Biography | Bo Jondal — Measuring Engineer at the Fall on Indalsälven

The first large machine he helped set out was not in Stockholm. It was this fall on Indalsälven.

From 1926 to 1928 Jondal served as mätningsingenjör, measuring engineer, at the building of Hammarforsens kraftverk near Hammarstrand in Ragunda, Jämtland.

Vem är det 1997 gives those three years in one compressed line.

Statkraft's plant page gives the commissioning year as 1928.

The two dates lock together.

The station still stands on the river at about 63.114 north, 16.357 east.

Installed capacity today is listed at 80 megawatts, with a 20-metre head.

He was twenty-six when the posting began.

That was two years out of KTH and two years after Kreuger & Tolls Byggnads AB.

Measuring engineer is the unglamorous title.

It means the centreline, the levels, and the quantities against which concrete and turbines were paid.

When the first units started in 1928 he moved on.

The next river job was Avesta Storfors, 1929 to 1932, as resident engineer.

Hammarforsen was the rehearsal.

Storfors was the longer sit.

After Storfors he joined Stockholms stads gatukontor and did not go back to a northern powerhouse as his main desk.

The plant on the river is still a working station under Statkraft.

The visitor sees later machines and later cladding.

The 1928 commissioning date is the one that matches his years on the job.

Photo: Hanjac, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons