OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums General Discussion Forum Off Topics Electricity Book - Workplace OHS?

Pick up this book
'The Book Of Electricity'
Printed by
Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd London
Year 1952
Look at the crane driver Oh was there any OHS back then??
Ian

It's amazing isn't it?

The operator doesn't look exactly thrilled ...
It's more of a "I hope my testicles will be OK".

Electricity, in particular, was presented as 'man's friend',
with little recognition of the dangers.

They're certainly big coins he's lifting.
I wonder what current-cy?

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JACK

Don't worry about the crane driver, I doubt that the contraption pictured ever really existed anyway other than in the mind of the artist. No, what you need to worry about is why a Tallean Intergalactic Warp Jump Ship is hovering over that [Censored] in the first picture? I can only assume it is needing water to refuel its hydrogen powered warp field engines.

Wow, in case you are wondering what the censored word is, it is the three letter word in common usage to describe a wall holding back a body of water. Never realised this forum machine had a built in censor that couldn't tell the difference between a word with and without a D on the end, or that thought that it was such a bad word that no one could be allowed to read it!

[Censored] [Censored] [Censored]

Isn't that bizarre!
I now know how to swear politely on these forums.
I'll just use the [Censored] D-A-M word.

All very [Censored]
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JACK

Agreed, that crane would be largely an artist's conception. Not entirely though - I'd say that those unguarded drive belts, chain and gears would have been true-to-life in those days.

Belated edit: Here's an image, courtesy of the Imperial War Museum, of overhead cranes operated by women in munitions manufacture during WW1.

Link to original: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205295986

That 'Tallean Intergalactic Warp Jump Ship' is actually an item that would also give the current day's 'Elfin Safety' mob the horrors.

It's a large Mercury Arc Rectifier, which was used to convert AC current to DC, for example for leccy train/tram overhead traction supply. Long supplanted by solid-state rectifiers, of course. Widely used from 1902 until the 1970's, and there were still a few in service in the '00's - http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/mercarc.html .

Wonder what the book has to say about that one!


Manhole covers, maybe?

Yep, the unguarded drive belts etc are most probably right. I doubt though there was ever a traveling crane with some poor muppet sitting in a chair that doesn't even have a valid connection to the crane, a single bolt on the front edge at each side?, of a single strap? They would want to have one heck of a lot of torque applied to them to stop that seat from pivoting down and tipping him headfirst onto the ground. And one has to assume it is picking up power from the exposed cable running just above his head each side of the beam which barely clears his head. Fried apprentice for lunch anyone?

More colour pictures from the same book that's it the others are all drawings
and yes I have been caught on the da-m word
Ian

Tallean Intergalactic Warp Jump Ship

Ah yes, the mercury arc rectifier - great coffee!
[AKA Tallean Intergalactic Warp Jump Ship]

Great illustrations Ian - I love those '50s and '60s books and mags.
And it did influence lawnmowers - the streamlined Atom Mofasts come to mind ...

But electricity - and electronics - would be man's servants:-



I think this may have been MOD Gadge's dream Christmas present:-

Do you think perhaps they were extremely inefficient turbines in the day to have that many in one power station, or was someone being a bit over the top in their imaginings? I don't think there are even that many turbines in the hydro system powering Las Vegas from memory, let alone trying to boil that much water to run all those.

I'd say that the turbine hall pic is accurate for that era. Here's a 1950's pic of the main turbine hall at one of the Yallourn, VIC steam-cycle power stations. From the Museum Vic SECV photo collection. http://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/articles/3519



I don't really know what the main limiting factor in steam turbine/alternator set size was back then - but I suspect it was on the alternator side.
Overhaul intervals would also come into play - if they were relatively short, it would be logical to have a greater number of units, to allow for one or two to be down for maintenance, without affecting output too much.

There looks to be only three of the large turbines, and a half dozen much smaller ones? Maybe the small ones came on line for load leveling being much easier to spin up and down than one of the big fellas? The small ones could also possibly have all been bought on line when a large one was down for maintenance? Probably materials technology could have limited the turbine/alternator efficiency, no rare earth strontium magnets around in the 50's and bearings were probably still pretty basic as well.