Location: New Baltimore, MI - Rapid Railway Power House

The Detroit & Port Huron Shore Line Railway (commonly known as the Rapid Railway) interurban railroad had a major power house at New Baltimore located on the shore of Lake St. Clair near the railroad's right-of-way. It supplies direct current electricity to about 110 miles of city and interurban railroad.

The power house was built by Westinghouse, Church, Kerr & Company. There are three units of 500 kw each. The generators are three-phase, 390-volt machines, and the engines are Westinghouse tandem compound condensing. Four Babcock & Wilcox water-tube boilers are equipped with Roney mechanical stokers. A centrifugal pump raises the water about 21 feet for use in the Worthington jet condensers, which are located just under the boiler-room roof. 

The complex has three generators, two exciters, two rotaries, four boilers, two boiler feed pumps, one rotary pump, an air pump, an auxiliary pump, a stoker engine, two fan engines, and an economizer.

[SRJ-1902-1004]

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