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IEEE Milestone Presentation

Wednesday, November, 10 at 8:30 AM

The New Boston Convention & Exhibition Center

415 Summer Street, Boston, MA

Power System of Boston’s Rapid Transit

Its Development, Historic Significance and Contributions

by Gilmore Cooke

EVENT PHOTOGRAPH PAGES

The West End Street Railway Company, predecessor of the MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority) successfully carried out the largest electrical project of the time, thereby replacing a fleet of nearly 9000 horses with new and shiny electric streetcars. This historically significant power system grew and sustained numerous changes over time, and It is still operational today. After lengthy historical research, the Boston Section is proud to have nominated the Power System of Boston’s Rapid Transit for the IEEE milestone award.

Founding of the West End Street Railway Company

The transportation system of Boston, now referred to as the MBTA, and locally known as the ‘T’, had its origin 115 years ago. The following is a brief introduction to its history.

The West End Street Railway Company was organized November 12, 1887, with Henry M. Whitney as president at the time. This railway was intended as a short electric railway line to real estate located in Brookline, a Boston suburb. Sometime after the franchise was granted, before any construction had started, a number of horse drawn streetcar companies were consolidated in to one large enterprise, called the West End Street Railway. By the time consolidation was completed in 1888, the West End had 7816 horses and 1480 cars. The new transportation business was great and continued to grow. One year later there were as many as 9000 horses dragging over 2000 cars all over Boston and adjoining towns. Without a better form of motive power, Whitney had a big white elephant on his hand. After detailed investigations were made, the company reached a decision to install the (San Francisco) mechanical cable system. A local newspaper reported that the company was moving ahead with engineering plans, that cable engineers had arrived in Boston, that cable layout and designs had begun. Fortunately for everyone, except for mechanical cable engineers, Henry Whitney was invited by Frank Sprague to go to Richmond Virginia to see the merits of his electric road operating in that city. History says that Whitney was very impressed with electric streetcars and that he quickly abandoned the cable. He decided to experiment with the Sprague system and in the summer of 1888, signed a contract for 20 Sprague electric cars to run from Park Square to Chestnut Hill and Allston, using the overhead trolley wire. A short section of line was equipped with the Bentley-Knight underground conduit. Unfortunately, this underground conduit was poorly constructed and had to be abandoned because of annoying failures and public safety concerns. The death blow for the underground conduit in Boston came on April 9, 1889, when a team of horses was electrocuted while traveling over the conduit track on Boylston Street.

Whitney also wanted to experiment with another popular streetcar system manufactured by the Thompson-Houston company. On February 1889, he signed a contract for 20 electric cars that would operate between downtown Boston and Harvard Square in Cambridge. Beta tests between Sprague and Thompson-Houston systems lasted six months. Whitney selected Thompson-Houston because the company gave Whitney guarantees and had capable manufacturing and maintenance services that Sprague could not provide. Whitney’s decision signaled the start of electrification for the entire transportation system. On that date, June 1, 1889, three related events took place:

Thompson-Houston received contracts for 600 motors and other equipment.
Sprague received a contract to remove all of their motors from existing cars.
Fred Stark Pearson was hired as chief engineer to oversee system development.

Electrification of Boston’s Transit System: 1889 to 1907

System development proceeded on all fronts at a grueling pace. To achieve the desired quality and build the system quickly, the first cars were actually made in their own shops. Existing horse cars were cut in two then spliced together to make a longer motorized car. A temporary power plant was quickly erected using standard power plant equipment to startup the business. Meanwhile, permanent power facilities were designed and constructed. Throughout this massive electrification, the company’s progress was widely publicized and can be traced in local newspapers and national engineering journals. Two major electric journals had this to say:

“The West End Street Railway company of Boston is making rapid progress in the equipment of its line with the Thompson-Houston system, and work is being pushed on the line on which it is intended to use the electric cars this winter…The permanent power plant will be a model of its kind, and when completed the largest and best equipped in the world.

Horses cars will some be taken off the Cambridge Division, and residents in Cambridge will be given the full benefit of rapid transit, and before long the electric car will be a familiar sight in the heart of the city.”

“No power station in the country has attracted more attention than that of the West End Street Railway in Boston since in point of size the proposed station far surpasses anything of the kind that has ever been built. Street railway men will be especially interested in watching the progress of the work now that the work on one of the big engines has so far advanced that the engine has been given a trial run.”

Electrical engineers all across the country were aware of what was going on in Boston, including AIEE predecessor of the IEEE members. Records show that the AIEE General Meeting of 1890, held in Boston, included a tour of the West End’s facilities. The secretary at that time wrote:

“This was the most extensive system of electric railway work then proposed and every facility being granted for its thorough inspection, the occasion proved one of great interests.”

Surprisingly, the project progressed very rapidly, without hesitation or false starts. Each line of track was completely rebuilt to accommodate heavier electric cars, then electrified and quickly placed in service.

Central Power Station - CPS

Built from 1889 to 1891, Central Power Station (CPS) was a huge engineering success. It was built by the street railway company to provide direct current electricity for the growing streetcar system in Boston. Located in downtown Boston, on Harrison Avenue and Albany Street, CPS was the largest electrical power station in the world at that time. With CPS as its flagship, the West End was able to launch the largest commercial electrical traction system in the world. CPS went on line in 1891.

Located at the center of the city, CPS was designed to be permanent and good looking. An extra high chimney was necessary to carry away smoke and fumes that would be visible at all times during the day. At the time it was built, the 250 foot high stack was the tallest structure in Boston, taller than the Bunker Hill monument. It was 50 feet taller than the new chimney being erected by the Edison electric light company just a block away.

Take a look at the photos and illustrations showing CPS when it was built. As expected, it underwent major upgrades over the years, first in the 1890’s, then later in 1901.


World’s largest four-pole 250 kW railway generator. Electric World 1891.	CPS advertised on a General Electric brochure circa 1890	CPS interior view featuring six 1000 hp triple expansion steam engines

CPS exterior view in the late 1890’s	CPS section showing huge flywheel, belts, line shaft and belt tightners	Switchboard operator overlooking reciprocating steam driven generators

Click on photos to enlarge

DC System Expansions

By 1897 the transit company had built seven DC generating stations: Allston Power Station, Central Power Station, Harvard Power Station, and others at Dorchester, Charlestown, East Cambridge, and East Boston.

By 1904 the surface tramway lines were already integrated with the elevated line and the subways, unlike New York City where transit companies operated independently, each with their own power system. The overall transit system then consisted of 421 miles of tramway tracks, and 16 miles of elevated tracks, all within a radius of seven miles from downtown Boston. The 1904 transit company had 1550 closed tramway cars, plus a similar number of open cars and 174 elevated cars. Power was furnished by eight generating stations, all operating at 550 volts DC with track return. The power system had a capacity of 36 megawatts.

What was noteworthy at the time was that the company continued to generate its electricity at a number of independent stations, in a distributed fashion, instead of following the common practice of generating AC at one location then transmitting to substations where rotaries feed various parts of the network.

Subsequent Development: 1907 and Beyond

As the mass transit system continued to expand further into the suburbs, expanding and extending the DC network became more and more difficult. By 1905 existing DC stations were approaching their limit. Installing new DC stations further inland was too expensive. The difficulty the company faced with running separate generating stations was fuel cost. Coal was the fuel of choice. The company could manage an effective DC network as long as stations were located close to their supply of coal near tide water. Coal was transported along the streets of Boston, from their coal pocket on Boston harbor, using electric coal cars late at night.

The company experimented with gas engine driven DC generators. For a while two gas engine plants were installed for traffic in Somerville and Medford, remote suburbs then. The last DC expansion took place in 1907 when three large reciprocating steam engines were installed at the Lincoln, Harvard and Charlestown power stations.

Click on photo to enlarge

For a time, Boston Elevated experimented with the infamous unipolar machine, a DC generator driven by a steam turbine, a wonderful idea which just didn’t work. BG Lamme, chief engineer of Westinghouse, explained why in one of his papers. The answer is simply that steam turbines rotate too fast to maintain good contacts for DC generator brushes. This experimental unit was a General Electric 2000 kw railway generator. It was replaced by a three-phase 25 cycles generator. This experiment at the Dorchester Power Station signaled the introduction of alternating current into Boston’s traction power system.

The next major step in the evolution of Boston’s traction power system was conversion to 25 cycles alternating current. This began in 1911. A large central generating power plant was built at South Boston to transmit 13.2 kv to a series of rotary converter substations.

Transit loads continued to increase: from 31 megawatts in1902, to approximately 50 megawatts in 1910. During the period 1911 through 1931, traction feeders are gradually transferred from the original DC power network over to new rotary substations. By 1931, there were 14 substations in service. A new automatic substation with mercury arc rectifiers was introduced at the Newbury substation. Finally, in 1970, turbine generators at South Boston Power Station, including those at Lincoln Power Station, were in need of major costly repairs. In 1981 the ‘T’ decided to cease generating its own electricity, selecting instead to purchase energy from electric utilities.

Accomplishments

The early power system of the West End, and its subsequent company, the Boston Elevated Railroad, contributed to the well being of citizens and travelers in a major way.

Boston had better and cheaper services as a result of electrification. This fact was acknowledged by historians as well as in the AIEE 1904 Boston Handbook.

The West End also played an important role in jump-starting electric traction from the timid experimental systems in Richmond to adoption of electricity in a really big way.

John Hammond, General Electric’s historian, in his book “Men and Volts, the Story of General Electric”, calls the Boston traction enterprise as “the great West End.” According to Hammond, electrification had a big positive impact on General Electric’s manufacturing facilities in Lynn, Massachusetts. He wrote that Factory C was built especially to manufacture West End’s electric traction apparatus. Hammond wrote that “manufacturing schedules were adjusted and the working force was increased.

The accomplishments of the West End were also acknowledged overseas by the European railway industry. Philip Dawson, English engineer, author, street railway expert, member of many European engineering societies, wrote about the company. He must have been impressed by accomplishments in Boston because he wrote in 1897:

“The street railway system of Boston is the largest and the most complete owned by any one company in the United States. It comprises over 272 miles of track, and owns 1705 cars. It is largely owing to the enterprising spirit of the managers of this company that electric traction first took a foothold in America.”

Fred Stark Pearson - 1861-1915

An important point in the history of Boston’s electrification, is that its engineering and construction were under the direction of 27 year old Fred Stark Pearson. He was chief engineer from 1889 until 1893, when he moved to New York City to establish another electric traction project for the Metropolitan Street Railway. Pearson worked with a small group – a cluster - of engineers who followed him from job to job. Fred Pearson would spend the rest of his life building electric power and traction systems all over the world. But that is another story.

Pearson’s design signature was non-stop electrical systems. Reliability through strength and reliability by redundancy were design principles which he applied throughout his career. Electrical and mechanical systems were arranged for non-stop service. Steam system at CPS was duplicated throughout. Everything in the power plant was redundant. Even countershafts were connected by duplicate leather belts! An elaborate electric testing station was installed for testing feeders, armature insulation and to calibrate instruments. Comprehensive testing and preventive maintenance programs were established in the absence of industry standard practices.

Program Agenda

On the occasion of the IEEE milestone being awarded

to the

Power System of Boston’s Rapid Transit 1889

Wednesday November 10, 2004

8:30 am

at the new Boston Convention & Exhibition Center

415 Summer Street, South Boston

8:30 am: Registration and coffee

Introduction: starts at 9:00 am

Welcoming remarks by IEEE Boston Section
Welcoming remarks by the Power Engineering Society
Recognition of special guests and sponsors

Main speakers:

Bradley Clarke, rapid transit historian, author, President BSRA
Dr. Thomas Hughes, Professor Emeritus, author of “ Networks of Power”
Frances Boyle, MBTA Superintendent of Power Systems and Equipment

Award ceremony:

Presentation of plaque by IEEE President Arthur Winston
Acceptance by General Manager Michael H. Mulhern

Post milestone:

Bus tour of MBTA’s old and new power facilities, substations and selected new transit lines (Bus tours provided by MBTA, Departure and return will be from the BCEC entrance)

For directions and information on public parking: visit www.AdvantageBOSTON.com. Then click on Boston Convention and Exhibition Center or BCEC. Parking will be between $8 and $12.

For planning purposes, please RSVP the IEEE Boston Section office if you plan to attend by November 5. The office can be reached by:

email: r.alongi@ieee.org

phone: 781-245-5405

fax: 781-245-5406

IEEE milestone plaque inscription

Boston was the first city to build electric traction for a large-scale rapid transit system. The engineering challenge to design and construct safe, economically viable, and reliable electric power for Boston’s rapid transit was met by the West End Street Railway Company, beginning in 1889. The company’s pioneering efforts provided an important impetus to the adoption of mass transit systems nationwide.

Updated: March 25, 2008.