The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1889-03-30
WHERE ELECTRICITY is cENER-
ATED.
Few Moments Visit to the Electric
Light Works.

HOW much coal does it take per twenty
Tour hours to run your fires" asked the
PREss reporter yesterday, of one of the fire.
men. who was engaged in shoveling coal into
tne names under one of the boilers at the
electric light works on Plum street.
We burn, all told, about fourteen tons of
coal In the time mentioned" replied the fire.
man, wiping the Precipitation from his face.
GU see we have six boilers. Two are of
l35 horse power, two las horse power, one
OF about $50 horse power and one 100 horse
power There are three of us firemen, and
to keep steam up we have enough to do"
But the interesting department of the cleo
trio light plant is the engine room. Here Is
heard the hum and whir of ten high speed,
well balanced engines that run twice as
many big dynamos. Seven of these engines
are of so horse power, two of 80 horse pow
or and one of go horse power. They are all
Arlington & Sims engines, manufactured at
Providence, r. l., except that are of 60 horse
power, and that is Westinghouse engine,
manufactured at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
The Arlington & Sims engine is said to be
the best engine manufactured for running
dynamos because it is high speed, very
durable and even running machine. The
Edison company is adopting them in all their
electric works.
The 80 horse power engine runs the mean
descent circuits" said the engineer to the
PRESS reporter. "This one that Is now run
ming is making 260 revolutions per minute.
This engine runs night and day the whole
week except during the day Sunday. At
hon ~ al Oh ,I.nxx all A.
turn on large number of incandescent
lights we start the other 80 horse power en-
CINE. Each of these engines run two 400
light dynamos. At dusk we start the arc
light machines, and then all the engines
are moving, and 1t is busy place here dur
ing the hours of night. A man stands by
the indicators, each of which has a capaci-
ty of 800 amperes to watch the force of the
different currents. 1t takes ITO of an am.
pere to run one incandescent light If the
indicator points to 100, by dividing that num-
Der by ITO we ascertain how many lights are
burning on that circuit. If the Indicator
points to 200, for instance, we know that just
twice as many lights are burning as when
the indicator pointed. to 100. We cannot tell
about the arc lights with such accuracy, al
though if twenty arc lights were out on
circuit we would know it here at the works
without going outside and looking at each
light A power of 8 CLIO amperes is required
to run single arc light. We have all we
can do now to attend to the calls for electric
lights. At present we are running. all told.
$500 incandescent lights, of which, the ci "
has upon the streets 245. Three hundred arc
lights are kept burning, and of these the city
has 1888. We keep five men outside attending
to the arc lights. They are called trim
mers." Besides we have one light inspec-
tor. and three linemen at present. Three
wiremen are engaged in putting incandes-
cent lights into different stores. the demand
for these lights being on the increase. So
| you see we have plenty to do"
The engineer then reached for an oil can
and proceeded tc refill one of the oil valves
of the 90 horse power engine, which was
humming with rapid revolutions, and the
PRESS reporter strolled away.