Corliss-driven pump, typical of early 20th-century US practice

Smaller and cheaper than a triple-expansion vertical engine, the horizontal cross-compound pumping engine, Pump No. 2, ran at relatively slow revolutions and was considered the height of engineering from the 1890s to World War I. This pumping engine at the York Water Company was built by the Worthington Pump & Machinery Corporation, Snow-Holly Works, Buffalo, New York.

Corliss steam engines, characterized by four cylindrical oscillating valves, each separately controlled by cut-off gear (1849), drove many types of machinery and enjoyed great commercial success throughout the world well into the twentieth century. The highly efficient steam distribution system was conceived by George H. Corliss (1817-1888) of Providence, Rhode Island.