Oil Fields around the 1930's interest me, anyone model them?

 I have not built any models yet.  All I have is photos and some diagrams. I want to build a pre WWII field operated with a steam driven cable system.  In these fields when artificial lift was required a stationary steam engine in the center of the field drove several wells with a system of cables.  Instead of the diesel  (or electric) engine driving each well as we see today a long (maybe a mile) steel cable drove the pump jack at the indivdual well.

  I should point out a lot of these old fields were located in westen Pennsylvania and north east Ohio. Texas, Louisiana,California, and Oaklahoma had lots of fields but other states had production too.

  In a lot of instances the oil was shipped by rail to a refinery then shipped by rail as a refined product. The 8,000 or 10,000 gallon car(rivited or wielded) was the standard.  These cars were ubiquitous on most mixed freight until the late 1970s. They were usually a dirty black with rust on the expansion dome.  It is surprisingly  hard to find a good scale model of these cars but a "traditional" scale model pinted to look like a pack of lifesaver candy is easy to find.

  I have a few project lined up before I get to an oil field.  One of these projects is to build a cotton gin with an operating fixed engine that drives a belt that runs the gin.

  There are several good oil field museum around that could give you inspiration. Lots of luck on your project.

Douglas 

Good post Douglas.  I find tank cars very interesting.  When you get a few good models together, you can see that there are very interesting variations.

I would like to try this - Kit 468 Glenwood No. 2 Oil Derrick, looks very nice.  It has a nice authentic look.

Grew up in So Cal and Dad had one job his whole life...Ashland Oil....so I too like to model oil fields. They are tough....so big and towers so tall.....

Seems IIRC this is the work of someone who hung out here at one time....but name slips me.

Great scene!  That goes along with my idea. Have a few models and some rail access, and then a good background like the one in your picture, giving some depth.

I have built a couple of oil depots, posted on here some time ago, for oil companies

including Frontier that operated in Kansas, Colorado, and elsewhere and I have one

derrick kit I have not yet built, but will use that, one or two walking beam wells, and the depots to convey an image of petroleum activity, without committing too much space.

Here's an picture of a old derrick with a small pumping unit that was powered by a rod line. 

The rods and pump are not in this well. The rod that powered the pumping unit would have been hooked to the bottom end of the triangle that is part of the walking beam. The power house that powered this well would have been off to the left of this picture. The old center powers were a building that had a "one or two lunger" engine (oil field talk for a one or two cylinder engine). A one foot wide belt would run from the engine to a "Bull wheel" that would be 10 to 15 foot across. The bull wheel was horizontal. On the bottom of the bull wheel would be a small wheel about 4 foot across that had a offset crank to the main shaft that would move the rod to the well back and forth. When the power house bull wheel pulled on the rod the pumping unit would pull up on the rods in the well which pulled on the subsurface pump which pumped oil and water up the tubing to the surface and on to the stock tanks. When the power house bull wheel pushed the rod the pumping unit walking beam would lower the rods back into the well. The rod between the power house and the pumping unit was up off the ground. A 2 inch pipe stuck in the ground with a block of oak on top would keep the rod up off the ground. 

Most of wells that were operated with a center power are all gone.  The last one's I saw was southeast of Pampa, Texas back in the 1980's  Most pumping units today are ran by a gas engine or electric motor.  A electric motor is the best due to you can run the pumping unit a few times a day if the well only makes a few barrels a day and not wear out the pump, rods and tubing in the well.

I was a "company man" for Amoco and then BP and repaired many a well in my 30 years.

In the upper left is my pumping unit and a gas well "christmas tree" (painted red) and a production unit to remove the oil and water from the high pressure gas from the gas well. In the center is my "Tank Farm" with tanks for Propane, Diesel, unleaded gasoline and motor oil. The water and oil stock tanks for the oil and gas wells is behind the round ball propane tank and are painted gray.

Second picture shows the oil and gas well stock tanks and the production unit. The two smaller tanks are made by Lionel and the large tank is a 10" plastic pipe cap. The round propane tank was built from Alan Arnold's plans from the O gauge magazine.

As a very young kid in the late 40's early 50's I remember my dad driving us through endless oil fields in Southern California. Don

you may want to check out the Drake museum in Titusville pa. it is a really neat place to visit and has a tremendous amount of displays based on the birthplace of the oil industry.

As a very young kid in the late 40's early 50's I remember my dad driving us through endless oil fields in Southern California. Don

Amazing sights.  I've looked at some Google maps of what were once oil fields and zooming in, there is very little if any sign that those structures in your pictures ever existed.

Drake museum in Titusville pa

That's a great idea!  I didn't know that existed.  What a great piece of history.  Thanks

O-Scale Oil Pumps

I watched the you tube video about the "O-Scale Oil Pumps", very well done.

I have a couple of the walthers o scale horse head derricks.  I have not hooked them up yet.   Great topic!

Most of those derricks LOOK like they are put together from fairly small metal pipe...and are not wood framed like a mental image I had, or this kit I need to

build..  The only one I have encountered other than at Drake, was wooden, and rotting away abandoned next to a back road I stumbled on.

The first well derricks were made of wood. The newer derricks (1930's and up) were made of steel angle iron, with a few made with pipe. 

The derricks were made as a kit. In this 1980's picture from Kilgore Texas all you need is the kit, a few tools, a small boom, a cable and a pickup or team of mules to lift the parts of the kit to the top. These derricks were removed in the 50's and 60's from over the wells and the wells were plugged. In the 80's some of the derricks were put back up.   

I think this would be a neat idea with layouts that have a western motif.

As I said my dad would drive us down to see my grandparents and drive through endless oil fields. You could smell the oil. There were ponds of oil. Don't know if they were lined or not. I was fascinated by it all. There was one place I think in Long Beach called Signal Hill. I thought maybe there was some kind of signal for ships, not knowing it was for Signal Oil Co. The other thing I recall was the long lines of black tank cars. Hundred of them. Modeling something like this would be a huge challenge but well worth it. Don

Marker,

    I thought that the oil derricks were very neat also and so I really wanted to model at least one. More than that would have taken up a lot of room. I was able to create a nice "scene" based on the derrick and though not realistic, I made a spur to load tank cars to sort of keep up the theme. I looked at a bunch of pictures on-line and also the kits and eventually scratch built my own. I am including a sequence of pictures showing the procedure.

Beautiful job Ranger Rick!  I'm very impressed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 I was fascinated by it all.

Don - I'm sure that if one was lucky enough to have seen all of that years ago, one would never forget.  I envy you that experience, very cool.

Great job, Rick.

Art

Rick you did an out standing job on the derrick and the rig equipment around it.

These old oilwell derricks were used to drill the well and then used to run and remove the pipe and rods from the well when a pumping unit was needed to pump the oil and water from the well.

People in Pa. are probably aware of it, but there is an oil ghost town near the Drake

Well Museum.  It is Pithole City, and there are weird stories about it, such as in

one instance when the moon was close to the earth and oil came up in water wells,

in the pit toilets, and cellars.  Another boom to bust town, and example that all the ghost towns are not west of Kansas.  Incredible to think of that and look at Don's

photos, and realize we are getting ripped off big time for oil now.  Us kids filled in

and tore down the toilet when city water came through for one house, and we found no oil.