We came to work one morning
to the sound of fire truck and ambulance sirens.
They were talking about a transformer fire at the railroad on
the radio.
The police dispatch didn't seem overly excited and hadn't called
for the line crew as yet.
When the phone did start ringing it was calls of power off on
both of the circuits
fed from one of our 69KV subs. When the superintendent arrived,
we headed toward the sub station to see what was going on.
We arrived on the scene to find the fire department sitting on
top of the hill
watching the flames die down.
The regulator that failed had
just been placed into service the previous afternoon
after a rebuild. It stepped down fine through the night, but as
the load began to increase
in the morning it failed to raise. After killing the feed and back-feeding
the two circuits
onto one of the other subs, we cleaned and repaired this one.
Luckily it was at the end of winter and our load was low enough
to allow us
plenty of time to find replacement regulators and get the sub
back on line.
Thanks to East Kentucky Power for their help. They sold us some
rebuilt
2400 volt regulators and we were only down for a few days.
Pictured are superintendent
Rob Lyons and foreman Steve Sexton, in bucket.
Paris Municipal Electric
System - Paris, KY
