Pictures from England

[vederstein]

I recently returned from my trip to England. My wife and I visited many a steam museum.

If there's interest, I can post many photos of the various steam engines I encountered on the journey. They are very high resolution (12 megapixel taken with Pentax SLR) to give ideas how machinery was built 150 years ago. I know that the website re-sizes the pictures, but if you download the originals, you can zoom into great detail.

Following are a few from the engine in the SS Brunel.

Again, if there's sufficient interest, I can post many much more stuff of many engines.

...ved.

 

[crueby]

I would love to see more!

 

[AussieJimG]

I assume that you mean Brunel's SS Great Britain at Bristol; a brilliant museum that I have visited twice now.

The engine is a masterpiece. It was only when I noticed a bit of Teflon peeking out from the big end bearing that I realised it was not original. When I asked, I was told that the crankshaft is welded up from stainless steel sheet (like a kitchen sink). Superb craftsmanship.

Jim

 

[vederstein]

And now a short video of the model of the engine on display and inside the ship itself:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX3CIhfSVgI[/ame]

That's what I have for the Brunel engine. Coming up will be some from the London Water and Steam Museum.

...Ved.

 

[vederstein]

And now the 1838 Maudsay Cornish Pumping Engine from the London Museum of Water and Steam. This was a water pumping station that was decommissioned in about 1944. The engines were left in place. Around 1970, a trust was made to open a museum and get the engines running again. It's amazing that this engine is 176 years old and still being run.

Steam pressure is 40 psi with a condenser.

I noticed that my previous post converted the pictures to a lower resolution format. Therefore the .zip file is the same set of pictures, but full resolution if you care to download them and look. To get around the limitations of the forum, the zip file has a .stl suffix. Delete the .stl and leave the .zip and unpack the file.

...Ved.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIkMGu6d5DQ[/ame]

View attachment 1838 Maudsay Cornish Pumping Engine.zip.stl

 

[vederstein]

And now the Easton and Amos Rotative Beam engine also on display at the London Water and Steam Museum. This engine is truly a beautiful engine. I managed to get the good pictures of it, so I recommend to download the .zip.stl file and look at the hi-res photos. (As before delete the .stl extension and unpack).

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf6LPZjkHVo[/ame]

View attachment Easton and Amos Beam Rotative Engine.zip.stl

 

[vederstein]

And here we have the Hathorn and Davy Triple Expansion Engine. Of the rotative engines, this was my favorite. It must be fairly efficient, because while the other engines at the museum only ran for a 1/2 hour or so, this one ran all day. The museum has one functional boiler, so they must ration the steam usage.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQWO3tCy1yI[/ame]

 

[vederstein]

From the British Science Museum: The Old Bess locomotive and the famous Stephenson's Rocket. The Rocket was the winner at the rainhill trials and may be the most famous loco ever built.

I must admit, though I knew Rocket was no longer complete (it was built in 1829), there was less there than I though. Old Bess is wonderfully complete though.

 

[vederstein]

I bet you thought I was done with this because it's been a couple of weeks since I updated.

HAH!!!! There's More!!!!

These are some of the locomotives from the Museum of the Great Western Railway. Probably the most famous loco here is the North Star, one of Brunel's wide gauge locos.