wheelpit

Over the wheelpit will be the Generating Station or Power House.

Niagara's Power: Past, Present, Prospective 1905

It will be supplied with water for cooling purposes from pumps located in chambers of wheelpit.

Niagara's Power: Past, Present, Prospective 1905

It is constructed 158 feet below the bed of the river, commencing at the end of the wheelpit, and discharging behind the falling waters of the Horse Shoe Fall about 100 feet from the shore.

Niagara's Power: Past, Present, Prospective 1905

Instead of commencing directly under the wheelpit, it starts with two branches, one on either side of the wheelpit.

Niagara's Power: Past, Present, Prospective 1905

The auxiliary machinery, consisting of exciter turbines, exciters, water pumps, oil pumps, oil tanks, etc., are located in the chambers built into the side of the wheelpit, 100 feet beneath the surface.

Niagara's Power: Past, Present, Prospective 1905

Instead of taking the water from the river at the Power House, conducting it through penstocks to the turbines in the wheelpit below and discharging it into the lower river by means of a tunnel, they gather the water required at their headworks at the upper end of the Park, conduct it through a steel pipe of over 6,000 feet in length to a point in the cliff below the Falls, thence by penstocks in tunnels through the cliff to the Power House in the Gorge.

Niagara's Power: Past, Present, Prospective 1905

These join at a point 165 feet beyond the end of the wheelpit, forming a section 26 feet high and 23 '/2 feet wide, of a horseshoe form, the object of the water wheels discharging alternately into a branch tunnel on either side instead of into one main tunnel beneath, being to enable one half of the Power House to be shut down at any time for examination or repairs, a feature unique with this installation.

Niagara's Power: Past, Present, Prospective 1905