page_title: Seebach-Wettingen railway electrification trial
section_title: Power generation
hierarchical_section_title: Seebach-Wettingen railway electrification trial / Power generation
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Versuchsbetrieb Seebach-Wettingen: Innenansicht der Umformerstation
context_page_description: The Seebach-Wettingen railway electrification trial was an important milestone in the development of electric railways. Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon demonstrated the suitability of single-phase alternating current at high voltage for long-distance railway operation with the Seebach-Wettingen single-phase alternating current test facility. For this purpose, MFO electrified the 19.45-kilometre-long Swiss Federal Railways route from Seebach to Wettingen at its own expense with single-phase alternating current at 15,000 volts.
context_section_description: At Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon, a small steam power plant was built to supply the energy needed for the Seebach-Wettingen line. The tubular boilers in which the steam was produced for the turbine had a heating surface of 300 m² each and an output of 18,000 kilograms of steam per hour. The three-stage steam turbine ran at 3000 revolutions per minute. The three-phase current produced had a voltage of 230 volts and a frequency of 50 hertz to match the factory's existing power plant. The converter station with AC buffering was housed in a special building, which was located near the steam turbine plant. The two converter groups had a capacity of 700 and 500 kilowatts. The 375 element backup battery had a capacity of 592 ampere hours. Next to the engine room was the transformer room, in which four transformers increased the voltage of the single-phase current from 700 to 15,000 volts.  The exact layout of the converter station is unclear but the presence of the batteries suggests that it used a back-to-back connection.  The three phase AC would have been converted to DC and then the DC converted to single phase AC.
caption: Interior view of the converter station
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