600 HP Snow Pipeline Compressor Engine Getting Up To Speed

After a sedate startup and warmup, the engine is taken to approximately design speed, about midway through the video. You start to hear the roar of a working reciprocating compressor station. The compressor end is disconnected, otherwise it would be louder...

Imagine 4 or 6 of these lined up, all running full speed under load.

There was a compressor station with engines like this down the road from Malabar Farm. You could hear it from the farm.

The sharp thumping sound in the background is the Windy City Blaisdell, several hundred feet away.

This video was shot just before the previously published:
"Crosby Indicator on 600 HP Snow Pipeline Compressor Engine".

The engine was built in 1917, and is 100 years old.

The brass elbow link above the crosshead is oil feed to the wrist pin, and possibly the crosshead slipper bearings. The trombone is cooling water to the hollow pistons, via the hollow piston rod. Water exits via the support bearing at the front of the engine.

There is ongoing discussion of the design speed for the 600 HP engines, due to the much larger mass of the moving parts compared to the 400 HP versions. I counted revs near the end of the video, and got 85-90 rpm, after losing count several times. The posted description says 100 rpm, but it may have been more like 85-90 rpm for the 600's.

Description and blueprints are shown at the end of the video.

#606

Coolspring Power Museum
June 2016

Panasonic FZ-1000
160617d Snow Fast