Coloman de Kando
Dr -Ing Coloman de Kando (1869-1931)
1931 Obituary[1]
"THE LATE DR.-ING. C. DE KANDO.
We regret to record the death of Dr. Coloman de Kando, which occurred at Budapest on Tuesday, January 13, at the age of 61. For practically the whole of his life Dr. de Kando was engaged in devising and designing equipment for using electricity for traction purposes, and will, perhaps, chiefly he remembered for the part he played in converting the Valtellina line in Italy to electric traction on the three-phase system. This line is some 66 miles long and has operated successfully since its inception in the early years of the century, though, as is well known, the system has not been employed outside Italy, owing to its undoubted complications.
Dr. de Kando was born at Budapest on July 10, 1869, and after studying in the University of that city, made his first acquaintance with the design of electric motors and locomotives in the shops of the Compagnie Fives-Lille, in Paris. In 1894, he entered the service of Messrs. Ganz and Company, of Budapest, where he was responsible for the production of the three-phase cascade-connected motors used on the Italian railway mentioned above. These motors were supplied with current at 3,000 volts, and, of the pair on each locomotive, one was wound for 8 poles and the other for 12, so that when they were mechanically connected three speeds corresponding to locomotives speeds of 39*77 m.p.h., 25 m.p.h., and 15*5 m.p.h. Were obtainable. It was claimed that these motors would develop twice the output of a single-phase motor of equal speed and weight. It may be recalled that. this system was proposed for use on the London Underground Railway some twenty-five years ago, but direct-current operation was given the preference after a lengthy arbitration. In 1905, de Kando went to Italy, where he was responsible for the establishment of the Italian Westinghouse Company at Vado. Here he remained until Italy entered the war in 1915, when he returned to Hungary, and for a time was engaged in controlling the transport undertakings of that country under the military authorities. Before hostilities ceased, however, he had rejoined Messrs. Ganz and Company, and in 1919, was appointed general manager of that firm, a position he held at the time of his death.
The latter part of his career was interesting from the fact that he turned his attention to the development’ of single-phase rather than three-phase traction. A disadvantage of the former system is that if a commutator motor is used the supply must be given at a low frequency, and this renders necessary either the use of special generating plant or of some transforming arrangement which will allow three-phase energy at industrial frequencies to be employed as a primary source of power. Dr. de Kando, however, suggested, that the difficulty might be overcome by taking separate phases from the three-phase industrial system along the railway routes and using a phase-splitting device at starting, so that a current differing in phase from the main current'was passed through a portion of the rotor winding on the motor. When the motor was up to speed, however, the phase splitter could be cut out and the motor run as ah ordinary induction motor, the rotor following one of the two oppositely rotating fields into which the field produced by the single-phase rotor could be considered as being divided. The practical development of this system was surrounded by many difficulties, which de Kando succeeded in overcoming, and it is to be used on the Budapest-Hegyshalom line, which is shortly to be converted to electric traction. A similar system is also being employed on the Paris-Orleans Railway.
Dr de Kando was awarded the Wahrmann prize of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1921, and the honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering in the Technical University of Budapest in the following year. He was elected a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences IN 1927, and was the representative of the Chamber of Engineers in the Upper House of the Hungarian Parliament. Only a few months ago he was appointed by the Hungarian Minister of Commerce, in company with two other engineers, to prepare a national scheme of electrification for Hungary."
- "The Late Dr.-Ing. C. de Kando Erratum.[2]— We regret that the third paragraph of the obituary notice of the late Dr.-Ing. C. de Kando, which appeared on page 183 of our issue of February 6, gave a wrong impression of the system he devised for making use of energy generated at industrial frequencies for traction purposes. This system, in fact, consisted .of supplying a single-phase current at a frequency of 60 to the trolley wire and converting it by a phase converter on the locomotive to three-phase current at the same frequency, the latter current being used in the traction motors. The advantages claimed for this arrangement were that the motors ran at their maximum efficiency under all load conditions, that as their power factor was independent of that, of the line they could be made lighter than would otherwise have been necessary, that the current taken from the line was almost m phase with the voltage, and that regenerative working could be employed. We were also incorrect in stating that this system was in use on the Paris-Orleans Railway, on which line, of course, direct current is employed."