Mains supplies in the old days

[Richardgr]

I came across this building near where I am living these days. 'Elektrofachgeschäft' translates as elctronics store, but is where one would have bought there electrical supply back in the day, turn of the 20th century I suppose.

Look at all the supply points on the roof - must have been a real cat's cradle in its hey day.

[G6Tanuki]

Fascinating!

I wonder though if those insulators were perhaps for telephone service? Or was there perhaps several competing electric-power providers in the town and they all provided a service to this particular business?

[Dave Moll]

I would agree that the insulators have a telecommunications look about them. Could it be that this building also served as a telephone exchange?

[bluepilot]

Indeed fascinating. Was there originally (or maybe even now) a generator in the building to supply the surrounding area? Architecturally looks to be from about 1910.

[ben]

If you want an idea of the chaotic and dangerous myriad of AC and DC mains supplies in England pre-national grid, have a read of this article (TV Mag,03/1987, page 42 in the pdf)

[Junk Box Nick]

I can’t add anything to the technical discussion but it’s a lovely building.

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

Fascinating!

I wonder though if those insulators were perhaps for telephone service?

I've seen insulators nearly identical to those on high-security electric fences at French naval dockyards.

[Brigham]

It has no chimney. Are we sure it isn't just a telephone exchange?

[emeritus]

Hydro-electricity?

[kalee20]

Originally Posted by ben

If you want an idea of the chaotic and dangerous myriad of AC and DC mains supplies in England pre-national grid, have a read of this article (TV Mag,03/1987, page 42 in the pdf)

Thanks Ben! Saved for reading later.

[duncanlowe]

Some more infor here. My German isn't so good, but it does seem electricity was at least distributed from it originally.

https://www.ibwshop.ch/files/pdf1/do..._srotehuus.pdf

Edit: I've found a bit that says it was a substation for electric street lighting.

[Nickthedentist]

Distributed rather than generated, presumably.

Interesting building, thanks for posting.

[Richardgr]

Originally Posted by duncanlowe

Some more infor here. My German isn't so good, but it does seem electricity was at least distributed from it originally.
...

Many thanks for that, I will save that and translate it! That was internet searching worthy of Miss Marple!

[Richardgr]

Comparing with a telephone tower, here is the one from Stockholm about that time ...

Old Stockholm Telephone tower

It has no chimney. Are we sure it isn't just a telephone exchange?

The local electricity has been generated by HEP from the river Reuss since mid 1800's I think, so no need of a chimney, just to distribute from the dam.

[Joe_Lorenz]

Wohlen is located in Switzerland. The IBW company still feels obliged to preserve history, so they restored that "red house". In the early days there was a substation located there. Nice looks were more important than easy accessibility for linemen's repair tasks!

Joe

[broadgage]

A "street lighting substation" might imply use of SERIES WIRED street lights in which a number of incandescent lamps were connected in series to a relatively high voltage constant current supply.

This system was more efficient than parallel wired lamps on the local mains voltage. The lamps were rated by supply current and light output. Lamps of different output could be run in the series chain provided that they all had the same current rating.
6.6 amps and 20 amps were common ratings but others existed.

Obsolete for street lighting, but still used for airfield lighting.

Each series circuit needed its own pair of wires. A substation could have a dozen or more series street lighting circuits radiating in different directions. That would explain the large number of insulators observed.
The same substation would probably have supplied several constant voltage circuits for domestic or similar purposes, even more insulators. And perhaps also tramway or trolleybus supplies.

[Joe_Lorenz]

Indeed a very good explanation, must have been like this!

BTW: So one defective bulb would send all of the street into darkness? Fixing trouble must have been even more annoying than finding out which bulb of the Christmas tree lighting has died right now!

Regards, Joe

[broadgage]

A failed lamp was automatically bypassed, thereby leaving the rest of the series string alight. The device to achieve this was built into the bulb.

If the shunting device failed to operate then the full supply voltage would be present across the failed lamp which might arc internally and then shatter, making the location obvious.

The supply would maintain a constant current even with several lamps bypassed.

Larger or more important roads would have several series lighting circuits, both for reliability and to enable alternate lamps to be extinguished after midnight.

Another advantage of series street lighting was that the short thick lamp filaments gave a steady light even on a low frequency supply. 50 cycles is about the lower limit for say 240 volt, 40 watt lamps. Series street lights gave a steady light even on 16.7 cycle supplies.

Series street lights existed in the UK but were never popular, more of a European and USA thing.

Some UK street lights used between 8 and 10 carbon arcs in series between outers of a 3 wire DC mains system. A few of these were modernised by use of 50 volt 300 watt incandescent bulbs in place of the arcs.
50 volt lamps were a bit cheaper and a bit more efficient than 200/220/240 volt lamps in the same wattage. No automatic shunting of a failed lamp in that case, but locating the failed one was easy with only a small number.

Bulbs intended for series street lighting were a useful source of odd voltage lamps.