The Street Railway Journal

Vol. VIII. NEW YORK S' CHICAGO, AUGUST. No. 8. Third Avenue (New York) Cable Construction. excavation for the pit being carried on by means of a shaft and temporary platform, air for the support of the work- In order to give some idea of the difficulties met with men being forced into the excavation by means of Sturte- as the work of cabling this important line progresses, we vant fans. An effort is being made to divert all the present a view on the Bowery looking north from the traffic from Park Row for the present in order that the elevated railway station at Grand Street. In the fore- cable construction may be hastened. VIEW SHOWING CABLE CONSTRUCTION—BOWERY, NEW YORK CITY. ground a nest of water and gas pipes is shown, and far- The contractor, Thomas E. Crimmins, and his en- ther along the elaborate crossover switch which has been gineer, F. S. Washburn, deserve much credit for the put in to accommodate the cars of the Fourth Avenue manner in which they are conducting the work, and the line, which turn into the Bowery at Grand Street and careful attention given to prevent the obstruction of street continue parallel to the Third Avenue tracks to Sixth traffic as much as possible. Street. Other interesting details that were referred to in our last issue are shown in the illustration. The work is The zone tariff system is to be introduced on the progressing down the Bowery as fast as circumstances lines of the Vienna Tramway Co. The district is to be will allow, the excavations having passed Chatham Square divided into three zones, and the fare for one is to be and extending nearly to City Hall. The balloon loop and two and a half cents, for two zones about three and terminal pit at the Post Office are well under way. The three-eighths cents, and for three zones five cents. 452 THE STREET RAILWAY JOURNAL. August, 1892. RAILWAY DYNAMOS AND THEIR MANUFACTURE. Part I. —Shop Practice as Found at the Thomson=Houston Electric Co.’s Works, Lynn, Mass. has become famous as out touching them, and in some mysterious man- the home of the exten- ner, beats or pulses of electricity will be induced sive works of the in the wire, which may be collected and sent into Thomson Houston a circuit so we call this a dynamo-electric machine. ; Electric Co. This com- But it may be further defined as a machine for the con- pany has a unique his- version of mechanical energy into electrical energy, and tory, and in many vice versa. When used for producing an electrical cur- respects without a rent, it is called a generator but when it converts elec- ; parallel in American trical energy into mechanical, it is called a motor, industries. When we and the machine may be employed as a generator compare its crude be- or a motor, as the case may be. In fact a good generator ginnings of only a few years ago with its present capac- is usually a good motor, and will act as a motcy when a ity for manufacturing and developing dynamos and current of electricity is conveyed to it in a proper man- other electrical appliances, the wonderful power of inner but for purposes, the shape and weight of its ; motor ventive genius, when coupled with skill- ful financial management, is strikingly illustrated. In order that our readers may share with us the pleasure of a re- cent visit to this bee hive of industry, and become acquainted somewhat with the details of shop practice and the successive steps in the manufacture of the exception- ally fine railway power appliances which are being turned out, we propose to illus- trate and describe, in a series of articles, so so much of the railway department as will accomplish these results. The present ar- ticle will be confined chiefly to the generator construction, and will be followed with illustrations and a study of motor construction, together with a history of and refer- ence to the future prospects of this remark- ably successful manufacturing company, and the system of discipline which it exer- cises over its 4,000 employes. FIG. I.— BIPOLAR GENERATOR. A dynamo is a very simple machine, and the relation of all its parts can be readily parts are usually modified to suit the class of work for which it is designed. While electricity, as an element in nature, is shrouded in mystery, there is, as stated above, no mystery involved in dynamo construction so we invite our readers ; to accompany us on a brief run through the shops while we describe the details of construction, and we have no doubt they will be as interested in what will be seen, as we ourselves were. It borders on the marvelous to think that bits of metal, iron and copper, when assembled in certain relations to each other, and, when certain parts are put in motion without any previous doctoring or electrifying, an electric current will be generated which may be conveyed by means of a conductor to a long distance and then be con- verted into power, light or heat, as the case may be. One would suppose that the parts would at least have to be magnetized before the machine would operate successfully, but usually no magnetic qualities are imparted to the iron other than it has picked up, or what has been induced from hammer blows as the frame has progressed through the shop. If we study a commercial generator we find that it is constructed of a few general parts. We have first the stationary parts, which include the iron frame which supports the magnetic poles, called fields, spools of wire surrounding these and stands for the journal bearings. The armature, or movable part, which consists of a shaft bearing a FIG. 2.— PLANING FRAME OF MULTIPOLAR GENERATOR. gun metal spider to which is attached a core of laminated iron which, in turn, is surrounded by understood by a novice. We have simply to revolve coils of wire, each of which is connected by other flexible a loop of wire between the poles of a magnet with- wires to the bars of a commutator mounted on the shaft August, 1892. THE STREET RAILWAY JOURNAT. 453 which is designed to collect the beats of electricity which occur in the coils and transfer them to the brushes which are held in position by a yoke attached to the frame and which lead the current into a metallic circuit. Generators are made bipolar or multi- *S- polar. The parts of the former are shown in Fig 1, but for the present we will describe only the multipolar types, as these are the ones now chiefly manufactured, and are now known as the M. P.’s when about 100 h. p. capacity. As we pursue our studies through the shops we hardly know which to admire most, the genius displayed in the design of the generators and motors themselves or that mani- fested in the construction of the various tools with which the work is accomp- lished. The frames, which are cast from soft gray iron, are purchased from commercial foundries, chiefly from Providence, R. I. the Lynn at present not ; works being equipped for making heavy castings. The frames are in two parts, and for the M. P., 500 h. p., an extension base is FIG. 5.—THIRTY-TON ELECTRIC CRANE. each seat in succession and insures their being equally distant from the centre and a uniform distance from the surface of the armature when mounted. This process being completed, the final fitting of the frame consists in chipping off the corners of the joints and other rough places by hand, when the pole pieces are bolted in place. The pole pieces are of soft cast iron with con- cave inner surfaces to conform to the surface of the armature. These are bolted to their seats, pre- viously prepared, on the inner face of the frame, and surrounding these are the spools which pro- duce the magnetic field. The method of winding the spools is shown in Fig. 4, and at this work a large number of men are employed. The foundation of the spool consists of a thin casting or shell of gun metal of peculiar shape having flanges to support the wiring. This frame being placed on a winding form, its outer surface is covered with insulating material, when, being made to revolve, 376 turns of No. 10 insulated wire or other size, and number of turns, depending upon the size of the machine, is laid on, the wire being guided in place by the hand of the operator. The leads are soldered to the inner layer and led out at the side of the shell. Being wound the surface is covered with canvas FIG. 3.— PLANING POLE SEATS. spliced on, so that the castings complete weigh about twenty tons. On being re- ceived at the shops, they are stored within convenient reach of the planers, and the first work upon them consists in planing the different faces for joints and stands as shown in Fig. 2, for which purpose a 120 in. planer is employed. Next, the bolt holes for attaching the stands are drilled, and if an extension is to be added the frame is transferred to a universal drill, and there the abutting ends are drilled for receiving the splicing bolts. The stands and bearings boxes are now attached, and the seats for the pole pieces are planed off on a universal boring mill which, as shown in Fig.

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