Niagara Parks Power Station

Interesting facts

The tailrace tunnel was dug between 1901 and 1905 by hundreds of workers using dynamite, pickaxes and shovels, often working by lantern light.

Visitors could enter the generator hall from July 2021, but the tunnel beneath it only opened to the public a year later, in July 2022.

The station is often described as the only fully intact hydroelectric plant of its era anywhere in the world.

Each of its eleven generators was rated at 8,320 kVA, giving the station a combined capacity of roughly 100 MVA.

Steel shafts linked each turbine at the bottom of the wheel pit to its generator roughly 40 metres higher, on the floor of the main hall.

Electricity left the plant through underground cables to a transformer station elsewhere in Niagara Falls rather than by overhead lines.

Apart from its outdated 25-hertz output, the plant closed because its turbines and generators had drifted out of alignment as the rock beneath it shifted.

The station passed to Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation in 1950 and became part of the Canadian utility group Fortis in 2002.

Its Tesla coil demonstrations go beyond sparks: the coil has been used to play music for visitors, including the Star Wars main theme.

Why it is worth it

Just upstream of the Horseshoe Falls, on the Canadian bank of the Niagara River, stands one of the most beautiful industrial buildings in North America: a long Beaux-Arts power house that looks more like a grand public building than a machine. It was built for the Canadian Niagara Power Company and opened in January 1905 with two generators, the first major power plant on the Canadian side of the river. The company had been founded by William Birch Rankine, a New York lawyer who had settled in Niagara Falls; he died in September 1905, three days after the station's third generator came into service, and in 1927 the plant was renamed in his honour.

For a century the station turned the river into electricity. Water entered from a forebay above the building, dropped about 55 metres through eleven vertical penstocks to the turbines in a deep wheel pit, and was then released through a tunnel that runs out to the lower river at the foot of the Horseshoe Falls. Long steel shafts carried the power up from each turbine to its generator in the hall far above. The generators were of a type pioneered by Nikola Tesla's alternating-current system, and the plant kept producing power at 25 hertz long after most of Ontario had moved to 60, since there was still local demand for it. It reached full capacity in 1924 with eleven generating units. By the early 2000s it ran only on demand; it stopped generating in 2005, was formally decommissioned the following year, and was handed to the Niagara Parks Commission in 2009, when its water rights were reassigned to the larger Sir Adam Beck stations downstream.

The surprise is how intact everything is. When journalists were first let in, they found the generators still painted blue, copper doors on enormous hinges, mosaic tile floors, a clock presiding over the main hall and marble control panels with switches from the 1920s. The building opened to visitors in July 2021 as the Niagara Parks Power Station. The generator hall now holds exhibits on the plant's history and on how hydroelectric power works, with demonstrations of a Tesla coil. The most memorable part is below ground: a glass-walled elevator descends about 55 metres to the old tailrace tunnel, some 670 metres long, which leads out to a viewing platform at the water's edge beside the base of the Horseshoe Falls. In the evenings the hall hosts a night-time show, Currents, telling the story of Niagara's power.

Beside the station, the Niagara Parkway crosses the old water intake on a five-span stone arch bridge, restored between 2012 and 2014, which is part of the same ensemble.

Getting there

The station stands on the Niagara Parkway in Niagara Falls, Ontario, a short walk from the Horseshoe Falls and about 3 km from the centre of the city. The nearest airport is Niagara Falls International Airport (IAG), about 11 km away across the border in New York State; on the Canadian side, the small Niagara District Airport (YCM) is about 15 km away.

From the encyclopaedia

The Rankine Generating Station is a former hydro-electric generating station along the Canadian side of the Niagara River in Niagara Falls, Ontario, slightly downstream from the older Toronto Power Generating Station. It was built in for the Canadian Niagara Power Company, and was simply known as the Canadian Niagara Power Company powerhouse. The company had been founded by William Birch Rankine, a New York City lawyer. The station opened in January 1905, with two generators; William Birch Rankine died three days after a third generator started operation at the station, in September 1905, and the station was renamed in his honour in 1927. Acquired by Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation in 1950 and in 2002, the station became a wholly owned subsidiary of FortisOntario. It was decommissioned in 2006.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Niagara Parks Power Station

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

On these lists

From the encyclopaedia