Ford at Wheel

Hale and ebullient in a grey tweed suit and straw hat, Henry Ford stepped briskly into the powerhouse of his huge River Rouge plant one morning last week accompanied by Son Edsel and other princes of his empire. The wiry, old motor manufacturer, who will be 73 next week, stopped to chat with newshawks, glancing fondly and frequently at a newly installed steam turbine generator towering 21 ft. from the floor.

As part of his $37,000,000 expansion and modernization program, Mr. Ford needed more current for welding and melting. His new 110,000-kilowatt generator increases the total plant capacity to 326,000-h. p., makes it the biggest steam-powered generating station in the world.* The machine cost $4,600,000 weighs 2,000,000 lb., operates at a temperature of 900DEG, a pressure of 1,200 lb. per sq. in. The new generator, proudly delivered by General Electric Co., was not to be put on the line without ceremony. Mr Ford spied GE's Chief Turbine Engineer Arthur K. Smith at the control station, joined him there. A Ford steering wheel, shoulder-high, had been hitched to the release valve. On the governor two V-8 emblems would begin to move as the giant got under way. Mr. Ford gave the wheel seven or eight turns. Nothing happened. The Master of Dearborn frowned, turned to Engineer Smith, and his lips seemed to frame the question, "What the hell?" Smith signaled to keep on turning.

After three more spins of the wheel steam hissed from the boiler, and the emblems began to twirl slowly. After that the smile did not vanish from Mr Ford's face except when a photographer dropped his flash bulb, scattering magnesium foil across the immaculate floor.

* Biggest single-shaft turbogenerators, of which there are three, produce 160,000 kw. each.

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