Diesel pumping station Beetskoog
Beetskoog pumping station once pumped water from the Beetskoog polder into the Schermerboezem. This former steam pumping station was built in 1877 and operated the polder until 1954. In 1982 it became a museum pumping station. From May through September, it is open to the public every first Sunday of the month and the engine is running.
Polder Beetskoog
Polder Beetskoog, between Beets and Oudendijk, had been kept above water by windmills since the seventeenth century. The polder switched to a steam pumping station in 1877. Dairy prices had risen to great heights and farmers were willing to invest in the new steam technology. With windmills, the wind was always an uncertain factor and a steam pumping station offered security, higher yields and even more money in the pocket.
Diesel pumping station Beetskoog
Polder Beetskoog partnered with the engineering firm of W.C. & K. de Wit of Amsterdam to build the pumping station. Characteristic elements of the architectural style of this firm were the faint slope of the roof, the rose window in the top of the facade and the logical layout of the interior (the boiler, steam engine and screw pump were placed in one building body).
The drive consisted of a steam engine with an output of 22 horsepower. The machine drove an auger with a diameter of 1.65 meters, with which the pumping station achieved a capacity of 50 cubic meters per minute at a head of 2 meters. At the rear was a 16-meter-high chimney.
Bronze diesel engine
In 1910, the entire plant was renewed. The steam engine gave way to a Brons diesel engine rated at 50 hp. This was coupled with a wide leather belt to a new Stork centrifugal pump, giving the pumping station a capacity of 70 cubic meters per minute. It pumped water up from -2.43 m NAP in the polder to a level of -0.50 m NAP in the Schermerboezem.
The Brons engine is an invention of Jan Brons from Appingedam. He was a builder who had been busily experimenting with internal combustion engines since 1891. His engine did not require a fuel pump and was therefore inexpensive.
Pumping station out of service
In 1954 a new electric pumping station was built near the provincial road N247. This pumping station took over the drainage task. The diesel pumping station functioned as a backup pumping station until 1967, when it was decommissioned. Thanks to the attentive neighbors, who lived in the machinist's house, but especially thanks to the efforts of former manager Berend Eikenaar - he received a royal decoration for this - the installation from 1910 has been preserved complete and operational. This makes the pumping station one of the few intact examples of pumping station technology from the early twentieth century of Dutch manufacture. Since 1982, the diesel pumping station has been open to the public and is on the provincial monument list of North Holland. In 2000, the diesel pumping station was even on standby during the Millennium Bug.
