The Industrial Heritage Committee has announced the next tour of the Colonel Ward pumping station in Buffalo, NY will be on Sunday, September 19, 2010 at 1:30 PM.

The Colonel Ward station features five triple expansion water pumping steam engines, each weighing 1,100 tons and standing sixty feet high. If you have never seen this place, it is worth the trip. If you have seen it, well you know you want to go back!

Looking at those steam engines, and being a former machinist, I can't help but wonder how on earth they were able to construct such massive machines so long along. Does anyone have any specs on the machine? I'd like to the diameter of the pistons. I'd also like to know how they were able to bore out such huge cylinders, etc etc.

The HP, IP, and LP cylinders have bores of 31, 64, and 98 inches respectively. The pump bores at the bottom end had a bore of 66 inches.

The steam cylinders and pump cylinders were connected to common piston rods (i.e. direct acting); and had a stroke of 37 1/2 inches.

They were built by the Holly Pump Company in 1915.

Wasn't 1915 fairly late in the game for reciprocating steam plants? Pacific Light and Power (a part of Henry Huntington's empire) had a reciprocating steam plant in Redondo Beach (near Los Angeles) that was reportedly the most efficient steam plant in the US. Built in 1907, the engines were "double-angle, tandem compound" units "similar to other units previously installed in New York to power the subway system". The history in Iron Men and Copper Wires by William A. Myers goes on to say that "when more capacity was needed at Redondo, two 12,000 kilowatt turbo generators were installed." Granted, the Buffalo plant didn't need to convert piston travel to rotary motion, a principle still found on steam locomotive air pumps.

Wilmington, De has a large Holly intact at the water plant.

https://www.historicpreservation.gov/web/14501/82

The units in Buffalo are indeed the youngest of the surviving steam pumps of this type; though they continued to be built in Europe and the UK as late as 1953.

They were extremely efficient machines, and gave trouble-free service. What finally shut down the last of them was the electric utilities offering cheap rates so they could add the electric pumps to their base load; and the cost of boiler fuel and boiler maintenance.

Can anyone refresh the dates of last service and last maintained ready?

I looked at the photos of the Wilmington plant, and did anyone notice the plaque gives a 1950 rebuild date?

Never knew this place existed..To cool! Would be neat to see one of these inaction again.

Imagine what the place must have sounded like in its day with all 5 going at once?

This will give you some idea. This is actually Kempton Park pumping station in London, which regularly steams an engine roughly the same size as these:

http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=u6aVmS-bNgs

http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=kgMdp-tjHpg

And here is a nice annimation of how they work:

http://www.kemptonsteam.org/engine%20animation.html

I wonder if the current power plant in Redondo Beach, CA next to King Harbor is the same plant that held those steam engines ?? Hmmm, might have to do some research on those. I see the outside of the boilers and smoke stack every time I'm down there a couple of eves a week :)

Mike

The Kempton Park links show what could be done with the Colonel Ward station. It's amazing how preserved it is, but imagine the engines and everything else put back into working order?

Do the boilers that supplied the pumps at Col. Ward survive? The replacement boiler at Kempton Park isn't that big, it appears that it's just big enough to make the engine move.

Rick can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe they have been scrapped out. I have seen plans on the web that show using the empty boiler room space for an adjacent maritime museum.

The boilers are indeed gone. There are two small package boilers that are used to provide heating steam. We had a proposal to operate one of the pumping engines on steam using these package boilers, but the problem is how to handle the exhaust since they were designed to run condensing and the pump needs to be pumping water for the condenser to work. The pumps are now cut off from the water system.

Regarding the Pacific Power Redondo plant. I think it was dismantled in the late 1930's or early 40's, having become part of Southern Calif. Edison in 1917. The present generating facility is post World War II. The old indoor plant (#1) was built around 1947, and, as far as I know, has not been activated in many years. The two newer plants may still be used on an intermittent basis. I believe #1 has been used as a movie location--in Southern California, "all the world's a sound stage."