The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1914-04-24
An Electrical, Engineer Gives Some
Inside Facts About Which the
Public 10 Not Usually
Informed.
CONSTANTLY INSPECTED
Constructed to Stand Attacks Of All
Elements Summer or
Winter Could
Bring.

1T is queer how people ignore the
really important things in electrical
transmission and always ask about
the things that worry the electrical
engineer the least" said man who
has had much to do with getting
electric current from the power house
to the point of use miles away. He
was listening to guide answering
the questions of some visitors to the
great water power in the Mississippi
river at Keokuk.
The guide said that the loss of
energy in the cables between Keokuk
and Saint Louis, 144 miles, is less
than nine per cent, and the visitor
looked surprised and gratified that the
loss in transmission was SO small
THE loss of current in transmits
sion is not what counts, nowadays"
said the man of experience, "at least
not anything near the other expenses
Of transmission. That line goes IA
miles through Illinois and Missouri
in a right of way a hundred feet wide
that had to be obtained from the
farmers and is the same in size as a
railroad right of way. There are near
ly 1900 steel towers on concrete
bases, each of which would be con-
sidered quite a costly little piece OF
work if built by the average small
town, say for a fire tank support.
There are six copper cables, five
Fights inch in diameter making a
total of about nine hundred miles Of
cable of the costliest copper-and
there are the specially costly spans
across the Mississippi river twice and
the Missouri river once, one of them
5000 feet long between towers. There
are those big porcelain plates strung
| together to make an insulator for
each cable-there are over $4,000 of
them, and II anybody thinks they are
cheap, try to buy some subject to the
tests for perfection made here Now
add over forty miles Of the lighter
line north Of Keokuk, and you get a
cost of construction running into the
must be earned every year. No
wonder the company is not talking
about building a spider web of trans
mission lines all over this country
and is centralizing it's work along the
| lines already built
This engineer omitted to mention
one important part of the work-the
the transmission line to insure steady,
continuous operation. The most ex-
IRENE conditions imaginable of sleet
and wind and lightning, were assumed
and the lines were built to Withstand
more than that. A big electrical
storm has hit the line; a big sleet
has burdened it; high gales have
have brought everything against that
line, and it has stood the test.
It is constantly inspected like the
main line of trunk railroad. 1t has
it's own line riders corresponding to
the track walkers of a railroad, it's
own telephone line with many instru-
ments en- route, its own wagon road
ing a considerable force of men, each
picked man for his place. The
electrical engineer seems to have
been right in saying that the slight
loss Of current caused by the resist
ance of the copper cables is the least
part of the necessities of really big
transmission line. working at 10000
volts and supplying a large territory
day and night, every minute in the
year and for many years at a
stretch