How did they install the big engines?

[Dave Myers]

Got thinking yesterday while working on the powerhouse, just how did they handle the setting of the engines back in the '30's?
Our powerhouse has no overhead crane and the flywheels are recessed in the foundation. My thinking is they cribbed the engine assembly off a wagon and then lowered it with jacks onto the foundation, finally built the building around the engines.
The big 4 & 6 cylinder (and larger) engines must have been assembled in place, I just can't imagine moving a 54,000lb engine with the equipment available back then.
Am I close in my thinking and would anybody have any sort of documentation on what then would have been common knowledge?
Thanks in advance for all your help.

[Pat Barrett]

I'm sure the size, weight and distance to be moved and available equipment dictated the move. I posed that question once while we were removing a steam engine from a cotton gin. The answer I got, for this particular application was it was placed on a big slab of ice, also shipped in on the railcar and the equipment was staked to the ice slab and skidded to the location and in some instances put in place and then they waited for the ice to melt and they positioned it exactly with heavy bars, "scotching" it the final inch or two. You pose a good question and maybe others will have heard of different ways to get the iron moved. Also, sometimes a dummy rail spur would be laid so the iron could be moved as close to it's set up location as possible and then set in.

[Marcel P]

Finally someone who comes up with this topic! I have been wondering often how they did install big engines and how they were shipped but never got around to ask the question here. It seems that there are not so many pictures of engines being erected while there are plenty of pictures and postcards showing machine rooms. The ice slab method is a very interesting one that I've never heard of before. We have moved several big engines with limited equipment, and I guess they would have done it the same way in the early days using the basic methods. After all, the Egyptians built their pyramids with those basic methods. Hopefully we will learn more in this thread.

Thanks
Marcel

[Andrew Mackey]

Most larger engines have specifications for the engine foundation: Height, Weight of the base (to absorb vibration and load), Clearances (depth into the floor to clear the flywheel), and Locaton of mounting hardware (studs, piping, etc.) Once the foundation is set, the engine was brought in in pieces and errected in place. Many times this was done by the engine makers factory workers. Once the engine was erected, the building surrounding the engine was built. The original crane work was portable, and was removed after engine erection. More often than not, a properly maintained engine did not need complete dis-assembly, so there was no need to keep the erection equipment. The engine maker would train the operaters, and then they were on their own, unless parts, or major service work were needed.

For really hugh engines, dis-assembly is still the only way to remove them. As really large mobile cranes are available now, some 'smaller' engines can be lifted out of place, with some building demo needed. Many years ago, a friend found a Baccus Water Engine Works engine in Jersey City, NJ. There was no way to retrieve this engine, as it was burried in the center of a factory complex that was in poor condition. The building was slated for demolition in order to build a huge mall complex. My friend pursuaded the property owners to allow him to cover the engine with cribbing and plywood protection. The building was knocked down, hunderds of thousands of bricks were salvaged, and eventually the engine was uncovered, unscathed! It was removed with a 15 ton mobile crane, in one piece. Moving an engine is all logistics. Questions to ask: Is it easily accessable? Can it be moved in one piece to a place where it can be transported? What does it weigh, and can the roads leading to it take the assembled weight? Can the transportation take the weight? How far off the beaten path does it lie? Water transport? Air transport? Land transport? COST to move?

Here on the Stak, I have read many stories of recovery, from the remotest locations. Anything is possible. It's just how determined you are in getting an old engine out, that these assessments must be made.

Andrew

[Dave Myers]

I love the ice method, never would have thunk-it.
Fortunately, these engines are on their original and permanent foundations, here they stay.
They could have brought in a crane to set them, but like most people, I have no pictures or any other documentation and I like to know how people did things. All I know is they had to really work to install them but they did it really right! The history of the people involved is as much fun as the toys they left behind.
We only have a few pictures of the old days and none of the back side showing the intake and exhaust stacks. We came up with a good (read authentic) looking exhaust stack but don't have much to go on for the intake.
So, for the next question, any information on the top/working part of the stack, filter (probably not), screen, etc.?
Thanks

[Bill Riddle]

In the next couple weeks we at pickett st & gas are going to move a 33D12 fairbanks, Wer'e going jack it up 20" & use skates to get on truck. Originally there was a rail line right by the door & the engine came assembled,mimus the generator& etc. Then the building was built , that must've been somthing to ramp off the railcar &into position without the aid of todays big cranes. I'm assuming they had a big derrick & sliding rig to assist, this engie weighs 54000 without flywheel.Hope this Info helps. Bill

[twslandlord]

Originally Posted by Andrew Mackey

Many years ago, a friend found a Baccus Water Engine Works engine in Jersey City, NJ. There was no way to retrieve this engine, as it was burried in the center of a factory complex that was in poor condition. The building was slated for demolition in order to build a huge mall complex. My friend pursuaded the property owners to allow him to cover the engine with cribbing and plywood protection. The building was knocked down, hunderds of thousands of bricks were salvaged, and eventually the engine was uncovered, unscathed!

Hold on there, bub! You can't regale us with a story about rescuing this giant Backus
without telling us where it is now & supplying pictures. How many horsepower is it?

I remember talking with an old fella several decades ago about heavy things he moved with a gin pole. Get a lot of labor, wooden rollers, heavy planks, very long & strong timber, lots of rope, pulleys & anchor points, then you can pick up & move some very heavy items. People had more time in those days.

[Mike Otis]

In 1969 i bought a 25 hp Olin that was in the celler of an old feed mill. we were told that they set that engine on a block of ice and let it melt to get in the hole. the engine had been bought used out of the Pa oil fields

[Dave Myers]

Let me see now...
Ya take lots of water, shove it under the engine and suck all the heat out and it raises back up? I can see that is one method that is definitely one-way.
That is really cool (pardon the pun), my problem with not coming up with that method is I tend to overthink sometimes.
Back then people were adept at K.I.S.S.

[Bob Willman]

The seven 400hp Snow engines at Heath Station north of Coolspring, Pa. were installed between 1913 and 1918. They used to have printed copies of the history of the station. In there were pictures of the main casting that supports the crankshaft (est. at 21 tons) on a wooden horse drawn wagon comming out of the river after taking it from the barge. The complete engine is somewhere over 100 tons and about 60 feet long. The engines are now completely retired, deplumbed and rusting away in the building. A really sad site. There is a bridge crane in the building.

[DirtbikePilot]

This is a neat thread. Here is a Fairbanks Morse ad showing an early 200 hp, 14x17 bs, 4 cylinder engine being transported by some early, slow trucks. The picture isn't very good, but it shows how it was done. If you look closely, you can see 2 trucks in front pulling, and at least one more in the rear, pushing the wagon the engine is on. That engine weighs around 40,000 pounds.

[Rod Fielder]

The truck in the rear was also used to hold the wagon back going down hill. In older times they had 10-20 horses in the front to pull and 10 or more in the rear to hold the wagons back going down hill. I have removed a few from well sites that almost got me killed, and thats with modern equipment.
The worse was in looneyville wv. Fetching a 20 hp jc oil field engine. The road was 3 miles long and all rock, not gravel or pavement but the rock in the earth. Went around a horseshoe turn and when the trailer was in the crook of the turn, one of the large road boulders caved in and the trailer almost went with it over a 80' straight down embankment. It tore one of the hubs off of the trailer and i gunned the engine and kept from going over the bank with the engine, trailer, and truck. Gotta have fun

rod

[TheToolman]

A lot of the Southpen power houses around Bradford Pa. Had BIG double doors in the front. I always just figgured that they brought the engine in that way. BUT it must have been on a cart of some kind. Once it was set on the concrete slab IT WAS THERE!!

[OTTO-Sawyer]

Interesting thread.

Already burned out my Thanks Button again in a short time, but I love Rods last comment. "Gotta Have Fun", and it sounds like he did in "Looneyville WV" of all places. Kind of seems appropriate in a way.

[vern0n]

We tend to think we are smarter today then our great grandparents. Truth is they were pretty darn smart with their limited means. Read the story of how they raised several large church buildings in Galveston, Tx, right after the 1900 storm. One church was a stone and brick building weighing over 6,000,000 pounds. They raised it 5 feet high. I think if they could do that then a 50,000 lb engine shouldn't be too hard. Heck, have you seen that most trucks on 1-3 hp engines have carry handles? Them guys was strong!

[Bill Hazzard]

In 1930 the Indiana Bell telephone building was moved 52 feet south, rotated 90 degrees, and then shifted again 100 feet west. The building weighed 11,000 tons. It took 34 days to move and everyone continued to work in the building with no interuption of service. They jacked the building up with screw jacks and rolled it on solid steel rollers, rolling on steel rail.

[OTTO-Sawyer]

Originally Posted by vern0n

... Heck, have you seen that most trucks on 1-3 hp engines have carry handles? Them guys was strong!

I think it was in the "Farm Show" magazine I used to get, there were pictures one time showing a group of Amish that moved a good sized machine shed a hundred yards or so and turned 90 degrees by bolting handles on the sides and then they all picked it up and carried it like a giant casket.

Joe Maurer has pictures of DC Stover's grave stone Monument being transported through Freeport and erected at the cemetary. Hauled it with horse drawn 'tandem wagons' and put up a large wooden A-Frame hoist with a couple block & tackles and a huge hand crank winch to raise it up and put it on the base. It's the tallest marker in the City Cemetary. I have copies of those pictures, but no space left to post them on here right now...

[Gomer Buehring]

I don't remember when exactly, but Winnebago County Wisc. had the control tower at the airport moved 1/2 mile from where it was originally built, this was a block building. The tower was taken down last Fall after a new one was built to replace it.

[dalmatiangirl61]

Great thread folks, OK, in 1914 how were they lifting steel beams 60+ feet into the air to erect buildings? In major cities I'm guessing they had cranes, but in a small isolated town how would it have been done? There was no other building built that high for 20 more years in the area

[rddlbrn]

I wonder how many they dropped or fell over and when installing those engine who would of had to pay that cost?