In the spring of 1963 en route from Goodfellow AFB at San Angelo, Texas, to Dover AFB, Delaware, I detoured through Pennsylvania's oil- and gas-producing area. I visited a couple of gas pipeline compressor stations where World War I era gas engines were still operating.
All photos © 2006 Robert E Pence
According to one of the employees, the brick building at Roystone Station originally housed tandem compound Corliss steam engines with low-pressure cylinders having a 60-inch bore. All vestiges of the steam plant were gone except possibly what appeared to be a small square-piston steam engine that drove an overhead crane using an endless cable.
A very old Snow engine with Ingersoll-Rand compressor cylinders mounted on the tail end, just the opposite of the way most later engines were configured.
I found these two later; they're from a brief visit in 1965 that I had forgotten about. They show some of the inline engines in the building with the old Snow with the compressor cylinders on the tail end.
I had visited the compressor station at Van a couple of years before, but the simple box camera I had then wasn't up to the task and the photos I got weren't very good. By this time I had bought a Zeiss-Ikon Contaflex 35mm, and I took new photos both on Kodachrome and on Tri-X.
The engines at Van were built in 1918; four 375-horspower Worthington/Snow tandems driving gas compressors, and two 13 x 13 Turner-Fricke four-cylinder inline engines coupled to generators for electric power.
On the far right you can see the back half of my 1956 Ford.
The Turner-Fricke engines have a 13-inch bore and 13-inch stroke and run about 225 rpm. They power generators to provide electricity for the station.
The compressor engines were rated at 375 horsepower and ran about 120 rpm. The 25-inch dimension refers to the compressor cylinder bore, and the 20 x 36 refers to the bore and stroke of the two double-acting engine cylinders.
The side shaft operates the intake and exhaust valves through the rocker arms. The intake valves are on top, and the exhaust valves are underneath.
A centrifugal governor regulates engine speed by controlling the flow of air and natural gas into the intakes.
Because the pistons and portions of the piston rod operate entirely within the combustion chambers, the piston rod is hollow and cooling water circulates through it to cool internal working parts. The water enters at the crankshaft end through a sliding coupling, and is discharged into a trough at the far end of the engine.
One engine appears to have become an organ donor.
