20,000 glow lamps on sixteen circuits, the total
length of which is seventy miles. The next largest, which have been
in practical work for some time, are the Brighton and Eastbourne
stations, from which small installations of glow and arc lights are
maintained in various districts of the two towns. That the question
of cost or trouble, and the annoyance of machinery when erected in a
dwelling-house, do not altogether prevent the adoption of a superior
light, is clearly proved by the increasing number of householders, who,
after waiting in vain for electricity to be brought to their doors,
have set up the plant necessary to produce it themselves, and find no
practical difficulty in doing so. There are also many important public
works where electric light has been exclusively adopted. For instance,
at the Tilbury Docks there are 1350 glow and 80 arc lamps, distributed
over an area of 300 acres, and including the lighting of an hotel, dock
sheds, warehouse, signal-boxes, and offices. The London, Chatham, and
Dover station at Victoria has also been electrically lighted for the
past three years, the current being obtained from a central-station,
which was erected for the purpose of supplying electricity to the
Victoria district, and for which a provisional order was obtained.
This, however, has since been abandoned, although £16,000 had been
expended on plant and buildings by the promoters, who preferred to
postpone the scheme rather than to submit to the onerous 27th clause of
the Electric Lighting Act. Another still larger installation has been
put down to supply electricity to the Paddington station and district
of the Great Western Railway, as far as Westbourne Park. It embraces
an area of sixty-seven acres, and is lighted by 4115 glow and 98 arc
lamps. The system adopted is that designed by Mr. J. E. Gordon, and has
now been successfully worked for some time; but the many accessories
which are introduced, such as telephones, telegraphs, and indicators,
make it complicated in comparison with gas, or even with the ordinary
electric light systems. The current is generated by two dynamos, each
weighing 45 tons, and having revolving magnet wheels 9 feet 8 inches
in diameter, 22 tons in weight, a third machine being kept in reserve.
These dynamos are separately excited, and produce alternating currents.
The electricity is led to a large switch-board for distribution
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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