 Equipment
for motor coach trains supplied at this time included, in addition
to orders from the Southern Railway, somewhat similar motors for the
L.M.S. and motors with control equipment for the London Underground
railways: about 250 complete equipments and 100 motors amounting to
200,000 hp in all were supplied between 1919 and 1935. A large order
was received for the Sydney (N.S.W.) suburban lines, for which 530
equipments totalling 375,000 hp were eventually made.
In
lighter traction work an innovation of 1922 was the first hand-operated
cam controller for tramcars; the principle has since been adopted
in the industrial field. Much later, in 1938 when speeds and horsepowers
of trams had increased, a compact design ofelectropneumatic equipment
for remote control was developed, a type that still holds the field
for heavy trams and in its most recent automatic multi-notch form
gives accelerations as high as 3 miles/hr/sec.
WELDING AND HEATING
As the use of fabrication extended, the Company started to develop
welding plant of its own design based on its own welding experience.
In 1922 a research specialist in arc welding was appointed, and
a single-operator d.c. arc welding set built; this was a 200-A set
with separate motor and generator, the latter differentially compound-wound with tapped series field for maximum and minimum currents.
Five years later, 200-A and 300-A sets were developed with motor
and generator in one yoke, which carried an overhung exciter and
the starting and control gear.
While
the cooker and heater department was making equipment with the normal
type of resistance element, work was going on at Brimsdown on tubular-sheathed
elements with magnesium oxide insulation under licence from a Norwegian,
C. B. Backer. The investigations were transferred to the research
department, which early in 1929 produced the basis of a satisfactory
manufacturing process.
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