The second high pressure plant was put into operation at Willesden in the following year. It has a three cylinder single-axis turbine of 32,000 kW, running at 3000 r.p.m. and operating with initial steam conditions of 1300 p.s.i.g. 950°F.

Two 60,000-kW 3000-r.p.m. three cylinder turbines for Littlebrook, Kent, are designed for 1235 p.s.i.g. 825°F with reheating to 825°F between the high and intermediate pressure cylinders, and six 45,000-kW 3000-r.p.m. two cylinder machines for the new Cliff Quay station, Ipswich, are for 600 p.s.i.g. 825°F. All these have low pressure cylinders of the double flow type with a multi-exhaust in each flow. As well as all the turbo-generator sets for Cliff Quay, the Company has supplied the 132-kV and 33-kV switchgear at this station.

Four 25,000-kW pass-out sets for district heating service were shipped to Russia after the war. Two of them were two cylinder 3000-r.p.m. machines, designed for inlet conditions of 398 p.s.i.g. 750°F and for passing out 300,000 Ib of steam an hour at pressures from 85 to 114 p.s.i.g.

The supervisory equipment developed by the Company to show any shaft eccentricity arising from unbalanced rotor heating and differential expansion of rotor and stator when starting and stopping has become a standard product known as Turbovisory gear and is now provided on most large turbines.

The latest figure (1948) for the best thermal efficiency of the main steam stations in this country, omitting reheat stations, was 26-76 per cent; this compares with a maximum of 16.9 per cent in 1922. In no less than twenty of these twenty-seven years the top figure for thermal efficiency was obtained by stations wholly or mainly equipped with Metropolitan-Vickers generating plant.

There is every chance of bettering this achievement. Not only has M-V supplied one in four of the existing generating sets in Great Britain, but forty-one turbogenerator sets of 30,000 to 60,000 kW capacity have been put in hand for new stations and extensions since the war. The total capacity of these orders adds up to more than two million kilowatts.

For overseas power stations generating sets of 20,000 kW or more, aggregating over three-quarters of a million kilowatts in capacity, are now on order. Of the many stations completely equipped by the Company, Klip in the Transvaal has created a remarkable record for reliability with twelve 33,000-kW units; figures published in 1947 showed that for the