WNY Show Photo

[Harry]

Ran across this photo from the Western NY Steam and Gas show...

[Rick Strobel]

and here's one still working in Montana.

Called a "Power"..neat to watch:

http://community.webshots.com/photo/...74384484WHJqdL

RickinMt.

[John Newman, Jr.]

It sure would be great if someone could get a video of one of these in action.....

[Rick Strobel]

Erriest sound ya ever heard..those sucker rods squeaking against the wooden standoff's in the dead of day.

I believe there's one working out of Evansville...some guys have been on a tour there.

Nut, has some working down there I believe.

RickinMt.

[Fred Van Hook]

Hello, I went to the Oblong Ill. show and they take you on a tour of three powers. They are close to a town called Stoy. If I remember correctly the first was a 25 H.P. Superior owned by the Marathon Oil Co. It ran off LP gas and still had the cyprus water barrel to cool the engine. Belt driven power with more than 2 wells pumping. The water barrel was probably around 4000 gals and used rain water from the rain gutters to keep it full. The other 2 powers were run off 35 H.P. Superiors and privately owned. They also had big cooling tanks and ran of the well head gas. The sucker rods were laid on wood that was shaped like a sling shot stuck in a piece of old well casing. I was amazed to see that they could take these rods and make corners and go under roads. Some of the wells were close to a mile away. The whole setting on all these powers were like going into the early teens, being not much has been disturbed. Oh yea, the wood was called a "doll head" and the person that took care of the powers put a little oil on them. Each power had a piece of pipe attached to the exhaust that was offset to a angle and the end was smashed slightly together. When the engine exhaust hit this pipe it would make a slight whistle sound. Each engine exhaust was tuned to a different sound so they could tell from quite a distance away which engine was acting up or not running. That way they didn't have to walk miles to see which one had trouble or not running. We also went to the storage tanks that were open topped, I think they were cyprus also but could not see them well because they were in a old tall narrow building. If at all possible this tour is a must see. These engines were probably of 1910 to 1920 vintage and were in excellant running order. Thanks for listening and please be real careful out there, Fred