Generators Arrive

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 269, 3 February 1928, Page 8

Generators Arrive

SUBMARINE POWER-PLANT

Erection of Nurnberg Engines

THREE enormous generators built by the English Electric Company for use at Penrose, in conjunction with the Nurnberg submarine engines, arrived at Auckland by the Middlesex yesterday.

Three 20-ton cranes to be used in the erection of the engines -were landed by the Arawa. and will be taken to Penrose to-day or to-morrow.

should be follow-

ing with the closest attention the progress of this interesting job. On its advancement hinges the reliability of their power supply next winter. It was to avert the risk of a power famine in this city that the Government, having failed in its promise to deliver Arapuni power by March of this year, paid £36,000 for the three sets of German submarine engines, a great deal more for generators, cranes SIDK )K iK SK jK iK iIDK )!()!( jg

and incidental equipment, and an immense sum in freight on the bulky merchandise. Whether it struck the best bargain has yet to be demonstrated. With the incidental equipment and freight the total outlay must already reach £60,000. Yet very little more, £71,000 to be exact, was theories quoted by Krupps, of Germany, for a vertical Diesel engine of a more modern and suitable type than the marine plant delivered in New Zealand along with an expert to supervise its erection. SOUND MACHINERY As the Germans were the pioneers, and have no superiors in the design and construction of Diesel engines, the Government should have been able to accept the Krupp offer without sentimental compunction. The high quality of German work-

manship is realised by engineers who have examined the submarine engines now at Penrose. Built at Nurnberg by the famous firm of Mann, they are powerful 10-cylinder sets, very long, relatively low, and short in the piston stroke owing to the lack of overhead room in a submarine, yet nevertheless developing between them an aggregate of 6,000 h.p. Only the best of material was put into them. Everything is cast steel—as distinct from cast iron—and the care and fidelity of the workmanship, and the solidity of the parts, testify to the thoroughness with which Germany undertook her submarine warfare. The group from which the Penrose engines were handed over among reparation payments was built for Luge cruising submarines of the powerful Deutschland type, and it seems a freakish twist of circumstance that should decree this plants’ erection in a peaceful Auckland suburb, instead of in a warmachine raiding British commerce. RUNNING BY JUNE If there is delay in the erection of the engines at Penrose, it is more likely to be attributable to the tardiness with which the Government negotiated their purchase than to any fault of the machines themselves, or of the engineers who are erecting them. At Penrose the preparations seem to- have been advanced with all possible rapidity, the most difficult part of the early work has been the excavation of deep foundation pits in the exceptionally rocky country. The engine beds consist largely of solid concrete at least 14 feet deep, and these massive blocks of masonry are already complete, although work was only started on December 10. The next step is'the erection of the overhead cranes, and as soon as they are up the assembling of the engines will be carried on while the walls of the building are being constructed round them. If necessary the Public Works Department will work two shifts a day to get the engines together in time for the winter’s peak load, and it anticipates no difficulty in erecting them, as they have run satisfactory trials in England, and are complete even to special spanners and hjue prints, the last supplied by a.n English engineering firm to which the New Zealand Government, on purchasing the plant, cabled instructions for the preparation of the required data. Though it is palpably impossible for the engines to be operating by April, when they were promised by the Government, the engineers are confident that they will be running by June, in time to help the overburdened King’s Wharf station to carry the heavy winter load.