(6) 400 HP Snow pumping engines Heath Pa

This Video was taken in the spring of 1989 at Heath, Pa. This station has (6) 400 HP Buffalo, NY made Snow Tandem Natural gas pumping engines. They were installed between 1911 and 1915. In this video, 4 of them are running under full load pumping natural gas through the Columbia Natural Gas Pipeline to the Buffalo, NY area. This was an unusual event as usually a large Wakusha engine is running in the corner of the pump house making so much racket that the mechanical music from these engines could not be heard.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• Snow
• pumping
• engines
• Heath
• Pa
• Coolspring
• Hit
• and
• Miss

[MMouthPeach]

0:13 Should be 1998 instead of 1898.

I'm not being critical, but helpful? Probably not.

[wgrenning]

Yes, That is incorrect. The video was taken in 1988

[41Zman]

How do they pump the natural gas through the lines?

[wgrenning]

On one side of the crank shaft is a double acting tandem cylinder engine. Facing the opposite direction ( connected to the same crank throw )is a large compressor cylinder. This compressor compresses the natural gas from the well and pushes it down a pipeline toward the buffalo area

[douro20]

Do you think these old double-acting engines will ever be moved?

[wgrenning]

It is very hard to say. I believe that enough people know about them that they will never be scrapped.

[oldskoolcoinop]

Show me a machine today that will work like this in 100 years

[dc761]

@wgrenning are these engines still in regular use?

[DeserTBoB93535]

@V8Jagnut They're horrendously inefficient, and parts have been hard to come by since the 1930s. By the natgas industry's own figures, it's been calculated that we've burned off more than 60% of our natural gas resources since 1908 by fueling engines like these, which were still in use well into the '90s. The Cooper-Bessemer GMV, which debutted in 1938, changed the game and made the old twins and twin-tandems instantly obsolete, but C-B was still installing Type 26s well into WWII.

[DeserTBoB93535]

"BANG BANG woosh woosh"...fun to watch, but better left as museum pieces. These old twins and twin-tandems are notoriously inefficient, and, of course, parts are "unobtainium."

[sbeer6er]

where is the snow?

[Patricknows]

@oldskoolcoinop You're lookin' at it!

[Larsky1010]

"Mechanical music" (from description) is the best expression I've seen for the sounds of such engines as this!

[jeeperforlife]

Thanks for posting this video. I was fortunate enough to have seen these engines run a number of years back. Wasnt sure that id ever see that again. Of course now Coolspring is almost ready to run theirs...

[leborico]

This is Highly Erotic

[douro20]

They ought to move these engines out of there and put them somewhere else; don't let these rarities end up in the stockpile!

[MarcoAtlarge]

Out of HG Wells