Niagara power generation

Readers letters

The Archive gives an excellent overview yet omits one important point...

Laura Gardner's concise article (PE April issue) gives an excellent overview of the story of this development yet omits one important point - of which I had personal experience.

She refers to the problems of deciding on the methods of transmitting the electric power generated at Niagara to potential major centres of consumption such as Toronto, a considerable distance away. Yes, they came up with the answer of 3-phase AC, but they also specified that it should be at 25 cycles per second (cps). The UK and European standard is 50 cps, while American (and now, I understand, also Ontario) is 60 cps.

25 cps light even with filament lights has an observable flicker, particularly if you are not used to it. I remember being struck by the fact that all the lights seemed to be flickering as we got off the train in the Union Station in Toronto when I arrived there at 11.00 p.m. on the evening of 30 July 1940 after a 12 day journey as an evacuee from the UK. The contrast with the blackout was marked in more ways than one! One notices these things at age 12, but gets used to them.