Concrete Water Tank

[NW Mailing List]

Much of the N&W's structural work was performed by outside contractors - including bridges, buildings, water tanks. Etc. . N&W generally had standard contracts for Masonry & Grading, Bridges, stations, etc, which said build in accordance with N&W plan XXXXX. Below is a list of the major structural contracts for East Portsmouth Yard before 1905 and 1910. The first 10 contracts all went to John P. Pettyjohn & Company of Lynchburg, VA. Pettyjohn was also given the contract for the first roundhouse at Bluefield

 

November 4, 1905 - Erection of YMCA at Portsmouth.

March 15, 1906 - Erection of a roundhouse. This contract was for the planned 20-stall roundhouse shown on N&W Drawing G7155. 

May 29, 1906 - Erection of a car shop which was shown on N&W Drawing G7155.

June 13, 1906 - Erection of a brick smith shop with slate roof which was shown on N&W Drawing G7155. 

January 8, 1908 - Construction of an extension to the powerhouse.

March 31, 1908 - Rearranging assembly hall at Portsmouth YMCA to provide additional sleeping rooms.

November 8, 1909 - Construction of a hot water boiler washing building. 

December 19, 1909 - Construction of an oil and paint storage building.

May 4, 1910 - Extension to the erecting shop. 

July 7, 1910 - Construction of a planing mill. 

September 20, 1909 to Virginia Bridge & Iron Company of Roanoke, Virginia, for a 400,000 gallon water tank.

April 14, 1910 - American Water Softener Company for a water softening plants

 

You can often find abstracts of contracts in the N&W Audit books or the construction ledgers of the betterment program (approx. 1900 – 1914), N&W had a cadre of contractors that it used throughout the system. I expect 200,000- gallon concrete tanks were a specialty item and one or two contractors built most of them while the American Water Softener Company built the water treatment plants.

 

The circular 200,000-gallon concrete water storage tank and water treatment plant was built at Wilcoe Yard in 1919 under PA 4275. An additional 50,000 gallon water tank was built in 1921. The water softener plant was built adjacent to the 200,000-gallon tank. If you look at pictures of Auville Yard where the 200,000-gallon, 19,000-gallon per hour water-softening plant, and 50,000-gallon water storage plant were built in 1924 you will see a completely different design.

 

Alex Schust

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: NW-Mailing-List [mailto:nw-mailing-list-bounces at nwhs.org] On Behalf Of NW Mailing List
Sent: Monday, February 16, 2015 9:18 AM
To: N&W Mailing List
Subject: Re: Concrete Water Tank

 

Since I am the guy who opened this can of worms, let me add just a bit more. 

 

Can you imagine the logistics involved in such a construction project, back in a day predating the modern machinery available today? E.g., Fabricating the reinforcing steel, erecting the forms, getting the raw materials for 875,000 lbs of concrete on the site (which may have involved building a special siding,) discharging the ingredients (sand, lime, aggregate) from the bottom of covered hoppers, mixing it in small mixers, raising it to the pour-site with clam shells, and maintaining the mixing/pouring around the clock until the entire pour was finished? 

 

I'll bet the N&W gave the work of building these tanks to an outside contractor, rather than performing the work with Comp'ny forces. 

 

Has anyone figured out when the first of these edifices was built on the N&W? Is there a comprehensive list of how many of them existed, and were? 

 

-- abram burnett 

zaporozhian cossack, pennsylvania oblast 

 

=========================== 

Sent to You from my Telegraph Key 

... better than AT&T 4G LTE 

=========================== 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20150216/cc8147cb/attachment.html>