Western Railroad Discussion > Old Power Plants of the Miwaukee in MT

1,2,&3 just west of Martinsdale, MT on the abondoned Milwaukee line. This plant I wouls assume generated electricity for the electrified portion of the Milwaukee Road.

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This power plant is also on the old Milwaukee Road. I don't remember where it is located but it is on I-94 west of Missoula I believe.

In the original post the bottom photo shows where the spur connected up to the mainline by the power plant.

Ed

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very, very interesting. Thank you for sharing.

' wonder what's left inside.

I guess they were diesel jobs?

Doug

That second post is the Ravenna Substation, viewd from I-90. Of course it's all on private land now.

YM

Would love to see the interiors.
Diesel jobs? Not likley, probably
steam turbines or steam engines
driving electric generators. Any
bets the equipment was made by
Allis-Chalmers?

Whoa, here. Things are getting out of hand.

These buildings were called substations and in fact GENERATED NO ELECTRICITY. The electricity the Milwaukee Road used was generated by hydroelectric dams owned by Montana Power and Washington Power. These buildings changed the supplied AD to 3300 v DC for use by the locomotives. They could also change the 3300v DC back to AC when the locomotives were in regeneration on the down hill segments of the runs. They also supplied power for the signal system.

Inside the buildings were transformers in the back room and motor generator units in the front room. There were various control boards for the station operator. Photos and explanation for the apparatus can be found in Dick Steinheimer's and Noel Holley's books about the Milwaukee.

I hope this brings the discussion back in line with reality. The facts, ma'am, just the facts.

Have to watch what you read on the internet. The Holley book should be a must for ANY railfan. Shows what railfan books could be, but had to be a true labor of love.

Bob

Looks like those were shot from the cab of a Freightliner
Here is a good page with photos of remaining buildings. Do a google search for milw substations for more sites.
http://persweb.direct.ca/helmutw/MilwRd/bldgs/bldgs.html

fbe wrote:

> Whoa, here. Things are getting out of hand.
>
> These buildings were called substations and in fact GENERATED
> NO ELECTRICITY. The electricity the Milwaukee Road used was
> generated by hydroelectric dams owned by Montana Power and
> Washington Power......

That makes sense.

I thought that if they were power stations per-se, where were the cooling-ponds or rivers and how did they get the demineralized water for the boilers, etc?

Thus I assumed they might have been diesel- powered. I have worked incidentally, in a power station where they still had the diesel units they started with at the turn of the last century all the way to the present high-pressure steam turbines and Jet-peaker units.

Thanks for sharing.

Doug

Another interesting power set-up was the signal system. According to a Milw. employee operational how-to book I have, the signal system operated on AC. There was AC current in the tracks as well ac DC return voltage as well. Interesting.

YM

So Ed, who do you drive for? I can't tell if thats a curtainside tlr or a reefer, Anyway it's good to see another driver take an interest in the "brand X type " of transportation

Butch

Since you can't use a transformer on DC and high amperage rectifiers were not invented yet you have to in effect drive a generator to produce the DC voltage you want. You can drive this generator with a motor designed to run on your HI-voltage AC (little transmission loss over long distances) input. Your hi-voltage AC transmission line runs along your catenary line and drops into a substation containing your rotary converter which has been located at points on the line to keep supply to the locomotives constant. If you want to make money on the side you can sell the extra hi-voltage AC to towns along the line.

If Mr. T.A. Edison had his way every house would have a little MG set in the basement converting 600VDC incoming to 100VDC for your house supply. If you had to go to 200VDC this would have meant another MG set. Thank You George (AC) Westinghouse ...too bad he did not choose 400 Hz!

ge13031 wrote:

> Thank You George (AC)
> Westinghouse ...too bad he did not choose 400 Hz!

And thank goodness we didn't believe Tesla and his "radiated" power distribution system!

The first photos are of Substation No. 2, at Loweth, Montana at the top of the Castle Mountains grade, which leads down (westward) to Ringling. The second is of the Ravenna substation No. 9. Both of these are of the standard 2-MG (motor-generator) set designs rated at 4 megawatts. Each recieved 100KV AC hydroelctric power from the mains, dropped it down to a more manageable voltage for the large AC synchronous motors, each of which was paired with two 1500 VDC generators which, paired in series, provided the nominal 3000 VDC current to the trolley. Apart from these two substations, only Gold Creek (No. 8) and Primrose (No. 10) still stand in Montana. Washington still hosts Taunton (No. 21), Cle Elum (No. 24) and Renton (No. 27, the next to last in the line, and the only one currently occupied, albeit by a law firm!)

The Milwaukee had 654 route miles of electrification, and 22 substations. It's 100 KVAC line was the first tie between the Washington Water Power and Puget Sound Power & Light utilities. It still exists.

Doze wrote:

> ge13031 wrote:


> And thank goodness we didn't believe Tesla and his "radiated"
> power distribution system!
>
> [%sig%]

I'll make a straight-forward statement. It is not meant to be inflammatory or critical. It is just a simple statement of fact. These facts are available in any public library across the land.

N. Tesla is the father of high-voltage AC; its generation, application and distribution.

He is still scorned by those who would associate him with gravity-engine propulsion, Project Haarp in Alaska, and wire-less energy transfer, all of which are in government review tdoay.

He died a pauper because after engineering preliminary dc networks (for others) and after significant financial investments were made in the dc networks (by others).....N. Tesla went on to improve on power distribution by employing mult-phase, high-voltage, transformable electricity. This would have cost alot of money
to those (others) that had made significant investment in the dc systems. Never-the-less in time, they took the spotlight again for his work in AC. He was effectively bannished.

He lived out his life, penniless and supported by the country of France (and others) in a New York hotel room. He was hit by a car shortly before he died but it didn't seem to have lasting effects. He is still remembered for lavish dinners that he would throw in order to spread his ideas. Many of those dinners he could not pay for.

To be fair and balanced, N. Tesla, who I obviously believe was the greatest electrical engineer the world has ever known, and has more patents in the U.S. Patent Office than-you-can-shake-a-stick-at (on a wide range of things) is a very controversial character.

Doug Dunham
Alto, GA

Check it out.

dougdunha wrote:
>
> ' wonder what's left inside?

Oil, junk, PCB's, wires, more junk and old beer bottles etc.

Only Primrose near Missoula is in good shape and is a private buisness now.
>

Thanks!

Interesting topic.

Doug

The MILW was too poor to upgrade their transformers to the then new PCB cooling fluid. They kept the original transformers filled with oil until the end. The oil was regularly drained and rerefined before being returned to the transformers. The first thing to be salvaged from the electrification was this oil that was shipped out in tanker trucks within days of the shutdown. There were sumps in the floor of the substations that would collect this oil that have to be cleaned out before the buildings can be used but there is no PCB contamination at the substations.

fbe, Good to know about the non-PCB's as I've poked my way around many of these and wouldn't want to have exposed myself (unknowingly) to those nasties. Hopefully creosote isn't to bad either, or were all in trouble.

Mark

Thanks every one for the feed back. It is interesting to know that they where substations instead of power plants. The way they converted the electricity was really unique by our standards now-a-days.

Ed Duke