Post by tonys on Oct 3, 2010 6:04:46 GMT -5
I’m not from a mining background but quarrying. My only association with mining was getting involved with a “lime stone mine” that was doomed to failure from the outset, it had to be proved it wouldn’t work!
I served my apprenticeship in the early70’s.
My reason for joining the board is the plants that I worked on used switchgear of which some dated back to 1935. I wondering if any of you had photo’s or information on old gear.
I did a lot of switchgear replacements and unfortunately didn’t photograph any of it. (I was moonlighting as a photographer at the time)!
Most of the gear was Reyrolle on the 550V side, and Ferguson Pailin on 11KV. The FP gear had had new GEC trucks fitted before I started my time. There were still 3 DMO trucks on site but they were the NWEB’s problem. All they did to update them was stick a label on the switch saying, “Operate smartly”!
On 3.3 we had Reyrolle & FP with the original DMO trucks, there was one MetroVic OCB with of all things a knife switch isolator attached to it! In fact on the 3.3 the most modern thing was a couple of 1960’s Long & Crawford isolators.
Just to add a bit of interest there was a 2 mile long 2.5KV OH line with Reyrolle Ex gear at each end. The 2.5 was abandoned when someone decided they needed the copper more than we did. All it fed was a 550V 300KVAR PF capacitor. The capacitor was to come back to haunt me later.
If anyone has any info or photo’s it would be much appreciated.
I’ll continue the story at a later time if that’s OK.
I served my apprenticeship in the early70’s.
My reason for joining the board is the plants that I worked on used switchgear of which some dated back to 1935. I wondering if any of you had photo’s or information on old gear.
I did a lot of switchgear replacements and unfortunately didn’t photograph any of it. (I was moonlighting as a photographer at the time)!
Most of the gear was Reyrolle on the 550V side, and Ferguson Pailin on 11KV. The FP gear had had new GEC trucks fitted before I started my time. There were still 3 DMO trucks on site but they were the NWEB’s problem. All they did to update them was stick a label on the switch saying, “Operate smartly”!
On 3.3 we had Reyrolle & FP with the original DMO trucks, there was one MetroVic OCB with of all things a knife switch isolator attached to it! In fact on the 3.3 the most modern thing was a couple of 1960’s Long & Crawford isolators.
Just to add a bit of interest there was a 2 mile long 2.5KV OH line with Reyrolle Ex gear at each end. The 2.5 was abandoned when someone decided they needed the copper more than we did. All it fed was a 550V 300KVAR PF capacitor. The capacitor was to come back to haunt me later.
If anyone has any info or photo’s it would be much appreciated.
I’ll continue the story at a later time if that’s OK.