Longest surviving power station built by a rail transportation co.

[northeaster]

I should have included the date of my Cos Cob power plant tour, it was 1956/57 and at that time, the plant was looking a bit more bedraggled then in the referenced film. The pricey neighborhood across the Mianus River was never happy with the soot from the plant nor was the downstream Riverside Yacht Club. The NYNH&H was always under pressure to clean up the plant but by then the railroad was in such deep money trouble that little was possible. I do not know if any "industrial history documenter " ever got to photograph the plant before it was demolished.

[PATTBAA]

The interior of Cos Cob can be vieweG6d in the video "A great railroad at work" @ 28.00    youtube.com|watch?v=G6TadIYmlXY

[northeaster]

I grew up near the NYNH&H RR Cos Cob power plant and a friend of my father's was the manager of the plant. John Coolidge managed the plant and his chief electrician was a fellow we knew as "Frenchy," I believe because he was a Quebecer with a strong accent! John took me on a tour of the plant when I was in high school and it was truly impressive, the massive boilers burned pulverized coal blown into the fire boxes which when viewed thru a peek hole was simply a room of flame. The turbine hall was immense, with, at that time, only two large two stage turbines and another two empty pits where other turbines once stood. The most impressive object was a small machine which John explained was balancing the current flow between the catenary and the ground but it was really a quite small mechanical device which made the massive flow of electricty usable...impressive. It was a shame that the entire structure was demolished, it was one of those monuments to an industrial age now erased. There was also about a mile up the Mianus River, a large stone dam and pump house which supplied a million gallon reservoir at the power plant with fresh water to supply the boilers. Discharged cooling water from the plant made flounder fishing really good just outside the crumbling bulkhead where coal at one time was brought by barge as well as accomdating a coal rail trestle & hammer mill.

[Overmod]

zugmann

I don't think the PRR ever owned it, though.  

They did not.  Predecessors of PP&L and Baltimore Gas & Electric were the original stockholders in 1930 (⅓ and ⅔ respectively).

 

[zugmann]

MidlandMike

Doesn't the ex-PRR power plant at or near Safe Harbor still supply power to Amtrak?  I seem to remember they needed to rebuild the transmission lines recently to supply the NEC.

The Safe Harbor Hydroelectric plant has two 25Hz turbines (out of 12 or so total). I don't think the PRR ever owned it, though.  

[MidlandMike]

Doesn't the ex-PRR power plant at or near Safe Harbor still supply power to Amtrak?  I seem to remember they needed to rebuild the transmission lines recently to supply the NEC.

[PATTBAA]

This was the NHRR's Co s Cob plant that generated 11,000 volt , 25 cycle power for nearly eighty years (1907-1986 ) long after generating plants erected by rail transportation co were abandoned. Cos Cob endured for so long because of the large volume of commutor traffic which operated with M.U. trains.The NHRR's effort to use the FL-9 diesel for passenger trains between New Haven, GCT, and Penn Station was not a sucess . Operating diesels under an 11,000 volt catenary was indeed a hybrid system.The large coal-fired generating plants built by the NYC RR, the PRR , and the IRT eventualy became obsolete when sufficient 60-cycle commercial power was available.