Montage du jour : La rue McGill depuis la rue St-Paul

3 comments

1. I can’t help but notice how many electric power lines used to be visible in the old days… not to mention the spaghetti of tramway wires!

2. In 1869 I would respectfully suggest the wires shown may well be Telegraph wires.

   Extensive electrification probably would be later than this date.

   On the corner to the left of the sleigh is a streetlight which would more in likely burn coal gas from a gas plant where coal was retorted into coke.

   Telephone came later.

   Arc lamps, which generally utilized two carbon rods, with an electric arc between, ( think electric welding ), operating in series under potentials often up to 4000 volts preceded the common filament lamp.

   The arc streetlamps were hung high from poles for better illumination and to keep their high voltages safely away from street level.

   The streetlamp fixtures could be lowered to the street by a rope-and-pulley arrangement by a ‘lamp trimmer’ who cleaned the globes and replaced the carbons as required.

   Once-upon-a-time arc lamp illumieres often lasted into the fifties, altho’ no longer able to be lowered to the street, their innards replaced with 375 Watt filament lamps.

   Carbon arc lamps were used on locomotives and electric streetcars until filament lamps of sufficient candlepower and robustness were developed.

   Back in the late 1800s, a telegraph lineman was slowly electrocuted in front of gaping crowds high above the streets of New York while handling a line that had crossed with an arc circuit.

   Arc lamps gave off fumes and could only be used indoors in large spaces like arenas and industrial plants.

   Those large searchlights once so common projecting beams of light into the sky at Grand Openings were amongst the last use of arc illumination.

   I am going out on a limb here, but I would suggest the revolving searchights atop Place Ville Marie were probably arc when building new.

   In the old days, kids would lower arc lamps to street level, leaving them swinging in the wind.

   These are the same kids who would pull the trolley pole pulley off the wire on a streetcar, getting the Conductor to chase them, delaying traffic.

   They would also ride the rear coupler support bar, hiding below the bottom sill until the car was in motion, and then yell nasty words in the back window, which was down, on a hot summer’s day.

3. Great Post , good i stumbled on this ! I think ill dig this :)