On March 4, 2025 Blanchette Signage Solutions came out to our site to take down our sign. The plywood was looking a little tatty after 20 years in the elements, so they'll take it back to their workshop to design and build a new aluminum backing. The letters (which came from the west wall of the Rossdale high pressure power plant) will be cleaned down to bare metal, refinished and mounted to the new sign. 

They'll fix it up there. Then bring it back here.

We're really looking forward to having our shiny new sign in place before the first show of 2025.

In the days before real-time data, before remote monitoring of system status, the City of Edmonton Electric Light & Power Department used this display board to keep track of the status of over 100 various HV switches, air-breaks and oil switches. This System Display (or "Mimic Board", as it mimicked the status of field switches) was mounted in the Rossdale Control Room. If it was necessary to operate a switch, a "Switching Order" would be created by the Control Room Operator. When it was time to execute the Switching Order, a utility employee would approach the operator for the key(s) to operate any devices called for in the Switching Order. The Operator would open the mimic panel cabinet and select the pertinant keys and hand them to the employee (typically a Power Lineman). 

The lineman would travel to the switch location, and after receiving clearance from the operator would operate the appropriate switches. He would then contact the Control Room (typically by telephone) to confirm the switch had been operated, and the Operator would move the switch on the mimic board. The lineman could then proceed to the next step on the switching order. 

On this mimic board, underground circuits are displayed as chrome bars and overhead lines are shown in copper.

This display is a fascinating snapshot of the history of Edmonton, and icons from the past include the government elevators on 127 St. & 130 Ave. (now Cargill), Aircraft Repair at Blatchford field (later North West Industries), Namao Field (Lancaster Park), Griesbach Barracks (now Village at Griesbach) and Swifts, Burns and Canada Packers that operated meat packing plants in the east end.

The Leduc West Antique Society has announced the dates for major events in 2025.

At these events most of the buildings in the Alberta Heritage Exposition Park will be open and welcoming guests, including the largest collection of Rolls Royce cars in Canada in the Hooper Building, a working blacksmith shoppe, the Comrie collection of hundreds of model trucks, the Orm house, the Shaffrick Ford collection (incuding Ford N-series tractors powered by an inline 4, inline 6, flathead V8 and one with a flathead V12!), and, of course, the Edmonton Power Historical Foundation Museum. Plus many more.

April 26th, 2025: Volunteer Expo Event
     This is a great opportunity to visit the park and to get a glimpse behind the scenes. Find out all about volunteering at Leduc West - whether you're 8 or 80 there is a place for you!

April 26th 2025: Kansas City BBQ  Society Judges Course at Leduc West

     Check the Embers & Ice Facebook Page for more details

May 24 and 25, 2025: Spring Fire Up Event
     Join us at the Alberta Heritage Exposition Park for our first event of our 35th Anniversary year!  Concessions, Vintage Tractor Pull Competition, Swap Meet, activities for kids and adults, Historic Buildings and Displays, and more!

A special feature of this year's event is the Embers & Ice BBQ Pitmaster Challenge, a Kansas City BBQ Society sanctioned competition!

July 19 and 20, 2025: Annual Exposition Event
     Our largest event of the year, the Expo will feature Concessions, Vintage Tractor Pull Competition, Animal Interaction, Face Painting, Music events, Vintage Vehicle Parade, Demonstrations, Historic Buildings and Displays,

September 6 and 7, 2025: Fall Harvest Show
     Our fall harvest event features demonstrations, activities for kids and adults, Historic Buildings and Displays, music and the Provincial Tractor Pull Championships.

September 19 and 20, 2025: Lesco Distributors Pro Show n' Shine

     Come out to the park for Western Canada's Largest Truck Show! Now, we're not talking about Ford F150s or Chevy Silverados, or Ram 1500s. Nosireee! We're talking Class 8. BIG trucks! Kenworths, Peterbilts, Freightliners & Macks powered by Detroit Diesels, Cummins and Cats.

December 1 to 31, 2025: Leduc Country Lights

   The Edmonton Power Hstorical Foundation museum will not be open for this event, but come out anyway for a relaxing winter stroll through an incredible spectacle of lights. Fire pits are provided to warm your nose & toes & tushes.

Note that all dates and events are subject to change. 

We're so excited to have acquired a working model of a Corliss Steam Engine! This little jewel was created from a set of drawings & rough castings received from Cole's Power Models in 2009, and was finally presented to our museum in May 2024 after 1300 hours of precision machining and assembly by one of our fine volunteers. It is well worth a visit just to watch this little engine chuffing away.

For more information and pictures, click here to visit the gallery

The 2024 Leduc Country Lights were a great success, with a beautiful carpet of snow arriving just in time for the opening, and clement weather throughout December. A special highlight is the arrival of the Leduc Country Christmas Convoy on the evening of December 14!

Check out this Drone Video of the light show, and be sure to mark your calendar for December 2025! 

Today, in the interests of reliability and stability, modern utilities are networked together via large scale transmission lines into a huge electrical grid made up of dozens of utilities and hundreds of generators. Edmonton is part of the Alberta Interconnected System, which, in turn, is tied to BC, Washington, Oregon, California, and a number of other states making up the Western Interconnection grid, stretching from Alberta to Baja California. The frequency is precisely maintained within multiple decimal places of 60.0 Hz, and no one utility has the ability to significantly impact this frequency. 
But it hasn't always been so. For the first hundred years or so of its existence, Edmonton Power's connection to other utilities was either tenuous or non-existent. This meant that Edmonton was solely responsible for maintaining system frequency at or about 60 Hz; utility load variations would cause frequency fluctuations which could result in errors of a few seconds during the course of a day. Now back in the day most lights, lamps, motors and industrial processes could tolerate small variations in line frequency, but the introduction of the low-cost synchronous motor in electric clocks meant that if the frequency did not at least average out to 60 Hz, these clocks (which were to be found in virtually every office, classroom, kitchen, living room and bedroom clock radio) would not display the correct time.
The solution was to be found in the Power Station Master Clock, patented in 1918. This device consisted of an electric clock connected to the AC mains supply and a precision mechanical clock with the dial indicating the difference between the electrical time and the mechanical time. It would then be the duty of the switchboard operator to watch the large hand. If he found that it was tending to move to the right of the zero, he would adjust the speed control switches so as to lower the frequency by a small amount. At the end of fifteen or twenty minutes, another observation would determine whether a further correction of the speed was necessary. If the hand tends to move to the left of the zero, the speed would be slightly raised. In general, the control of the speed should be such as to keep this large hand continually pointing to zero. It probably would not be necessary to make an adjustment more often than once every half hour although this period depended on several factors such as large variations in load, sensitiveness of turbine governors, etc.
 

Work on our Corliss stationary engine built by the John Inglis Company (yes, the same one that manufactured washers & dryers in Guelph Ontario) after five years of dedicated effort is drawing to a close.

Note that "Corliss" defines the valve action, not the manufacturer. Prior to the Corliss, other stationary steam engine types included Newcomen, Watt, Woolf, and compound beam. The Corliss was a revolution in efficiency, until superseded by the Unaflow engine, and ultimately the steam turbine.

For more images of the evolution from a pile of rusty bits to the working engine in our museum click here

Watch a video of the Corliss in motion

One of the many challenges faced when operating a high voltage AC transmission network is how to monitor critical measurements in the system. Watts are important in calculating load flow and direction, accurate current readings (amps) are needed to ensure components are not overloaded, and voltages must be strictly maintained within the tolerances of the switchgear and transmission lines. 
This function is achieved by the use of "instrument transformers". These are highly engineered and accurate current transformers (CTs) and voltage (also called "potential") transformers (VTs/PTs).
Effectively, these devices transform extremely high currents & voltages into values that can be tolerated by low voltage sensitive measuring and protection equipment. Using the derived current and voltage measurements, power flow direction and magnitude(watts), frequency (Hz), phase angle, harmonics, and others can be calculated.
They are typically connected in sets of three, one transformer on each phase, and strategically located to gain the most benefit from the least number of devices.
The current transformer displayed outside our museum was designed to transform up to 3000 amps at 500,000 volts to 5 amps which can then be easily handled by the low voltage measuring instruments and protective relays within the substation.

Initially purchased as a spare unit, this current transformer was donated to the Edmonton Power Historical Foundation in 2016 by EPCOR Utilities when it was made obsolete by an upgrade to the Genesee Switchyard.