Do Oil Pumps Exist on High Ground?

[gandydancer19]

Gandydancer, I thought I’d run any pipe through pipe saddles above ground for more visual bang for the buck as well as realism. In the 1930s-'40s the EPA would only be a wink in it’s daddy’s eye and I used to weld saddles for the Alaskan pipeline in the '70s so know what they’d look like.
Is it realistic for a single tank car to “stop by” for a fill at such a small/one storage tank location?
Would I have to make up a story?

I know for a “fact” that the ornery wildcat oldtimer was a boyhood chum of the R.R. Supt.'s father and even though his field never played out big time, the Supt. promised his Father that there’d always be a tank car set out there for pick up as long as his stubborn old timer/chum lived. Good enough?

Why not? All is fair unless you are strictly modeling a given prototype RR.

I knew that old wildcat. Boy he sure did have some stories to tell! Tall tales most likely.

Steamage; Seems to me I remember your diorama. Wasn’t there an article about building it in RMC?

[Capt_Grimek]

Well, it’ll be a couple of years before the pump jack and motor are on the layout, as I’m just now finishing my back drop and beginning bench work. But, I’m planning every square inch I can ahead of time.
Someday there will be pics available.

Thanks for the book referral “Drilling Through Time”. I’ll see if I can find a copy at the library.

I had such an “old timer” in my youth. He was an elderly guy in our town in the '60s who had a Model A Ford in a stand alone (no home) sandstone garage near a local lake. I used to watch him come from somewhere else, work on his car, nod to him or say hello and then he’d leave. I loved looking over his antique gas station signs, old parts and old license plates on the wall-from a distance.
Now, I really wish I’d had the nerve to talk to him and see who and what he was, but mustn’t talk to strangers and all…I’ll bet he had a ton of stories that I would loved to have heard.

I’m gonna pay close attention to my Wild Cat Old Timer if he does indeed come to reside on my layout and I will listen to his stories carefully! I’m the Superintendent and I’m told he was a childhood chum of my Dad’s so…
If this scenario meets with Gandydancer’s approval then I know it must be ok!

[steamage]

Steamage; Seems to me I remember your diorama. Wasn’t there an article about building it in RMC?

It was in a July 1972 issue Railroad Modeler published Chatsworth CA.

[Left_Coast_Rail]

I’m not sure what era the original poster is targeting but here is an interesting take on adding some whimsey to pump jacks from *Coalinga, CA.

*Coalinga got its name from the railroad. It was known as Coaling Station A in the early days. It is just about halfway between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area.

[Autobus_Prime]

Many of the hills of Pennsylvania oil country are dotted with wellsites. One of the unique features is that multiple wellheads are operated from a single, remote power source. So you can see a half dozen or so wells scattered up an down the mountain, each connected by a long reciprocating shaft to the drive engine, usually located down the hill. It is something akin to the arrangement of bell cranks and control rods one would see at a railroad interlocking tower. But, rather than being ganged together, the oil well shafts would radiate fan-like from the pump engine to the various wellheads. Earliest pump engines were probably steam powered, and later converted to electric. It is also possible that some of them could be powered by natural gas produced by their wells. Pipe lines ran downhill from the wells to holding tanks along the road, or railroad, in the valley below. I don’t know if these are still operating today. It has been about 20 years since I last flew over the Bradford area to see them working. The whole scene presents some interesting possibilities for modeling.

tp:

The “central powers” were run by one-lung gas engines, now collected at engine shows…the kind with that miss-a-beat governor method, that idle " Pop, whish whish whish, pop, whish whish whish." They have a more conventional sound when running under load.

I think there are some still working. I saw one moving somewhere around Oil City when I was driving around down there a few years ago. I imagine anything that can pump is pumping oil right now, with the oil prices nowadays.

Here’s some info and pictures on “central powers”:

http://crm.cr.nps.gov/archive/23-04/23-04-09.pdf
http://www.herculesengines.com/FlatRock/

Capt. G: Have you considered a simple truck-dump coal loader? Probably the simplest is just a road and a ramp from a trackside embankment, above the car top, with an apron overhanging the car. Ba

[Ghost_River_Valley]

Many of the posts responding to the original question were correct. Wells are drilled on high or low ground. It is the subsurface configuration of the geological structure that matters to the oilman and the surface access.

If the original questioner wants to add more interest to his remote well site he could consider adding additional features to this site. He could add some old wellheads representing abadonned wells or naturally flowing wells that do not require pump jacks. You would need what we call a “christmas tree” or wellhead with associated valves and piping in and out of the well. You can search the net for a wellhead or tree to model. If you do want to model another non-pumping well be sure and stain the ground beneath it with black oily stain.

There was a comment about directionally drilled wells and that opens the possibility of adding more wells to the site also. For instance you could have two or more pump jacks beside one another both pumping away, their knodding donkey beams could be in or out of sequence adding visual interest. Each of these wells would be producing from different subsurface targets far apart or from different stratigraphic levels.

Your well site will need a low lying separator tank for taking the water and gas out of the oil. You will need a stock tank to accumulate oil before the tank can be emptied by the truck or tank car. You could model a flare stack or a flare pit at a safe distance away from the well heads. The flare stack burns off the natural gas that is dissolved in the oil and that gas bubbles off when the pressure is released as the oil comes to surface. The flare stack would have a yellow flickering flame at the end. You will need a bank of meters, chemical barrels and junk laying about too. A fence would be a must in most places and eras.

So you see there is more to it than just a single pump