General Electric Model GM-12 Generator Set
For the first time in over a
half-century, the power room has a working generator!
The Fort MacArthur Museum
Association is proud to announce the arrival of our latest
artifact for Battery Osgood-Farley. A working General
Electric Model GM-12 Generator. The is a
culmination of sorts of the work done by successive generations of
volunteers here at the museum. In the mid-50's the army
offered up the original generators at Fort MacArthur for sale or scrap. In the
mid-80's volunteers cleaned up the damage created by a
fire-bombing. In the late 80's a group of our volunteers
secured a loan from of a derelict GM-12 from the National
Parks Service (from Fort
Hancock). Museum Director Steve Nelson recovered another one
from the jungles of Panama when he was fresh on the job in
the 1990's. Over the years, our volunteers have worked hard
to restore the power room, with its massive distribution
panel, original radiators, generators, and transformers.
Earlier this year, the opportunity presented itself for the
association to purchase a working GM-12 from a private
collector in Pennsylvania. The only catch was that the owner
insisted on doing business in-person! So in April 2007, with
the approval of the Board of Directors, Steve Nelson, John
Kanaster, and Joe Janesic, with the help of our east coast
host and guide Andy Grant from the
Army Ground Forces Association, headed east to try
and seal the deal.
We succeeded! The new generator arrived at Battery Osgood-Farley at 10:00am on
June 23, 2007. Thanks to the help of Bill Hazzard from the
Rough & Tumble Museum of Knizers Pennsylvania.
The
generator was in place and ran for the first time by 12:30pm
this afternoon. In the coming weeks and months, our
volunteers will finish the plumbing for the cooling system
and further tune the power room. We hope to be able to run
regular demonstrations of the new generator for our visitors
in the near future.
Power Room is ready for the new
generator, the Fort Hancock generator is in the
background
The new GM-12 arrives at 10:00am on the
back of Bill Hazzard's truck, Bill has traveled from
York, P.A.
Unwrapped and ready for
the lift
Osgood-Farley Power
Room is in the background
Moving into position,
thanks to the loan of a forklift
from our good friends at
Vanco Heavy Lift
Up in the air and off
the trailer, we have to be extra careful with this one,
it weighs almost 6,000 lbs!
You know... it's going to be a tight squeeze
But we have the skill and the experience
Final position check
Bill Hazzard and Bart Rowlett get ready
to fire it up!
Want To See It Run?
The
pictures are great, but if you really want to see what
the General Electric GM-12 generator looks like when
it's running, you have to take a few minutes and
download the video to your computer.
