[PW] Machinery ID?

[Kay Lancaster]

>I was sorting through boxes of photos in my library's special 
> collections Saturday and found this photo:
> http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgpcw9h_2df5kdnfc

Any chance you can do some high resolution enlargements of the 
flanges of the big pipe on the right and the photos on the wall?

Whether those flanges are welded or cast can help date the thing, 
and the photos on the wall may give us a few more clues.


I sent the photo to the family engineer (my husband), who spent a 
good share of his childhood looking at the old steam engine 
catalogs from Worthington that his dad had kept after working for 
Worthington in the late 1940's/early 50's.

He says it's a "double acting compound" pump-- the black portions 
on the right are the steam pumps, and the lighter colored part to 
the right is what's actually pumping an incompressible fluid, 
probably water.  The high pressure cylinder is one with the steam 
line entering, the lower pressure is the larger dark cylinder.

He doesn't think it's a sewage pump because of the diameter of 
the intakes (the L pipes on the right heading into the floor) are 
fairly small.  The two "hatches" pointing forwards are probably 
valves, and also small, again pointing to something like water 
being pumped.

The bulbous thing with the "headlight" on top is a bubble chamber 
that's probably half full of air, half full of whatever liquid 
was pumped.  There's a sight glass (long, narrow, upright) on it, 
so you can see the relative levels of air and water.  It worked 
something like a water hammer arrestor in plumbing -- the air 
absorbed the shocks of the pumping action and smoothed the flow.  
There are a couple of stopcocks on it facing a bit to the back 
and left. The large casting on the right side of the water pump 
portion says that it's probably post-1850, because the casting is 
significantly lighter than earlier engines would be.

The reciprocating pump design says probably late 19th/early 20th 
century -- turbines, a more efficient engine type, came in in 
1884, but really didn't get popular to about WWII.  There's some 
decoration on the pump, but not as elaborate as some of the 
Victorian pumps.  There's only one smallish oiler, and machines 
from the 1850-1880 period probably would have had multiple oilers 
("the real McCoys").

This is how the steam engine worked: 
http://science.howstuffworks.com/steam1.htm

We found a couple of engines on the web that look much like this 
design...  take a look at figure 104: 
http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/thurston/1878/Chapter6.html

Here's the part we found kind of puzzling: those photos on the 
wall made both of us think of a museum exhibit, or maybe in a 
university engineering lab.  But the pump appears that it is 
operational, judging by the insulation on the steam lines.

We also found a small writeup on the web about the Worthington 
exhibit for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago -- perhaps 
this was part of that exhibit, or another similar one? 
http://books.google.com/books?id=rblIAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1068&lpg=PA1068&dq=worthington+columbian+exhibition+1893&source=web&ots=-i2GipM3YL&sig=OvdIcDhY0GLBJO5Ej2WBdWfeWwM&hl=en#PPA943,M1

Apparently there was a book done called "100 years of 
Worthington", done in 1940 -- perhaps that might be useful if 
this is truly a Worthington pump?  Or perhaps the Worthington 
library -- Worthington is now Flowserve Pumps, apparently: 
http://www.flowserve.com/eim/v/index.jsp?vgnextfmt=default&vgnextoid=9d87b3fb4006a010VgnVCM1000004f181eacRCRD

Kay Lancaster kay at fern.com