Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1877 — Transporting Oil in Pipes. [ARTICLE]

Transporting Oil in Pipes.

A FiPK-uiNE to Buffalo is proposed, far the transportation of petroleum froqx the oil field ot Northwestern Pennsylvania. It has come to notice through the application of the projectors to the N?w York Legislature for a bill authorizing the Indians to permit the line to cross-a corner of their reservation. Pipe-lines now extend hundreds of miles, we believe, in the oU> districts, and form the chief means of transporting the oil from the wells to the railroad stations, and they work very satisfactorily for that purpose. It has often been proposed to construct a line to a great refining center like Pittsburgh, or even to the seaboard; but heretofore the State of Pennsylvania has put obstacles in the way of such a work. There is reason to suspect that a pipe-line would prove more economical than the railroad for long distances as well as short ones, and if so, we must expect to see them established sooner or later, perhaps first to the nearer refining centers like Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Buffalo, but finally also to the seaboard. A line to Buffalo might possibly result in a direct export trade, pience t»a the Welland Canal, or in the reduction of rail rates to a barely paying basis to prevent such a diversion, which is particularly disagreeable to the railroads just now; but whatever the result to them, it is not likely that they can permanently prevent the introduction of this mode of transportation if it turns out to be the cheapest one. The pipe line has one great advantage over the railroad in that it can be taken up and moved if it does not pay.—Railway Gazette.