"Made" Batteries (Primary Cells) on the N&W?

[NW Mailing List]

Does anyone know when the last "made" batteries (a.k.a. Primary Cells) were used on the N&W? 



A "made" battery is one made in the field, using a glass jar, a piece of copper, a piece of zinc , and battery acid, each cell giving somewhere around 1.25 volts. This vis-a-vis "storage batteries" which were trickle charged (thru a rectifier) off an AC line powered by a dynamo.  "Made" batteries  were used anywhere signal or telegraph circuits were required, before AC power was strung into the area . 



"Made" batteries were ubiquitous before railroads strung their own 440v, 4400v or 6600v AC lines, and before "Rural Electrification" in the 1930s, and I'll bet some of them lasted on the N&W into the 1950s. 

 -- abram burnett
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20120618/d4a0a6d8/attachment.html>