Otter Tail Power

And it looks like Otter Tail gave the Colman sub an overhaul too. Today's little drive may as well have been called the Graveyard tour!

The line to Great Bend (in the back) is fairly nondescript, but the original line along this alignment was THE first electric utility line in North Dakota to have a 'Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity' issued once the North Dakota Board of Railroad Commissioners (predecessor to the present Public Service Commission) gained authority over all the electric utilities in the state. The original likely got rebuilt during either the 1920s expansion phase or during the push to modernize the system in the 1950s.

Original picture: www.ipernity.com/doc/ndlinegeek/18862819 Seems the distribution has recently been upgraded from 7200V CGD as the branch heading south is new. It was a bummer to see the KPFs gone and the sub upgraded to full 3-phase. At least there's another nearly identical one at Selz (and that sub is wood). The splices on the 115kV pole carrying the distribution is where the original 41.6kV/7200V CGD sub stood.

The route I took heading to my insulator club's swap meet at Nisswa took me down a county road that happened to carry a long 7200V line out of the rural sub near Dayton Hollow. I now see why the main transformer was so big! Anyway, this was a real surprise to find! One, Westinghouse transformers are rare on Otter Tail, two, this was a 7200V unit, third, there was a second one not far away!

I swung by Lake Preston to see if anything changed since my last trip through the area a while back. Everything appeared unchanged, but the scarce (if not rare) GE Form 109 streetlight has since given way to a NEMA standard light. :-|

An old heavy transformer bank apparently abandoned in place in favor of the newer transformer up above.

Two sets of lines weaving around each other as the 41.6kV line heads to a nearby substation.

The schoolhouse transformer pole, minus the transformer.

Looks like Otter Tail reclaimed all the idle transformers and retired long-idle services in this 'ghost town'. www.ipernity.com/doc/ndlinegeek/18591369 Sure would have liked to be there when that Autovalve came down!

As part of some in-progress improvements to strengthen its northeast South Dakota system, the company added a capacitor bank, and I'd thought the entire substation would be torn out and replaced, but they only added on to the east end of the structure... they STILL have that ridiculous method of terminating the north 41.6kV circuit!

The lone 3-phase load in town; serving a farmer's grain drying and storage equipment.

Another view of the pole. The reason for the yellow paint is it doubles as one of the field's foul-line poles!

A lot of work just for one rural customer, but probably cheaper than having Kingsbury Electric build a line to this customer.

The substation for several rural customers north of Hetland. There were originally two circuits running to Lake Preston from here, but it looks like they have been melded into one. If I had to guess, it was to create some needed space at a couple critical points along the new 115kV ROW (across the road to the north).

For some reason the pole in front has a 'X of death' on it?

Ick. Polymer posts are now starting to turn up on OTP's 41.6kV 'delta' lines.

So, I decided to get out of town for a few hours on the Sunday over Memorial weekend, and I decided to check on a number of locations across northeastern SD, from Hetland to Bowdle. First up, was a look at the odd '3+1' trunk line through Hetland - still there.

Checked on the line into Trent; this is the west end of the last segment that has not yet received a 100% rebuild.