Damp Eye / Gone but not Forgotten Corner

- WARNING -

Crying into your keyboard may result in electrocution.

This page should only be viewed by those of a non sentimental disposition as it contains pictures of engines now scrapped. With so few stationary steam engines remaining it is verging on the criminal that while a preservation order can be placed on a building this may not apply to the contents.

In these days of political correctness, I will make no further comment on the sort of people who can cheerfully cut up these few remaining survivors of this important part of our heritage.

Enjoy these pictures, if you can, as I'm afraid that you will not have the opportunity to see these engines....

Fleam Dyke Pumping Station - Cambridge.

This magnificent pair of Hathorn Davey Corliss valved, tandem compound waterworks pumping engines were comissioned in 1920 and stopped work in 1976. With cylinders 23" & 51" bore x 48" stroke, governed at 200 rpm they ran quite quickly for waterworks engines and drove two 165 foot lift well pumps each via large bellcranks from the piston tail rods. By no means the biggest of the type built, they were in all respects a splendid installation and a very sad loss to history - there was apparently no serious attempt to find a home for them. These photos were taken the week before the destruction started, we were told that they were being 'removed for preservation', however, the large stack of gas bottles outside told an entirely different story.

This is the carpeted gangway between the two spotless engines, from the crankshaft end.

The West engine from the crosshead guides of the East engine, note the keyholder for scale, the glazed brick interior to the house and the magnificent condition of the engines, which had been cleaned, oiled and turned on a weekly basis by one of the retired enginemen, who, it is rumoured, did not last long after the engines were cut up.

(left)The West engine viewed from the stairway over the Crankshaft, showing the Corliss valve releasing gear on both high pressure (nearest) and low pressure (furhtest) cylinders. (centre) The Porter governor - all that remains of the installation - (now gathering dust in the workshop) although it is possible that the makers plates also survive as they were missing when we visited. (right) The crosshead guides and high pressure cylinder head.

After the destruction and before the engine house was flattened and the foundations capped off with concrete.

If you want to see something approaching this installation, try either Millmeece or Brindley Bank in Staffordshire - both are impressive in their own way, but but not quite in the same class.

R.I.P.

Haddenham Drainage Station - Cambridgeshire

The following tantalising suite of photographs came from the archives of the late, lamented, Ronald H Clark and depict the replacement of a pair of what look like early Maudslay or similar side lever paddle steamer type engines driving scoopwheels and their boilers with a new set of boilers and vertical compound engines and centrifugal pumps by Easton Anderson and Goolden in the late 1890's - rather than gut the station entirely it looks as if standby pumping capacity in the shape of two boilers and one of the side lever engines was left until the last minute to deal with any rainfall during the re build.

This is one of the original side lever engines in situ - from the days of gothic architecture in the cast ironwork !

and the scoopwheel that it drove - working like a waterwheel in reverse the engine drove the paddle boards to raise water from a lower to a higher level.

The original boiler house being prepared for the new boilers - note the two originals still in situ in their bricked fluework and piped up in case of urgent need.

Inside the new boiler flue pit preparing the groundwork

I studied this picture for some time thinking that there was something odd about it that I couldn't quite figure out until I realised what it actually showed !

The part gutted pumphouse, the old boilers laying on the bank, the team of horses ready for some heavy pulling - no, the odd thing was in the foreground as shown in the magnified section below

In remote fen country with no doubt attrociously soft access roads movement of large heavy objects has always been a problem, what we see here is one of the new boilers being delivered, (presumably with all furnaces and holes firmly plated and caulked to avoid leakage and sinking) they are being floated up the drain or river to the pumphouse, slung under some substantial beams lashed to two barges or lighters - something I have not encountered or heard of before.

Not content with having many years service out of them, the engineers have kept the old boilers to serve one last purpose before being scrapped, they are being used as a fulcrum for the winch cables to run over, enabling the new boilers to be raised out of the water and onto the bankside without the need for cranes or derricks or serious bank damage.

More stout timbers in evidence to allow positioning of the new boilers - probably weighing something like 25 tons each

Being rolled into position over the prepared brick fluework that it will sit on - the Lancashire boiler has two internal furnace tubes which do not give a great deal of heating surface, so the boiler stands on and enclosed by brick flues which direct the hot exhaust gases back to the firing end and then down again to the chimney end so that much of the boiler barrel is in contact with the heat, improving efficiency.

Periodically cleaning the ash and other combustion products out of the flues or cleaning scale and sludge from inside the boiler - generally when still pretty hot - was not a favourite job !

Another tantalising and unexplained glimpse - from the height of the brickwork and door frames being in place it appears the boilers are now installed and this object is about to be attached - this is probably a steam collecting drum which links the new boilers and the engineroom steam main - the scoop wheel and presumably side lever engine are still intact at this point.

And here is the only view of the new plant, one of a pair of fine inverted vertical compounds. Ronald's correspondent a Mr Newman or Norman, notes that the plant was problematic over the years as the fen ground moved so much through shrinkage that it was hard to keep alignment between engines and centrifugal pumps and that they were being replaced by a new diesel set when the 1946 floods started, the steam plant was re comissioned to pump back the flood water as it got so high and because someone had failed to put the crankcase covers on the new diesels they sat underwater for 3 months !

Once the diesels were dried out, cleaned and running, the steam plant was scrapped.

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