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Anyone need a 125BHP steam engine?

adammil1

Titanium
Joined
Mar 12, 2001
Location
New Haven, CT
I saw this one over on eBay. I am not sure if anyone is in the market but here's one I saw on eBay;
Troy 125 BHP Steam Engine | eBay

The price he is selling it for makes me wonder, it looks to be more than scrap, is there any market for these commercially? It looks a little large for the average hobbyist.
 
It looks a little large for the average hobbyist.

Yeah, but odds are nobody else on your block would have one! I don't know anyone in steam engine circles, but have some friends into antique gas engine and one has several single cylinder gas/diesel engines larger/heavier than the steam engine in the Ebay ad.
 
His starting price is certainly high when you consider the probably low demand for very large steam engines, but it's always easier to reduce your price than it is to increase it. Who knows, maybe someone will jump at this tremendous deal - but I kinda think he will be the owner of this engine for a while yet....
 
A late "enclosed" design. Probably make a good engine to work, but not nearly as attractive from a display standpoint as earlier types that had a lot more visual things happening.

~TW~
 
His starting price is certainly high when you consider the probably low demand for very large steam engines, but it's always easier to reduce your price than it is to increase it. Who knows, maybe someone will jump at this tremendous deal - but I kinda think he will be the owner of this engine for a while yet....

Perhaps if he paints it sky blue and trys on Craigslist......
 
That is a little steam engine.It probably was used to drive a feed water pump in a small power plant.Some ships had engines that size driving the feed water pumps.Many years ago..
 
there is some some interest in these, but; obviously not for average collector. A large size and not real old either. Its just not that sexy a look. I think a club that had several other big engines from other time periods could include one of these. Looks like unaflow design. That was a great idea (or easy way to improve efficiency).

This is not an real auction, it is a buy-it-now starting at $7800 or make a lower offer. I liked ebay better when it was more real auctions instead of this stuff - not that i ever liked ebay, but it sure was better. In this case though, it seems like a reasonable effort to try and find a home for the engine. It was posted for sale on another site. I think the owner is trying to do the right thing and no doubt he could scrap it (for less money?) and less hassle.

I guess when i say "right thing", I dont mean to imply a charity situation but 5,000+/- seems a fair balance between saving an engine and treating the owner right.

I dont remember the details, as for keeping it a long time. Maybe? Or after a while it could just get recycled to china or Newcor. What would be current scrap value be? 5 tons x 300 = 1500?

It would also make a heck of an interesting yard ornament. Some one could offer $2000, just for decoration?

I just re-read the ad, it sounds like it is all ready to run. Someone could use that.
 
Looks like unaflow design.

Peter,

I downloaded and read the Troy brochures, it is not a uniflow, just an ordinary counterflow engine. I read that they offered "flat valves" and piston valves, my guess is this one is a piston valve engine.

Adammil1,

Thanks for posting the advert, an interesting engine.

Anyone know anything about Troy-Engberg engines or the Troy Engine and Machine Co, Troy, Pennsylvania?
 
Anyone know anything about Troy-Engberg engines or the Troy Engine and Machine Co, Troy, Pennsylvania?

Only a little. In the early 1900s Troy Engine Co. and Engberg Engine Co. combined and started producing the "Troy-Engberg" engine. Fully enclosed, water separating crankcase, not pressure lubricated, although oil was recovered from the crankcase and brought to a reservoir where the oil was individually drip controlled to each of the bearings. The engines were available either "automatic" (usually a rites flywheel governor) or throttling (typically a flyball governor of Pickering or other type.) The pickering governors of this application are usually found 'fully enclosed' in an interesting cast iron cover.

These engines in the vertical style were known as the "whistling exhaust" engines as they were piston valve and probably (retrospective) not given enough exhaust port area - hence the "whistle." Still, they were good performers and were made in this pattern up to and including WWII. This engine seems to be of this ilk except in horizontal style - which was available but not that popular (steam engines were in decline since the formation of grid electricity in the 30s.)

Troy-Engberg continued as an entity into the 1970s by this time providing mostly parts. They were bought out by Skinner Engine Co. (the Uniflow Skinner engine makers) and operated as an adjunct to their own steam engine business (they fancied themselves as THE place to go to get a steam engine or repairs) until they themselves ultimately failed in the early 2000s.

One wonders what happened to all the patterns and drawings and other engineering deliverables that used to make up both Troy-Engberg and Skinner?

I may not have these dates exactly right - time flies when you're having fun.

Joe K
 
Anyone know anything about Troy-Engberg engines or the Troy Engine and Machine Co, Troy, Pennsylvania?


The engine works complex in Troy,PA has been in operation as Penn-Troy Machine
for as long as I can remember. It is a general job shop and I think they also may have
some sort of valve product they produce. Troy,PA is about 40? miles south of my shop.


Well, I googled and Penn-Troy Manufacturing came up:

Home | Penn-Troy Manufacturing

The only other info I can share is that they did set up some sort of brass or bronze continuous casting operation in the former Shepard Niles crane and hoist complex in
Montour Falls, NY, after Shepard Niles ceased operations about 10? years ago.
Not sure if the casting facility is still in operation at this point.
Montour Falls is about 5 miles south of Watkins Glen, NY and coincidentally about 15 miles north of my shop.

dk
 
PeterS, Joe Thanks for the clarification. Not a unaflow.

I guess this has the governor in the flywheel (automatic), I dont see any pickering on the steam line.

Seems at one time there were stories of engines similar to this (modern ish) being used and needed as replacements in S America.

I wont get all emotional over this, but be nice if it found a home - Good, bad or indifferent.
 
I believe that the best possible use for this engine would be in an Amish factory. I have had the great opportunity to put an indicators on two engines in Amish factories. One was a 24 by 48 Watts-Campbell in a sawmill, the other was on a small vertical engines in a stove company.

I will confess that the small vertical taught me, quite severely, that I am not capable of taking cards from an engine that is running at 425 RPM. The Watts-Campbell was running 75 RPM with a 16 foot flywheel.

I am aware of two, and possibly three, Amish companies that are contemplating converting from Diesel to steam because of the high cost of fuel. This conversion is particularly advantageous to wood working operations where they are paying to have waste disposed of in land fills.

I wish I could provide more information on the Watts-Campbell, but they are still in start up mode, and are not into public exhibitions and demonstrations. If this changes, I will note it here.

Bruce E. Babcock
 
Similiar to Japanese automobiles....I doubt many of those hoods get popped open at drive-ins, so "the guys" can look at them :)

Hopefully, just like some under appreciated Japanese cars with something lurking under the hood someone will find the value in that old steam engine and put it back to work! Twenty years from now that will be a really rare and desirable beast. Maybe precisely because it's under appreciated now.

Mike
 

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Bruce, I dont imagine the Amish follow eBay or internet much. I wonder will you maybe passing the word along. I am sure they could get someone to submit an offer along with a community phone number. NewYork, Ohio, PA not all that far.
 
Troy Engine was absorbed by Skinner in the 1950's. The Troy plant still stands, and the foundry is an open, abandoned structure. The machine shop portion of the plant produces cast iron fire hydrants and underground iron-body valves for fire mains. O'Brien Machinery, a used engine/generator wheeler-dealer outfit, bought Troy Engine in the 50's. O'Brien wanted to liquidate everything, so sold the Troy engine line and production tooling to LeGrand Skinner.

Troy built fine engines, and they were all enclosed, self-oiling, and ranged in sizes from about 3" bore on up to maybe 12" or 15" bore.

The engine shown is a late style engine. We knew of its existence when Hanford Mills was shopping for a steam engine. Since it was too late a design, and way more engine than we needed, we passed on it. The truth is that it is a GOOD engine for some real work. It would do fine in a mill where waste wood fuel was available. Unfortunately, its size and design are working against it being saved. People saving steam engines tend to want historic engines, open frame machines like Corliss engines. The recent exception was the saving of the Skinner Unaflow steam engine from the mill in Gardner, MA, which Rick Rowlands headed up. This particular engine is a bit large for steaming using boilers such as one finds on a traction engine or similar historic/hobby sized boilers. The fact it has a one piece frame and is totally enclosed/self oiling would make it an easy engine to build a foundation for and erect.

In terms of efficiency, it is probably not the most efficient steam engine for this HP rating. It was built to act as an "expander", probably exhausting against some low back pressure (such as wood dry kilns). Between waste wood fuel and a use for the exhaust steam, this gave nearly free energy in the form of expanding the steam from boiler pressure down to exhaust pressure thru the engine.

I wish I knew somewhere that engine could find a home. Unfortunately, in today;s world, anyone with a boiler plant large enough to steam it is probably using the steam for process and can't fit an engine (and tramp oil in the waste steam) into the process steam loop. Unfortunately also, a waste wood fired boiler large enough to make steam for that engine would probably get on the radar as a source of stack emissions.
 
I wish I could provide more information on the Watts-Campbell, but they are still in start up mode, and are not into public exhibitions and demonstrations. If this changes, I will note it here.

Is this one of the "known" WC engines? I'd really like to know more about it.

Paul
 








 
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