IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2020 - 93

was produced by Abner Doble, San
Francisco. Unfortunately, the entire
Abner Doble works was destroyed by
a fire in April 1906. The company had
to take immediate steps to fulfill its orders, prominent among which was the
machinery for the Mohra power plant.
The electrical equipment was shipped
from New York via the Suez Canal; the
hydraulic equipment partly traveled the
same way, and the balance from San
Francisco sailed via Hong Kong. The
generating plant began to arrive late in
1906. Due to excessive snowfall during
the winter, shipments were halted at
Rawalpindi because the JVC Road was
closed to the movement of heavy loads.
Transportation was resumed during the
spring, and the complete plant was delivered by the end of 1907.
The powerhouse in which the water
wheel, generator, and other machines
were housed was a huge double-gabled
building, approximately 188 ft long,
86 ft wide, and 60 ft high. It was built to
facilitate future expansions by accom-

modating 12 more machines of a similar
size. The powerhouse construction work
required substantial excavation through
hard boulders, which began toward the
end of 1905. The building work then
started in mid-1906 and was eventually completed by the end of November
1907. The steel trusses for the roof were
procured from Bombay (Mumbai). Half
of the building space was taken up by
water wheels, generators, and the excitor, and the other half had two floors
on which transformers and the indoor
substation equipment's switches, office,
viewing gallery, and so forth were accommodated. Two traveling cranes were
installed for handling heavy machinery.
Arc and incandescent lamps were used
for the illumination of the powerhouse.
Four inclined steel pressure pipes
(penstock) that were 750 ft long were
used at the powerhouse for conveying
water to each of the four water wheels.
The water descended from the forebay
situated on a plateau 400 ft above after
traversing 6.5 mi in a flume from Baniar

The valley was a huge saucer of land
surrounded by mountains. The Jhelum
River would overflow its banks and

lley

Main
Inlet

Penstock
Spillway

Jhelu

A

Cart Ro

ace
Tai

lR

Water Level (Top)
Elevation 3,969.5 ft
Forebay

Low

Wa

ter

Lev

el

ad

A

Dredging

m Va

Jhelum River

Powerhouse

(Figure 4). The penstock diameter was
reduced three times across the length
of the pipes, which were assembled in
10-ft sections. The four pipe sections
of different diameters could easily fit
inside one another, leading to a great
reduction in the shipment volume and
freight charges. These pipes stood the
long trip very well, with changeovers
at four places: Hamburg, Bombay, Karachi, and Rawalpindi; they arrived at
the plant in perfect condition. The material for the pipe lines arrived in 1907,
toward the end of the season that was
suitable for the pipe-laying work. All
the joints of the pipes were riveted and
caulked except one near the top to enable variations in length due to changes
in temperature. The piping work was
finished by 1 August 1908, simultaneously with the main flume.

Powerhouse Floor
Elevation 3,569 ft

JVC Road

Section AA

figure 4. The plan and sectional elevation of the Mohra power installation. (Adapted from "Jhelum power plant," J. Electricity Power Gas, vol. 16, no. 1, Jan. 1906.)
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