15 HP Superior Gas Engine

This 15 hp Superior oilfield engine was parked just outside the entrance to the Bob Julian Roundhouse at the Tractors and Trains Festival back in April. When I get the opportunity to talk to the owner of an exhibit, one of the questions I usually ask is if they know of a good source of information that's available online. The owner of this engine allowed as how there just isn’t much information out there. After spending several evenings looking, I’m inclined to agree.

What you can locate is a bit of history about the company. Gas Engine Magazine published a couple of articles, The Superior Engine by Harold R. Keller in the Dec. / Jan. 1998 issue and A History of the Superior Gas Engine Company by Russell Farmer in June / July 2004. Throw in a couple of Youtube videos showing an engine running and an article at herculesengines.com and that’s it. Enwikipedia.org has all of four paragraphs about the subject.  

What I learned was that by the late 1800’s Ohio was enjoying an economic boom due to oil production. After learning his trade working as an apprentice machinist for several railroads, Patrick Shouvlin opened his own machine shop in Springfield Ohio to serve the nearby oil fields. At this time steam engines powered most oil drilling and pumping, but Shouvlin had a better idea. Why not develop an internal combustion engine that would run on the natural gas that was a nuisance by product of oil wells? He set to work designing one and the result was the Superior Engine Company. He sold the first engine to the Ohio Oil Co. , better known today as Marathon Oil, and his company prospered. 

The usual sales, mergers and acquisitions followed as the Superior Engine Plant turned out its products, all the way up to 2001 when the operations in Springfield were shut down. That’s a long run to be sure so there ought to be a major paper trail left behind; but where is it?   

When a company goes to that big receivership in the sky, somebody has to sort through all those documents. Fortunately, that task often falls on some longtime employee or other person with ties to the firm who just can’t make themselves send everything to the landfill. A local museum or historical society is a logical choice to preserve them, so that's where  I direct my next search.

And Bingo! The Clark County Historical Society is where they went. A visit to their website, www.heritagecenter.us reveals that the museum received a donation of forty-three boxes of documents when the plant closed. According to a volunteer who processed the collection in 2009 the contents included; company newsletters and employee handbooks, sales literature, operators instructions for various engines and an assortment of technical documents. 

At this point you’re probably thinking,” Wow!, that’s great!”, but don’t get too excited just yet. After duly recording a brief inventory, said volunteer repacked the boxes and carried them back to the vault and that’s as far as it went. The collection has never been digitized so you can’t access them online. Unless you live within a reasonable distance you will probably never have the opportunity to examine the content of those boxes. 

The Clark County Historical Society Heritage Center is located at 117 South Fountain Ave. in Springfield Ohio. Maybe someday a collector or other interested individual will copy some of those documents and make them available on the web. 

Jeddo Coal Number 85

You can’t go wrong with a visit to the Tractors and Trains Festival. Even if you don’t see something you like at the tractor show ( that’s not likely to happen ) for the six dollars you pay for admission you also get to spend the day checking out the exhibits at the North Carolina Transportation Museum and wandering the grounds of the historic Southern Railway’s Spencer Shops. This year there was a triple treat as the April 14 show date coincided with the Museum’s At the Throttle : Steam program featuring a saddle tank switch engine, Jeddo Coal No. 85. Rail fans can buy a half hour operating a steam locomotive for $160 ; not a bad deal when you consider what it would cost to own and operate your own engine. I would have liked to take a turn at the throttle myself, but the available slots sell out quickly. You can’t wait to see what the weather will be like if you want to get one.

This 0-4-0 tank engine was built in 1928 by the Vulcan Iron Works for the A.E. Dick Construction Co. of Scranton, Pennsylvania who used it in their stone quarry until 1933 when they sold it to the Jeddo - Highland Coal Company located near Hazelton, Pennsylvania. Jeddo named it Engine No. 85 and used it in their mining operations until 1964 when they sold it to a collector who moved it to Horseheads, New York. It pretty much sat there until 2007 when it was purchased by the Gramling Locomotive Works.

The name conjures images of a giant industrial conglomerate but don’t be deceived. The Gramlings are a father and son team of dedicated hobbyist and the works occupy a repurposed pig barn on their farm located near Ashley, Indiana. These guys have a wry sense of humor! All that aside they accomplish some amazing things at the “Works”. Restoring a machine that’s powered by a steam pressure vessel occupies a whole different dimension from an internal combustion engine project. To return one steam locomotive to operation is a major feat. The Gramlings have restored three of them.

The Jeddo Coal project was ten years in the making from 2007 until 2017 when it returned to service. It joins the Gramling’s other two engines; Flagg Coal No. 75 and Lehigh Valley Coal No. 126 as they tour the country for events at railroad museums and tourist railroads. The great thing about the tank engines is that they can be loaded on a trailer and transported by truck. Just imagine how far you would get if you were asking a major railroad for permission to travel on one of their mainlines!

Back in the day before mega horsepower diesel power was commonly available, the size and relative affordability of the “dinky” class engines made them the motive power of choice for a wide variety of applications. Companies like Vulcan and H.K. Porter produced 0-4-0 and 0-6-0 engines for a global market from North and South America to Europe and on to Australia. Any venture that moved a lot of material was a potential customer. The list included: large project contractors, steel mills and foundries, mining operations, factories, plantations, logging , freight switching and even passenger trains. 

Vulcan Iron Works was founded by Richard Jones in 1867. The plant located in Wilkes - Barre, Pennsylvania consisted of a machine shop, foundry, boiler shop and office.  Vulcan bought its way into the locomotive business with the acquisition of the Wyoming Valley Manufacturing Co.  in 1888. Over the course of the years that followed they built more than 100 different steam locomotive designs ranging from 7 to 70 tons on the drivers. The contractor size engines were Vulcan’s  primary market but they also custom built locomotives up to the 2-8-0 and 2-6-2 class to meet customer specifications.

In the years following World War 1 Vulcan expanded production to include gasoline powered engines and battery powered electric machines intended for use in mines. By the late 1920’s diesel - electric switch engines had been added to their product line. After WW2 dieselization was in full swing and demand for steam locomotives dried up. Vulcan was never able to compete in the new marketplace with big name companies like Baldwin. Vulcan only sold 54 diesel locomotives during the period leading up to 1954 when they declared bankruptcy and closed shop. 

Sources:

www.nctrans.org 

www.american-rails.com 

https://babel.hathitrust.org 

www.csxthsociety.org