The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1893-08-05

The din is terrific. The electric lights
are not yet in place, and the gas jets
flare and futter in the constant hot
drafts, casting weird lights and Dantean
shadows everywhere. But many of
these characteristics of the Houston
| street power house are due to the fact
that the construction of the building
overhead and of the power station itself
is yet incomplete, and the men who are
| at work about the engines and the trans
uniting machinery are crowded together
| with masons and bricklayers and other
| laborers.
Still another power house is being
built for the Broadway road. 1t is To-
| Gated at Front street and will not be
furnished with such powerful engines
pnd driving machinery as the stations
that are now in operation. Of these,
that at Fiftieth street propels the cable
from Fifty-ninth street to Thirty-sixth
and that at Houston the two cables from
Thirty-sixth to Houston and from Hous-
ton to the Battery. In all three the en-
gines are of the Corliss type. AT Fif-
tieth street they are of ,0OO-horsepower
each, with cylinders 36 inches in diam
eter and so inches stroke. The fy-
wheels are "A feet in diameter and weigh
90 tons each. as much as good sized
locomotive The driving pulleys are 80
feet IN diameter and weigh 42 tons each,
the difference iii weight arising from the
Fact that i'll order to insure steadiness of
running the flywheels are purposely
made heavy while the pulleys are built
as light as possible without sacrificing
strength.
The power is communicated to the
drums over which the cables run by
means of cotton rope instead of belts,
which are being displaced in many in
stances where great power is employed.
pressure of 100 pounds of steam is
used at both the power houses, and the
engines are run at 60 revolutions min
ute. The four engines at Houston street
one and duplicate for each cable
have cylinders of two inches greater di-
| ameter than those at Fiftieth street, the
fywheels are more massive, and the driv-
ing pulleys and drums carry more ropes
and are correspondingly wider and heav-
lei. There are six boilers of $50 horse
power each at the Fiftieth street station.
but only three are used, the other three
being kept constantly ready in case of
accident. AT tho Houston street station
there are of course more boilers, and
they are run as are the boilers at Fiji
tleth street-that is, only half of them
are at any time supposed to be under
steam.
Although the engines are of 900 horse
power and upward each, they are not
worked to much more than half their
capacity at present. The idea through
out Is to have superabundance of DOW
Ell and duplicate machinery everywhere
including extra cables, all strung-so
that the possibility of a shutdown is
reduced to minimum. In case of an
accident to any of the engines its mate
can be put to work without stopping the
cable, and the substitution of one cable
for another would cause Il delay of not
more than 10 minutes.
The cable that pulls the cars OH the
upper section of the road reaches the
tlftleth street station through IL tunnel
lighted by incandescent electric lamps.
This tunnel is an interesting place. 1t
is cool and filled with the clean odor of
the tar that is allowed to drip from a
tank on the cable ut intervals to keep it
flexible. A man is employed to watch
the cable constantly i'll this underground
place, and though it is interesting to the
visitor to watch tho iron rope on its end
less journey the workman says it has al
ready grown monotonous to him. At
Houston street the cable runs directly
into the station, and there is no long
sweet smelling tunnel. But if YOU are
heatproof the Houston street station is
much the moro entertaining place to
visit.
The cable cars do not run much if any
faster than horse cars, but they start
with less delay, and SO the trip is made
III rather less time. The Third avenue
llno Will have power stations at Sixty
fifth street and Third avenue and at
Bayard street and the BowerS. The lat