Farm Coal Wharf (was: Re: location )

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Redux that nice photograph of a Y6 at the Farm Coal Wharf, posted by Cardinal O'Dalton...

Check out that pole line showing immediately to the left of the engine. It sports a top cross arm with three large insulators on it. I surmise that arm is carrying 440 Volt 3-Phase for the electric motor(s?) on the coal elevator. Was that juice bought from the electric utility, or home-made?

It would be interesting to know if the N&W powerhouses along the Pokie Div were equipped to turn out 60 cycle current for applications like this one (electric motors,) or whether they churned out only 25 cycle (okay, "Hertz" for modern people) electric traction current.

We know the N&W hung AC power on much of the pole line across its system, not for motoring current but for track circuits and signal lighting. I think that was juice for the signal system, although it would certainly have been useable for station lighting, when transformed down. What voltage was carried on the pole line distribution for that current (220v ?) and what wire size was used (#0 or #00 Copper, perhaps ?)  Think Big:  one certain railroad, a few hundred miles north of the N&W, shipped 6,600 v AC along its R/W to drive motor generator ("MG") sets every 40 miles or so, and the output of the MG sets powered the track circuits, signal lighting, electro-mechanical interlocking plants, and drove the compressors which provided air for the operation of its pneumatic switch machines.  That particular railroad's theory was to divorce itself from dependence on any public utility as much as possible.

I also have to wonder what happened to all the N&W's ET (electric traction) staff and workers when the N&W "de-juiceified" its catenary wires...

Until the 1860s, experimenters and scientists called this stuff "the Galvanic Fluid," which is probably the source of our term "juice" for electricity.

So many questions for which answers were easily obtainable 60 years ago, but I, for one, never thought to ask.  Or more probably, most of us just did not yet have sufficient cognitive context even to think of the questions.  Ten year olds do not think theoretically, or about causation.  Too late now, ain't it... ?

        -- Abram MacBurnit,
of the Scottish Highland Turnip Clan