Early American Electric

BlackDiamond1964

Shadow Banned By N3V
I'm currently working on making a electrical sub-station that was built in 1903. I know that these building housed big generators. My question is about the outside of the building.

Avoca-Substation-2.png


There is some kind of rack mounted on the side of the building. Pictures indicate that it on both side.

Avoca-Stop.jpg


This next picture shows my model next to Jananton's model of the sub-station. He added this rack to one side of the building. I don't have a clue on what it is.

Screenshot-2019-11-06-18-50-09.png


I would love to add this detail to my model, however I don't have a clue on what it actually is. Would anybody happen to know what these were and what they were used for?
 
Hi Scott, I think that they are insulated connection point racks where the external power cables attach to the tower


Interesting, Thanks. The odd thing is that in the few pictures I have of this building, there doesn't seem to be any wire connections. I could always attach some anyways. :cool: If I was to Google for reference pictures, what terms would I use?
 
I agree with Euromodeller, even though the wires are impossible to see. I am speaking from the Milwaukee Road out in the Northwest, so maybe it doesn't apply, but generally, the AC power came in from the power company and was used to run DC generators to power the trains.
 
I agree with Euromodeller, even though the wires are impossible to see. I am speaking from the Milwaukee Road out in the Northwest, so maybe it doesn't apply, but generally, the AC power came in from the power company and was used to run DC generators to power the trains.

I need to try to find some kind of reference picture so I can model it. All though Euromodeller's picture gives me the right idea, I'm looking to find something closer (older) to what I'm modeling. The building was built in 1903 so I would need to look at 1903 to 1950 technology. I would google it, but I don't know what term I should google to find it.
 
I need to try to find some kind of reference picture so I can model it. All though Euromodeller's picture gives me the right idea, I'm looking to find something closer (older) to what I'm modeling. The building was built in 1903 so I would need to look at 1903 to 1950 technology. I would google it, but I don't know what term I should google to find it.

Your photo is similar to the substations the Milwaukee Road built ca. 1910. To see how they are set up, download Tume's Avery-Drexel route and see how he set them up.

:B~)
 
Just a guess but could they be leftovers after the cables had either become redundant or gone underground?
 
Scott,

Graham is right. I've seen this kind of thing on old factory buildings in Lawrence, and Lowell, MA where the wires go into the building, and on old substation buildings. Unfortunately I can't get a good google earth picture to show you due to the location.
 
I checked out Forester1's advice and checked out the Avery-Drexel route. I found that those buildings had taller power line wired right to the building. On the opposite side of the building I found this...

2019-11-07-141214.jpg

I don't have a clue on what this is or what is suppose to be.

I also found some thing interesting with Euromodeller's links.

11c5ce16-9773-448e-a450-6a3a0a7a33be-l.jpg


While this doesn't apply to my current sub-station, I noticed that the Plains sub-station (my last sub-station model) had three holes in it's tower. I always thought that it was a decorative feature. Now I see it probably was not. The Avoca sub-station doesn't have these three holes...at least that I can see.

At this point for the sake of moving along, I will probably add the rack with 7 insulators to match the line side poles. Then run wires from the pole to the rack.
 
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