"Thirtieth Street Station, Load Dispatch Center." HAER
30th Street Station, Power Distribution Facilities, 1934
Bounded by Market, 30th, and Arch Streets and the Schuylkill Expressway, Philadelphia PA
© Preston Thayer and Jed
Porter, Workshop of the World (Oliver Evans Press,
1990).
The power distribution grid,
with interlacing feeds from several commercial power
companies, is used to power the 12,000 volt, 25 hz
overhead catenary system for Amtrak's Northeast Corridor
and Harrisburg Lines. The grid is diagrammed on the walls
of the distribution room where original equipment,
installed by the Pennsylvania Railroad when 30th Street
Station was built, is still in use to monitor electric
power consumption.
In the power dispatcher's office, a smaller segment of
the grid in the immediate vicinity of 30th Street Station
is controlled from an equally venerable switching
network. Remarkable is the flexibility permitted by this
system which was studied by the Japanese before they
built their "New Tokaido Line" in the late 1960s. This
system utilizes microcomputers and video displays to
replace the massive boards used in the original.
Update May
2007 (by
Harry Kyriakodis):
Still in operation.
Resources:
The Historic American Engineering Record offers excellent
histories and photographs of the 30th Street Station, Load Dispatch
Center and the 30th Street Station, Power Director
Center.