Westinghouse porcelain insulator plant in Emeryville, CA is almost ready

Westinghouse Insulator Plant Almost Ready for Occupancy

California Ultimately Will Supply Clay for the Insulators.

Record tine on the construction of the new High Voltage Porcelain Insulator Works by the Westinghouse High Voltage Insulator Company at Sixty-second and Green streets, Emeryville, makes it likely That the plant will be ready for occupancy within a week.

W. G. Prack, the architect in charge, and Marsden H. Hunt, the porcelain engineer, report that the new building has been put up in fast time and that in every department of the building program the contractors are ahead of schedule by from a day or two to several weeks, except in one or two smaller items, which will be completed in a few days when other construction is out the way. Prack says the building will be complete within two weeks and at the present rate it may be ready for the machinery within a week or ten days.

The machinery for the plant has been on the way for some time and is expected by April 15.

Two carloads of raw clay are already in the receiving bins.

The works engineer, E. W. Eckert, is on his way front Derry, Pa., where this company’s main plant is located, to supervise the installation of the new machinery here. A local engineer however is to take charge of the plant within a month or two after it is placed in running order. Ray P. Jackson, who has been appointed superintendent of the new plant, is also on his way west to take a permanent place in this first western branch of the Westinghouse interests.

Allowing time for the installation of machinery and for the training of a force of workers, the engineers hope to have the regular production schedule in operation some time in June.

The initial shipment of raw material comes from England from some of the same deposits of porcelain clay used by the eastern works. M. H. Hunt, porcelain engineer, says however that this is only a temporary shift to insure the first insulators produced being up to standard. Hunt says that there are ample deposits of good porcelain clays in the West, and even in California, but that it will take a little time to test these sufficiently to know what deposits will produce the best insulators. He hopes to draw practically all of his raw material from western sources.

The importance of a high voltage insulator works to the West can not be understood until one realizes that the thousands of miles of power lines leading from the great hydro-electric power houses to our homes must all be hung on one type or another of insulators. These insulators keep the current on the wires from leaking to the ground as it would do if the wires were not separated from the poles by insulation. The Westinghouse High Voltage Insulator Company's plant at Emeryville is the first plant of this kind to open its door on western ground. It will supply power companies only in the western states and the program for expansion of this plant is sufficiently far sighted to take care of great demands which the enormous growth of territory is creating.