Building a South Penn Oil Co. style
field pumping station
The South Penn Oil Co was started in 1889 as a production arm of Standard Oil. It became an independent company in 1911 upon the break-up of the Standard Trust. In 1915 South Penn acquired a 51% share of Pennzoil in order to streamline their refining. Pennzoil was eventually completely absorbed and became a subsidiary of South Penn in 1955.

Back in the heady Eastern oil years South Penn explored, drilled and pumped thousands of wells from West Virginia to New York. In older or lower production fields, where one-engine-per-well was not economically practical, they installed central field pumping stations. With these, one engine could pump as many as 20 wells simultaneously via rods.
While other companies did this as well, there was one very unique feature of a South Penn station. The machine that pulled the well pumping rods, called a 'power', was housed in an octagonal (8-sided) building. Harder to construct, but very practical if you consider it also gave a nearly 330 degree arc to locate the well rods and better balance the load (which reduces wear). Even the weathervane had a practical purpose. It allowed workers to easier sight the rods from the well to the powerhouse in a straight line.

This photo shows one under construction. The outside walls were sheathed with corrugated iron. The roof of the powerhouse was cedar shingled, the roof of the enginehouse sheet iron.

The inside enginehouse walls and ceiling were sheet iron as well - to reduce fire risk. The enginehouse floor was poured concrete. A 20HP, 25HP or 30HP (depending on the number of wells to be pumped) Olin natural gas engine, made in Oil City, Pa., provided the power.

The heart of the field, the power, was simply a large belt driven gear reduction machine with a massive eccentric on top. This is the sad remains of one near Warren, Pa.


In between the two large structures was a connected building that not only kept the drive belt dry, but housed the starting air compressor and tank, plus a 2 pass condensor to remove water from the natural gas that the engine ran on. If you closely at the Olin pic (3 above) you can see the inverted compressor through the open door.

Another interesting feature are these swing posts or amplifyers. By moving the connection point up or down you can lengthen or shorten the stroke of the well pump so that wells of varying production will take the same length of time to pump.


For those who absolutely need a drawing, here is one... sort of. I found it only marginally helpful.

Some more photos to help ease construction.








Even a hard to find South Penn Oil sign


And, for the sake of completeness, a typical well head , bellcrank, rod support, and deadman (counterweight)

You now actually have much more information than I did at the time I started!

On to the model:
I'm going to be making a number of changes along the way. To add visual interest, ease construction, or just because I feel like it. That's why I call it a South Penn style pumping station. The basic architecture itself will still remain the same. Actual construction will jump around a bit, but I'll try to organize the chaos here for the sake of simplicity.

Part 1: Enginehouse
4 pretty basic walls. 4 windows, a man door, a beltway, and a large utility door. I actually made it a little oversized. The framing was done on the sidewalls (which support the roof) with 3/8" square (9x9s in 1/24) for strength against 1:1 clumsiness.

The end walls were framed the same way, but with 1/4" square I used Elmers without any pins to make the joints since this will be mostly shown inside. Only time will tell if this was a mistake.
.
Instead of corrugated iron I decided to side the buildings with rough cut lumber, aka coffee stirrers. "Board on Board" sounds difficult and tedious. But it goes pretty fast and easy when you can simply match cut multiple boards with sprue nippers.

The assembled walls were then weathered with the #3 method explained here

I  decided to make another major change on the engine. Instead of an Olin, which I didn't have parts for, I decided to remake a diecast toy into an Evans (made in Butler Pa)
To make it, I started with this. a 1/12 scale IHC famous from Ertl.

I cut it apart and laid it over fabricating much of the parts from wood.

Then added a few details. The governor weights are plastic pearls, much of the piping was salvaged from the Famous

I think it came out OK.

The inside enginehouse walls were clad with thin aluminum flashing.

.The floor was also planked, instead of concrete. The non-operable clutch is 2 beads a bit of wire and some styrene

The powerhouse:
Again the walls were framed with 3/8" square for strength.

and planked with coffee stirrers

The power was built from 1/8 scale r/c truck gears, wood plastic and metal. .


With a Scientific toy train wheel for a disc

The roof panels are cut from acrylic sheet


Overlaid with aluminum furnace tape

To be continued.........

Thanks for looking!
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