OT - 7.5 Ton Flywheel - really! OT

[RobertKB]

Went on an old car to tour in my '63 Ford Fairlane to Moose Jaw (great city), Saskatchewan. Wonderful tour with about 150 great cars from Western Canada and North-western United States. Put 880 miles on the car.

One of the tours was 37 miles one way and took us to an old brick making factory that ran from 1916 to 1989. http://www.claybank.sasktelwebsite.net/ Their machine shop was fascinating as virtually every piece of equipment they used from the start was still in place. Included was this diesel engine that was said to be original from the start in 1916. I did not realize that diesels were used back then but I was assured that it was in the machine building when built new in 1916. http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bldiesel.htm It ran all the machinery that was used until they converted to electricity which was produced first by a Mercedes diesel and later two Cummins diesels running in tandem, all engines turning a dynamo. The pictured engine is three cylinder Meereless engine built in England and shipped in pieces to Canada with a master mechanic who assembled the engine and trained a Canadian operator.

Back to the biggie. This monster was started with compressed air to turn it over and is said to still be in operable condition today. It has not run in over twenty years but there is nothing missing from it and I am assuming if someone who knew what they were doing worked on it, it would run without a lot of trouble. Flywheel weighs seven and a half tons and when you look at the pictures, you can tell I am not telling stories out of school. Sure would love an opportunity to hear it run.

That whole place was a time warp but like a lot of things with little money and only volunteer help, I hope it can survive. It is designated a National Historic Site, so hopefully some federal money will be available.

Enough babbling. Here are the pictures.

From the front (flywheel in background)

The top

The flywheel

Edited July 7, 2009 by RobertKB
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[billwillard]

Makes you wonder how they would move something like that in 1916.

[Don Coatney]

Makes you wonder how they would move something like that in 1916.

RobertKB;

Interesting diesel engine and the history link was fun reading. Line shaft machine shops are fun to visit. When I lived in California there was a working machine shop in Fresno that still used a single line shaft to power all the machines.

Bill to answer your question most likley steam power was used in the move.

The invention of the steam engine was critical to the invention of the modern railroad and trains. In 1803, a man named Samuel Homfray decided to fund the development of a steam-powered vehicle to replace the horse-drawn carts on the tramways. Richard Trevithick (1771-1833) built that vehicle, the first steam engine tramway locomotive. On February 22, 1804, the locomotive hauled a load of 10 tons of iron, 70 men and five extra wagons the 9 miles between the ironworks at Pen-y-Darron in the town of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales to the bottom of the valley called Abercynnon. It took about two hours.

[John Mulders]

Nice pics !

Well, seems you have enough room to work on the engine !

John

[greg g]

In 1898, Rudolf Diesel was granted patent #608,845 for an "internal combustion engine" the Diesel engine. The engine was designed to run on vegetable oil (bio fuel in 1898) but was modified to use the newly available and less expensive petroleum based fuel.

The large flywheels were common in industrial settings. Based on Water Wheel and steam practice where multiple tools ad machines were run from belt powered jack shafts and multiple power take offs. This mad it easier for the engine to run at it low rpm torque peak, and then by sizing the pullies matchine rpm needs of the different applications while the engine just sat running the flywheel taking advantage of the flywheels inertia and kinetic energy to keep the shafts turning smoothly. It was not uncommon for these applications to runn 24/7/365.

[Merle Coggins]

I did a little research on the history of the Diesel engine a while back. I found it interesting that Rudolf Diesel created his engines to run on peanut oils and other vegatable oils. He had a great vision of changing the fuel industry and supporting local farmers by producing biofuel engines. However, after his death in 1913 his engine design was changed to run on petroleum based fuels. And now almost a century later the push is back on for biofuels. Hmm.

http://www.dieselenginemotor.com/diesel_engine_history.html

Merle

[PatS....]

Nice to see that the engine is still in place and could run. I wonder if there IS anyone capable of getting it running these days???

Thanks for the interesting post, Robert.

(did you get to see the Snowbirds??? Based in Moose Jaw with their antique aircraft)

[RobertKB]

Pat, no I did not go to see the Snowbirds. There were tours to the base but the planes were not there and all people did was stand around on the tarmac and get a lecture. Not my idea of fun.

We have a diesel mechanic in our club and who was on the brick making tour. He figures that a diesel is a diesel and that it would not be that hard to get it running if all is there and in operable condition. He and others would have to figure out what is what and go from there. I also understand that there are people in the area who actually operated the machine but they must be getting on in age at this point. It looked like the compressed air equipment to turn it over was all there as well. I would volunteer at the site if I lived closer.