Power Plant Tour, Sidney, Nebraska 

I was a electronics major in college but joining the Air Force they put me in power production. Worked in a Titan I underground missile site in South Dakota. Our site had 4 Nordburg diesels 1000 hp each driving a 2800V generator. Took care, maintained and overhauled these diesels. What I most like about these engines is that all parts were huge. Head bolts were 4" and we had a hyd press to loosen them. Each head was removed via an overhead crane. Was quite an experience. We had lots of problems with the water composition in So Dakota. Thanks for the video.

I could spend all day in a place like that, love all those vintage motors, nothing is built as redundant as those were , thanks for sharing

I love the FM diesel I run a locomotive with one in it, an H-12-44 built for the US army in 1953 at the Golden gate railroad

Fascinating, thanks for the tour. I ran a pair of FM 12 cly OP's in Alaska for a while, Very reliable. My father also announced the Sydney Rodeo for many years but I never new there was a powerhouse in town.

I can hear the sweet sound of a Detroit in the background some where.

Thanks for the excellent tour-----!"

Love this video. It's the first large engine video I've seen where the presenter was not only knowledgeable but good at pointing things. I learned more from this excellent tour than I've learned from a dozen similar ones! Very informative, and enjoyable!

Excellent video! Thanks!

Excellent tour of a Midwest power plant.Have seen similar plants in Yankton,S.Dak,Vermillion,S.Dak.Those plants are now used for peaking.The switchgear panels are the circuit breakers for each genset.I work at a VOA Greenville,NC transmitter site-short wave 250-500Kw transmitters.Site runs from commercial power.The overseas VOA plants run from Diesel generator plants like what you showed.Nordberg is a common engine they used along with new Catrerpillar.The breaker panels at our site are now new-sued to be GE. Now Powell Electric.They control power to each transmitter-those run from 4160V.The plant you showed would just barely run the site I am in .Imagine the town of Sidney is on a grid and they may need more power than what this can provide.Again a good cloesup tour!

thanks for the tour randy. I can almost smell that place, and hear the old guys footsteps on the tiles.

Hey Randy, great tour. I worked on superior and cooper bessemers mostly. also a lot of fairbanks opposed piston . Its somethng to see the size of these engines . now there 1/4 the size per H.P.. But I absolutely loved the slow speed direct reversibles I worked on as a young towboat engineer . I remember well flowing the old jerk injection pumps on the superiors to time them. they looked just like the nordberg pumps you were showing. good memories. If you ever run slow speed diesel youll never enjoy running high speed stuff. different world. But those days are long gone . I can still remember running up the ohio river going to sleep to the rythm of them great old engines. boo hoo think im gonna cry. lol thanks again Mr. Richards for all you do to teach us dummies. Dennis Lee : chief engineer on towboats for 25 years then got neuropathy. fun fun fun

Thanks for the tour. I grew up in a small town not far from the city diesel plant. At night when things were quiet you could hear those massive engines working, definitely the sound of power! They repurposed the building and sold the engines off some time ago, I wish I had been able to tour it before that. It's great that you recorded this site, who knows how much longer it'll be around. Hopefully you can go back sometime when they have them running.

Very nice tour. I love seeing this older equipment still being maintained, warm, and ready to turn and burn! I’d really like to see these engines run. What an opportunity you had! Thanks for sharing and filming this. And thanks to the owners/maintainers to allow this. What a rare treat. 👍🏼

Nice, informative tour! In our town, we have a similar backup system, which I got a brief tour of one day during their annual open house...The front (of the bldg.) engines featured a 1941 ex-submarine Fairbanks-Morse 38D8-1/8, running on diesel, two more modern F-M "Enviro-Tech" 12-cylinders, natural gas-fueled, but using a diesel "pilot" combustion chamber (I think), instead of spark ignition; these were turbocharged. Also, a V-12 Waukesha gas-fueled, w/ spark ignition. In the rear of the bldg. were two F-M 31A18s, one 10-cyl., one 12, burning diesel, and scavenged by similar electric blowers as your Nordberg, mounted in the bsmt. These monsters turn at 277 RPM, requiring an unusual alternator to get 60 cycle power. In between these was a 4-stroke, V-16, turbocharged Cooper Bessemer diesel. None were running that day, of course, but I've been by the bldg. when they were up and running; the loudest seemed to be the turbocharged "Envirotechs", while the big ones at the back produce an almost-ground-shaking rumble. The exhausts are clean, owing to soot traps/scrubbers. I asked about how long it takes to get the plant on-line and supplying power, in case of a city-wide outage; the engineer there explained it took about five hours to isolate the city from the main grid before this plant could be brought on line. I think one of the main reasons it's still there, and active, is we have a major FAA ATC facility in town... Fascinating stuff; great video!

Very cool , kid's in school should be watching these videos , so they can appreciate what it takes to charge their tablets and keep the TV running !

Nordberg, K & T, Bucyrus Erie, Harnishfeger... a lot ob big stuff came out of Milwaukee. Nice video.

That was a pretty cool tour. Wonderful machines. Thank you very much!

Our GP9 uses a Woodward governor also

Nice video. A lot of small towns all had generators at one time. I can hear the trains passing in the back ground.

In the navy I worked on mostly Cooper Bessemer diesels maybe in Grove City Pa. Good reliable engines.The best were six cylinder in lines that made about 600 Hp. At 300 Rpm.

Hi Randy, Interesting to see all of this great old machinery... well, kind of old. Hope the new baby is doing well. Go Big Red. Joe

Reminds me of my career in the Air Force from 1970-1990 where for 10 of those years I managed, operated and maintained Diesel-electric power plants at Vandenberg AFB,CA; Minuteman Missile sites in Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming; Sparrevohn AFS, AK; Pirinclik AFS, Diyarbakir Turkey; and Levkas AFS , Greece.

Thanks for the tour, one of these days I'll find time to get up there.

Thanks for the tour.

If they decide to get rid of that first FM motor I would take it. That would be fun to use for 3 phase power for my shop, no limit to the size electric motors I could run then! :-)

Thanks for the video Randy. And right from my home state.

Thank you very much, AWESOME 😎

Very interesting Randy. My early career was testing and commissioning protection and control equipment in hydro electric power stations so the alternators and much of the control equipment looked familiar... so too did those big wrenches. Each of our stations had their own dedicated tool sets just like those.

hey Randy, these kinds of tours are so koollll. i love seeing this type of stuff. thanks for archiving that for us.! too bad we didn't get to see one of those behemoths running. maybe on a return trip..

Interesting tour. I always figured power plants to use steam turbines exclusively. At the evil polluting refinery we had two power plants and all of our power was generated with steam turbines. The steam came from burning waste gas from making gasoline etc.. Keep on keeping on.

Super engines there Randy , Loved this share .. Thanks man !

I noticed a little horns on top of all the control panels, I bet those are for trouble warning or maybe when they're starting them

Many of those smaller Z engines are still in service on private small bore wells the 25 hp z engines have been changed out with arrow or Ajax heavy engines

I looked at the signs you showed but couldn't find Morris anywhere on them. I did see Morse though.

thanks, those power panels look the same as oil drilling rig but there is only 3 or sometimes 4 and engines smaller, would love to know more of the history

Very cool thanks for sharing

Enjoyed...interesting so much that my treadmill time seemed like a few minutes not 28minutes 😳😅😅😅

Did he say that it's a 2160 KW engine? That's crazy that this gigantic machine produces only 2MW of power. The smallest Wartsula engine produces I think 17MW if I remember correctly.

Thanks for sharing this Randy!

Fascinating equipment. Thanks for the tour.

Randy, thank you for this gem of a video. Lots of details and close up views had me replaying parts and freeze framing just study and understand. Too bad you didn't take videos of the large ship engines when you were Chief Engineer. Thank you very much.

Thanks for sharing this, Randy!

Great tour Randy! That was fascinating.

Great Video. Thanks for the tour. Reminded of my first two ships. 6 Diesels in forward and aft engine rooms. Not being an Engineman or a Boiler Tech, I can't tell you what they were.

I wouldn't mind getting a hold of that dead FM but it's probably gone now but then there'd be the freight to get it out to Cali oops

I believe the cooling water pumps should have 5 X pipe diameter straight section on the suction side, so those elbows look a little too close.

Great tour Randy - loved it, fascinating. Something about huge machinery! Always wonder how the heck they ever move stuff so large. The scale of machining and casting for these giants is so impressive. Super video.

Nice tour. Only thing better than old iron is big old iron.

Very interesting, thanks for the tour, you made one mistake, you didn't get a close up of the lathe, I like the 20" W-T drill press, it's from the 40s, I have a 1952 W-T 20" drill press, so I'm kind of partial to old tools.

We have the same thing in Falls City NE

Very interesting. I love this type video. I seem to remember you touched on the Sky Crane helicopters one time. I'd enjoy seeing a video in more detail.

Cool stuff Randy!! Can't imagine how loud those things would be running. In the event of a power outage, would they run more than one at a time? Thanks for the tour, you sound like you know what your talking about.....ALMOST!

With just one man maintaining the plant, there isn't enough manpower available to fix the red tagged engine.

Great vid

That's lots of diesel power in one spot, those old engines are probably in almost new condition, they usually last forever with good maintenance. Just add a keel and water, then you'll feel at home... lol Interesting to see... ;)

Randy, great video .......im originally from eastern Ne.....we also had a large generatimg station in wayne, Ne......im curiuos where you are located....I now live in central iowa......thanks again

Any one of those engines would make a nice upgrade for my Honda.🤤

Someone knew about the inside of the Woodward Governors to take the time and make the glass or plexiglass for the sides. That is so cool I have only seen 2 in the years I worked on Woodward Governors. I wanted to buy one they didn't want to sell it.

Very enjoyable. Thank you, Jeff and Mike. I am correct assuming the station is still grid connected from the 60Hz hum and could be pressed into service if needed?

Well I haven't seen a tooth vernier for some 20 years!

Good stuff Randy. How are they generating the cooling water, cooling tower, ambient heat exchanger?

Now take us on a ship tour, air or water.

Hi mate. Thanks for the tour. I hate to see all those engines being taken out of commission. When was the last time that they made some sparks in anger? I bet a preservation club would love to take over that station, it's all there.

Randy, maybe it is just me, but the sound track was not synced to the video. At the end I noticed that the video length was 28:03 and the video had run for 28:24. I am familiar with how those engines work, but if other people are having the same issue it might be quite confusing because you are not talking about what is on the screen...

nice tour and engines. do you got a video link to the pressure volume card gauge video? you also skipped the lathe

So is this basically a museum, or are they still contracting with the grid authority to provide backup power?

COOOOOL !!

Would be a shame to not get that engine running again for lack of head gaskets.

wow are they using those old engines to generate electricity?

Interesting tour thanks for taking us along, what brand of metal lathe was in the basement? Oh I got the Cabelas card in the mail yesterday Thanks

I never understood why it takes such huge engines to turn such small alternators . Are the magnets that strong or what ?

Oh, my, a blast from the past! However I noticed the natural gas. Once in Venezuela we had the mother of all power outages. Venezuela is all hydro power from the Guri dam. Somehow they blew a major piece of swtichgear. So all Venzuela was without power. No problem -- EDC (Caracas Power, still private then) had a standby gas trubine generator, fueled by nat gas. Unfortunately all the valves in the pipeline sensed the power loss and shut off. Of course. You don't want fires downstream! But they couldn't start the gas turbine -- no gas! A whole country with almost zero power. I hope Sydney NB has this one figured out.

Did someone catch hell for blowing the engine? Even switching to Cats or turbines would not be cheap

Randy is that a Folgers can that really keeps things running?

So.. is this diesel power plant?

They can make diesel out of anything now so why not use these again

Well it looks like a lot of scrap steel, get a EMD or Cat

shame that engine is red tagged,, sadly she may end up scrapped i'd bet,,

Le plus gros moteur diesel du monde

Ahhhhh Cablas huh

frist frost froost first