N&W in 1911--Monster pumps

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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
September 30, 1911

THE GRAHAM DAILY NEWS
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Pumps Are Monsters

    W. S. Becker and W. R. Dawson, Norfolk and Western officials, were down from Bluefield yesterday overseeing the setting up of the monster pumps which are being installed in the Norfolk and Western pumping station.  There are two pumps being put in, the largest on the entire system, the concrete foundation necessary being twenty-two and one-half feet in length.  The pumps have a high pressure cylinder, measuring thirty inches in diameter, with twenty-four inch stroke*.  Either of the new pumps has a capacity of two pumps now being used at the Bluestone pumping station.  If there were a pipe line running from Graham to Bluefield which would stand the pressure and accommodate the water so that both of the new pumps could be used to their full capacity, in the course of twenty-four hours two and one half million gallons of water could be pumped to Bluefield.
    The pipe line now running from Graham to Bluefield is only sixteen inches in diameter and will not stand the full pressure of one of the new pumps.
*For comparison a Class K1 locomotive had 29" x 28" cylinders.
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[An October 1909 article stated that the 16-inch pipeline was replacing an 8-inch pipeline.  Both the 16-inch pipeline from the Bluestone River at Graham to Bluefield and also the "monster" pumps were necessary to keep up with the increasing demand for water at Bluefield for the shops and the locomotives serviced there.  Otherwise locomotives would have to take water eastbound at Ada or westbound at Flat Top and Graham according to an earlier article.]

Gordon Hamilton
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