Tod Engine Heritage Park is Growing

[Rick Rowlands]

I'll be at the Tod Engine on Saturday, Tuesday and Thursdays, weather permitting, including all day tomorrow (Saturday).  More than welcome to stop by.

[AllanY2525]

That's great news Rick!

I'm in town for a while working on one of my properties, and I would still like to come out
and see the place and take some photos for the website.

Let me know if you have some time - maybe we can set something up?

[Youngstownshrimp]

I'm pumped!  just got off the phone with IrishBob and we are going to go to work to harness the energy of Yellow Creek with the "Hydraulic Ram Pump."  So now, we are going to move from low wattage hexadecimal to green 24/7 creek energy.  We need to cool the tanks here guys and start producing, Dan and Rick please cool it here and help us out with this project, Rick I know you can do it in your sleep.  Study the pump and get back to us, we plan on putting the pump under the 224 bridge in Poland to pump water up to the bridge for the flower boxes.  Who knows, after this we may harness the Mahoning as a man made waterfall.

[Why?Town]

Hey! don't be giving binary code a bad name!


Good Job Rick! I've been out to the park a couple of times but as luck would have it nobody was home.

[Youngstownshrimp]

Bobster, I do not understand you man, you claim to be green and you post all the time how you want to better the world.  Then when I say, "lead, follow, or get out of the way,"  you disappear.  What gives?  I gave you my number, we brought to you the greenest gadgetry to harness nature and nothing?  I'm bummed, surely, I thought you to be real and not just binary code.

[irishbobcat]

Yippee! Santa Claus brought Ricky a Choo-Choo for Christmas!

One man's junk is another man's treasure...ha ha ha

[Rick Rowlands]

In December our collection of historic steelmaking equipment grew by 70 tons with the addition of a locomotive that had been used in the valley for the past 55 years.  Then in January Severstal North America donated a stationary steam engine from their former Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel Steubenville, OH plant to the Park.  This engine was built in 1905 by Westinghouse to generate 1000 KW of 250 volt direct current for the operation of the DC electrical equipment in the plant.  Weighing in at around 150 tons, it is about 100 tons lighter than the Tod Engine but still occupies nearly the same size footprint.

I have been heading up work sessions at Steubenville on Monday, Wednesday and Friday of each week, dismantling the engine and preparing it for shipment to Youngstown.  This engine will be re-erected in front of the Tod, and our uncompleted building will have to be lengthened 40 feet to accommodate this new addition.  The addition of the Westinghouse will provide us with the centerpiece of an exhibit on the electrification of the steel industry. 

Work will also commence shortly on the completion of the current enginehouse building.  We ran short of funds and time last fall to complete the endwalls so the building was open all winter.  Excavation for the end wall footers will begin as soon as we have a few dry days.

The Tod Engine Foundation has changed its name to the Youngstown Steel Heritage Foundation, and for the first time is now offering memberships, and will begin publishing a quarterly newsletter.   The YSHF has also recently sponsored an Historic American Engineering Record photographic documentation of the WP Steubenville plant, and we are now working on a similar project over at the former Weirton Steel.   Our mission is to preserve historically significant pieces of early steelmaking technology in a new museum in Youngstown, working in collaboration with the Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor. 


The carbody of our GE 70 ton diesel locomotive passing the Dairy Queen in Hubbard enroute to the Tod Engine Heritage Park


The Westinghouse Corliss Steam Engine


HAER photographer Joe Elliott, his 4x5 large format camera and the number 1 blast furnace at Steubenville.