GREATEST POWER STATION

Hokitika Guardian, 7 October 1929, Page 2

GREATEST POWER STATION

A SWISS ENTERPRISE. EUROPE’S BIGGEST WALL. On a recent excursion in the Alps 1 interviewed one of the leading engineers of the Grimselwerk,” Mr Stampliii and was very kindly shown by him over the premises of what is going to be the biggest power station of the world (writes the London “Observer’s” Zurich correspondent). Just below the summit of the Grimselpass, the valley of the Aare is being blocked hv a dam of concrete with iron reinforcements 248 metres long arid 113 me .‘res high. Vt its base it will be seventy-eight metres thick. With its 340,0 0 cubic metres of iron and concrete it will he the biggest wall in Europe. The lake whose pressure it will have to resist will he over three miles in length and half a mile in breadth, and will contain 100,009,009 cubic metres of water. By a three-mile tunnel blown into solid granite,' this water is .-onducted to the Gelniersee, a basin containing another 13,CObCOO cubic metres. It will fall 540 metres, which is nearly half "the height of Snowdon, on four turbines, each of 30,000 horsepower, arid be conducted through another three-mile, tunnel to the third cower station, producing 52,000 horsepower. Though there is more water available further down the valley, its efficiency will he reduced because of the lower water column on the turbines, which is 4QO metres at the second power station, and 240 at the third, which will he at Tnncrtkiroben. From there the current will, he conducted at a tension of 150.C09 volts across the Bninigpns*. nod on to Berne and Basle, the two cMies chiefly interested in the undertaking. THE SCENE OF THE WORK. But it is not these figures, impressive as they are, that, amaze one most. It is the boldness of the enterprise which you admire, ; the intrepidity with which the obstacles have been overcome, and the foresight that has been shown. Practically all the work .has to be'done far above the last dwellingplaces, in a wilderness of granite, where winter reigns for three-quarters of the year, and even the Dog Days are liable to heavy snowstorms. The climate permits work for five or six monins; it is then carried on;, continuously, Sundays not excepted. The 500 workmen are accommodated at the old GrimseT' Hospice, arid the new hotel erected high above the lake. ,lt took three years of preparation before the enormous dam itself could be tackled. For the transportation of materials a railway had to built from Meningen to Innetkirchen, which runs in a tunnel parallel to the well-known Aareschlucht, as the. gorge itself affords no room for a line. Then the .raffis swings on io an iron rope fixed on hundreds of boldly constructed masts enthroned on rocks and promontories. At intervals of 150 yards you watch the three-ton cars gliding steadily up their airy course. From the side of the mountain you see the giantic . pipe Jine descending to the plant at Handeck, where the turbines are now ready to -start their work. At its side you see the funicular climbing up the rocks ' .at an .'angle which seems, almost perpendicular. It can carry sixty people up to the Gelmersee at a' tiriie. At' regular intervals you discover caves high up on the slope. These are the places where the materia! taken out of the tunnel was thrown out...’ There is hardly a turn in the road where you do not find machinery, workshops, barracks. ADVICE TO VISITORS. But the most wonderful view awaits' you when you come on to the new road which had to be built 109 feet above the present road, as the latter will he submerged by the reservoir, along with the buildings of the old hospice. Who would expect such .giant engine-houses ,nearly 8000 feet above sea level, in the immediate neighbourhood of eternal snow and ice? You see a dozen iron ropes spanning the valley 3CO feet auove the river. You see the cranes, gliding along them and dumping their loads of concrete into kennels in which they rush down on the dam. The workmen down there wear steel helmets and look quite warlike. As there is much fog in the valley, the mechanics control the movement of the cranes on a hoard of indicators. You follow the double track of a railway line for three miles, which brings you to the very mouth of the Aare Glacier, wh<|re the sand and stones are fetched which must be mixed with the cement. It seems a very slender wooden structure indeed on which the 18-ton locomotives cross over right into the engine-house. In the beginning the drivers did not trUst it, and the engineers had to stand on the bridge when the first locomotive massed it. Near by you see a sandhill, now about 200 feet high. I asked mv guide, what it was for, and was told that it is the material which will be required in the last period of building when the lake will submerge the railway line. This will l>e in 1931 or 1932., This week the floods of the Aare will he dammed. The river will take about a month to fill the basin up to the present height of the. dam, and then the production of electricity can begin. > No wonder that the Grimselpass was favoured by tourists last year. It is certainly one of the most interesting sights in Switzerland to-day. The statistics of the Post Office show that

the traffic in June was nearly double the traffic in the same pericd of last year. But I would give prospective visitors- the advice to entrust themselves to private charabancs or motor•ars as the-post cars are bound to their time-tables and do not allow r for leisurely observation.