Other Early Stations--The Meter - 8

Other Early Stations--The Meter - 8

 "In the second year we put the Stock Exchange on the circuits of the station, but were

very fearful that there would be a combination of heavy demand and a dark day, and that

there would be an overloaded station. We had an index like a steam-gauge, called an

ampere-meter, to indicate the amount of current going out. I was up at 65 Fifth Avenue

one afternoon. A sudden black cloud came up, and I telephoned to Chinnock and asked

him about the load. He said: `We are up to the muzzle, and everything is running all

right.' By-and-by it became so thick we could not see across the street. I telephoned

again, and felt something would happen, but fortunately it did not. I said to Chinnock:

`How is it now?' He replied: `Everything is red-hot, and the ampere- meter has made

seventeen revolutions.' "

In 1883 no such fittings as "fixture insulators" were known. It was the common practice

to twine the electric wires around the disused gas-fixtures, fasten them with tape or string,

and connect them to lamp- sockets screwed into attachments under the gas- burners--

elaborated later into what was known as the "combination fixture." As a result it was no

uncommon thing to see bright sparks snapping between the chandelier and the lighting

wires during a sharp thunder-storm. A startling manifestation of this kind happened at

Sunbury, when the vivid display drove nervous guests of the hotel out into the street, and

the providential storm led Mr. Luther Stieringer to invent the "insulating joint." This

separated the two lighting systems thoroughly, went into immediate service, and is

universally used to-day.

Returning to the more specific subject of pioneer plants of importance, that at Brockton

must be considered for a moment, chiefly for the reason that the city was the first in the

world to possess an Edison station distributing current through an underground three-wire

network of conductors--the essentially modern contemporaneous practice, standard

twenty- five years later. It was proposed to employ pole-line construction with overhead

wires, and a party of Edison engineers drove about the town in an open barouche with a

blue-print of the circuits and streets spread out on their knees, to determine how much

tree-trimming would be necessary. When they came to some heavily shaded spots, the

fine trees were marked "T" to indicate that the work in getting through them would be

"tough." Where the trees were sparse and the foliage was thin, the same cheerful band of

vandals marked the spots "E" to indicate that there it would be "easy" to run the wires. In

those days public opinion was not so alive as now to the desirability of preserving shadetrees,

and of enhancing the beauty of a city instead of destroying it. Brockton had a good

deal of pride in its fine trees, and a strong sentiment was very soon aroused against the

mutilation proposed so thoughtlessly. The investors in the enterprise were ready and

anxious to meet the extra cost of putting the wires underground. Edison's own wishes

were altogether for the use of the methods he had so carefully devised; and hence that

bustling home of shoe manufacture was spared this infliction of more overhead wires.

The station equipment at Brockton consisted at first of three dynamos, one of which was

so arranged as to supply both sides of the system during light loads by a breakdown

switch connection. This arrangement interfered with correct meter registra- tion, as the

meters on one side of the system registered backward during the hours in which the

combination was employed. Hence, after supplying an all-night customer whose lamps

were on one side of the circuits, the company might be found to owe him some thing

substantial in the morning. Soon after the station went into operation this ingenious plan

was changed, and the third dynamo was replaced by two others. The Edison construction

department took entire charge of the installation of the plant, and the formal opening was

attended on October 1, 1883, by Mr. Edison, who then remained a week in ceaseless

study and consultation over the conditions developed by this initial three-wire

underground plant. Some idea of the confidence inspired by the fame of Edison at this

period is shown by the fact that the first theatre ever lighted from a central station by

incandescent lamps was designed this year, and opened in 1884 at Brockton with an

equipment of three hundred lamps. The theatre was never piped for gas! It was also from

the Brockton central station that current was first supplied to a fire-engine house--another

display of remarkably early belief in the trustworthiness of the service, under conditions

where continuity of lighting was vital. The building was equipped in such a manner that

the striking of the fire-alarm would light every lamp in the house automatically and

liberate the horses. It was at this central station that Lieutenant Sprague began his historic

work on the electric motor; and here that another distinguished engineer and inventor,

Mr. H. Ward Leonard, installed the meters and became meter man, in order that he might

study in every intimate detail the improvements and refinements necessary in that branch

of the industry.