THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON 10TH OF JULY 1979 AT VICARAGE ROAD, BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS NEWTON PICKLES AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Right, well, this week Newt, we’re going to attempt the impossible. We’re going to do the idiots guide to running a steam engine. No, let’s be serious, we’ve touched on various aspects of running steam engines during the course of these tapes but I think it’s about time we made an attempt to pull it all together in some way. Just to give people an idea of the practical side of running and engine. Now, as I say, it’ll mean that we’ll touch on things that we’ve talked about before but it might get it into a form that’ll be more meaningful to people if we just run through say, an ordinary days work in the engine house. And just to make it easier for me, and also because it’ll make it easier for people who listen to these tapes because they’ll have pictures of Bancroft, let’s talk about Bancroft. Now then, you’ve just said it, first thing you’ve got to do if you’re going to run a steam engine is get up early in the morning.
R-Is to get up early in the morning or middle of the night you might call it!
Well then, you say that but why did you have to get up early in the morning with steam engines?
R-Well, getting up early in the morning with steam engines varies of course at different times of the year. Winter time you really wanted to be there earlier than you would in summer because one thing you’ve got to do is make sure the engine’s warm before you start it with an auxiliary warming system. If you didn’t you’d be in trouble.
Yes, now this week I’m going to be interrupting you a lot. Because I shall have to pull you up. Now we’ve talked from time to time about warming engines and I don’t know how much people will know about internal combustion engines in a hundred years time but an internal combustion engine, you start it up and it runs and it warms itself up but a steam engine is different isn’t it. Now you tell me how it’s different.
R-Well, a steam engine’s a hell of a lot bigger fro a start off and of course it’s hot steam coming out of a boiler into cold castings and that can cause a disaster through expansion, it can break the beds that your cylinders stand on for one thing. As you well know, in winter time, same as Christmas, if you didn’t go to that mill periodically over, all through the week and pop a bit of steam on you’d have to go at least four hours before starting time on the day you started up. Because if you didn’t warm those beds at the same speed you warmed the cylinders you were in for trouble. They could smash, them twenty ton castings, right down the middle just like they were paper through the expansion of the cylinders being greater than the beds. And that’s how it all started. I mean there’s been many a one of those engines all smashed up through short term warming at Monday morning after a weekend off in winter time. Through water in your corners and water behind your pistons, drains not being able to take it when you put hot steam in and all that sort of thing.
I’ve often thought Newton that if the pipes from the boiler were made of glass, many a time it ‘ud give you heart failure!
R-It would that, it would have given ‘em heart failure if they’d been able to watch it coming through.
You know exactly what I mean don’t you.
R-Yes, I do and all, yes. Like you say, it’s a difficult thing to really explain to laymen who have never worked on these things.
Yes, but you were on about something the other week. You were on about running that engine at Big Mill at Earby when the boiler were full of water and how if it hadn’t been for the slope in the pipe back to the boiler….
R-That high, I would that!
But that’s what I mean. If the pipe had been made of glass you could have watched it and it would have given you heart failure because there’d have been…
R-It’d have given you heart failure because you’d have seen the water trying to get up that pipe, pulsating up from the boiler up into that steam pipe. But lucky enough the engine was that high up it dropped back again. And that’s all it amounts to, as the steam pulsates into the engine the water tries to pulsate up that pipe at the same rhythm. And if it gets up, that’s the end of your engine as far as the high pressure’s concerned.
Why is it the end of the engine?
R-Well, it fills the cylinder up with water, there isn’t room for it, the piston comes back, we’ll just work on one end, the piston comes back and off comes your cover unless it splits your cylinder down the middle and you’ve a right old mess. Everything smashed up.
Tell me something Newton, it’s something that’s often puzzled me is how come sometimes, I’ve never seen it but I know it does happen and I’ve heard you talk about it, you can get water in an engine and yet the slug’ll smash the low pressure and not the high pressure.
R-Well, that’s what happened at Crow Nest. It was never clear, I’ve never really fathomed it out but I can give you a theory on it. When we come to strip that engine we found a saucer off in the air pump, a delivery plate saucer. [The delivery plate is the top plate on the air pump above the piston which has one way valve in it which only allow the water to come up through the plate and stop it returning when the piston descends. The valves are a simple circular piece of rubber with a hole through the middle. The rubber valve sits on a stud protruding out of the delivery plate and seals a series of holes in a circle rather like the segments in an orange. The rubber disc lifts to allow the water to come through but when the flow tries to reverse it pulls the disc down on to the top of the orifices in the plate and seals them. The saucer is made of cast iron and is secured to the stud so that it sits just above the rubber disc. It restrains the movement of the valve disc so that it returns promptly on to the seat and also minimises flexing of the rubber and hence its useful life.] Now that engine was running at about half load at the time and it ran at a fair old speed. I think it ran at about 78 revs and it were 4ft6” stroke. So what I surmised was that the saucer stud came out of the delivery plate and the saucer [and valve rubber] came adrift and the vacuum in the low pressure drew the water out of the hot well and put it up into the low pressure cylinder. The relief valves couldn’t cope with all that and it split that low pressure cylinder right down the middle. Ran the piston out through the end and smashed everything up, tail slide, piston rod, everything. I couldn’t see a prime from the boiler house causing that because a prime from the boiler would have hit the high pressure cylinder first but everybody seemed to think, including the insurance company, that it had had a prime from the boiler house but I’ll never agree with that. It couldn’t have got through the high pressure and into the low, it would have been the high pressure cylinder that suffered. I’ve seen engines, I’ve been to engines where they’ve had a prime and they’ve been lucky and stopped soon enough. You’ve whipped the high pressure covers off when you got there and the inside of the cylinder just looks as though you’d whitewashed it, or emulsioned it I should say nowadays. Because that’s boiler compo and scale all coming up out of the boiler and setting on the hot cylinder walls. I’ve see that on two or three occasions. Not the low pressure, the high pressure that suffered and not the low. So, I said there’s a saucer come off that air pump at Crow Nest and the low pressure hasn’t had any back pressure on it, it’s just been running on vacuum. So on the back side of the piston, when the exhaust valve opened, the vacuum brought the water up and it went straight in there, there were no other explanation. None at all because a prime from the boiler house gives you some warning, if you’re about of course. It just starts thumping and you get your drains open and stop quick and go down and play holy hell with your fireman.
[I’ve talked to Newton about Crow Nest a lot since 1979 because I could never understand how a saucer off on the delivery plate could let water back into the cylinder. Admittedly Crow Nest was slightly more vulnerable than most engines because it had an Edwards air pump. Both Newton and I have run engines with saucers off and valve rubbers missing and we’ve never had a smash. He’s now of the opinion that his father was right, he said at the time that what had happened was that the piston had split. Newton says it was only one and a quarter inches thick.]
Yes, I know that on odd occasions at Bancroft, one in particular, I had a young firebeater on and the thing that put me on to it was that the high pressure started to click at each end of the stroke. It used to do that sometimes when it was running light but this day it was worse. I went across and listened to it for a bit and I thought that’s bloody funny, it shouldn’t be making that noise at this time of the day. There was a reight click coming out of it and I think that what was happening was that it was priming a bit, frothing because there was too much compo in the boiler and as the compo dried on the cylinder walls it was soaking the oil up.
[Years after this I had a lot of experience running a much larger engine on no load, Ellenroad at Newhey. The low pressures were 46” diameter and had circular slide valves so the steam and exhaust ports were half way up the side of the cylinder and thus wouldn’t pass water out of the cylinder at the end of each stroke. The left hand engine used to gather water in the cylinder and after about an hours running you could here the water slamming against the front cover, for some reason it was always the front. This was very serious and could only be cured by opening the front drain which allowed the water to drain away at each end of the stroke. The point being that you had to live with this problem sometimes and as long as you were aware and kept on top of the job it was no problem, just an annoyance.]
R-Aye, that can do it that can. And then again, you’d go to these places and they weren’t particular enough when they scaled the boiler and didn’t clean out the holes in the anti-priming plate and the water started getting round the outside and going up the steam pipe. But the most trouble was caused by the fireman not watching his job and getting his boiler absolutely full reight up to the man hole, reight up to the man hole lid.
Yes, well I know that on that particular day what caused it was, you remember you told me about the Stergene in the cut, well this was caused by the firebeater washing his overalls in the hot well. You don’t need much detergent in a boiler to start it priming.
R-No, you don’t. I were running Seedhill out when they went out of business and I were there, oh, about twelve month I think and one Monday morning I’d started up and I’d no problems in the engine house and t’usual do, I went down into the cellar to oil me air pump when I’d got going and I couldn’t get down the side of the air pump for soap suds! I thought now then, what’s happened? So I didn’t pay much attention to this, I thought there’s some detergent coming from somewhere. I just went back up into the engine house and leaned over the hand rail watching it. I’d twenty five inches of vacuum so I didn’t bother about suds in the air pump. I could have taken my overalls down and given ‘em a reight good wash. In about half an hour there’s Mr Jay arrives, the engineer from Springbank. [Gilbert Jay] That was about a quarter of a mile away up the canal bank side. He knew I was there and I’d run his engine many a time. Anyway he comes dashing in and says Newton, how’s your air pump? I says I’ve twenty five inches of vacuum, how’s yours? Oh he says, I’ve plenty of vacuum but have you seen your hot well? I says yes, it’s covered wi’ suds! So’s me cellar! I don’t know how to get rid of it, we’ll just have to keep running until it goes away. I asked him what had happened and he told me that as far as he could see some silly bugger had tipped three forty gallon barrels of Stergene into the canal! He said that were the only explanation he had and it took it two days to gradually taper away but I’d no running problems, none at all. And just at that time I were well loaded and all with that little engine.
That’s probably the reason why it didn’t bother it.
R-Never bothered it no. I’d a lot of water on you know with it being well loaded but it were bothering Gilbert a bit when he came down to see if I were all right but I weren’t bothered, I were sat having my breakfast but he hadn’t had his! He he he! I says it isn’t worrying me as long as I’ve got twenty five inches of vacuum on that clock, I’m not worrying about nowt! But it did make a mess.
[When Newton says he had a lot of water on he is referring to the setting of the valve in the pipe between the condenser and the canal. The trick was to run the air pump on the smallest amount of water you could get away with and maintain vacuum. Excess water only soaked up power and could actually reduce the vacuum. The more load you had, the more water you needed so Newton had plenty of water on because he was well loaded.]
Anyway, we’re on about warming engines up. Now then, a lot of people used to ask me why I walked round and turned all the lubricators on so long before I started.
R-Oh, when I went to Bancroft them odd days for you and years before you come, First thing, and same anywhere else, as soon as I walked into the engine room I put some lights on, walked down them engine sides and put me crank pin lubricators on before I took me coat off. That was my routine everywhere I ever went.
Why?
R-Because they’re only drip feed and it takes a long, long time before any oil starts to get down to your crank pins or filling your banjos up and then you used to give ‘em a dose of oil besides, before you started up. Round the edges, crank pins, especially on a bigger engine. You didn’t want to be altering your drip feed every day. To have to speed it up in the morning and then settle it down once you started running. So your answer to that was to turn them on an hour or a half hour before you started however long it takes you to get organised. But like we had it at Bancroft, when I went to Bancroft when you were there I could be there at ten to eight and still be on by eight o’clock because we had it all weighed up, there was just a crack of warmer on all the time. You could hardly hear that steam going down that pipe, I used to listen to it at night and set me valve till I could just hear it.
Yes.
R-Winter and summer, no problem.
No, the only problem was, do you remember when we were on that short time, a week on and a week off and we got that rusty patch…
R-Oh aye, it rusted up. Aye it did, and you wondered what were up. And I said Turn that warmer off Stanley, you’re rusting your cylinder up.
Aye, because I were stopping it in the same place every time.
R-Aye, because when you were only stopped fourteen hours before it were running again it didn’t matter but when you’ve been stopped for a week and you’re continually sizzling away with that spot of steam it rusted your piston and your rings up and then when you did start it up it were a rare old grunt weren’t it. I said turn that thing off, when it’s cold it wants to be cold and when it’s hot it wants to be hot.
Aye, but no one would have believed that that little patch of rust, do you remember there were just one little spot of rust on one side.
R-We took the cover off didn’t we and had a look.
That one little spot of rust and I can still see your face when you came that day. I can still see your face when you came through that door. But there was one thing that happened at Bancroft. Shortly before I went there there was supposed to be a cracked tail rod weren’t there.
R-Yes. Piston rod, high pressure piston rod were supposed to be, they all said it were cracked at t’tail slide end. I said it wasn’t. They said well, what are those marks then? I told ‘em they were water marks caused when the piston stays in the cylinder any length of time especially in the packings. The joints between the packings where a bit of water can get in can cause those marks. But the insurance company at that time got a bit worried about these marks because they reckoned they could feel one or two of them. Now I didn’t want to start, I don’t make work wherever I’ve gone but I didn’t want to start filing them marks out of that piston rod. Because if you start filing flats on the rod it doesn’t matter if it’s only a couple of thou, it’ll blow. But I told them that they weren’t cracks. So they brought metal detectors, paraffin tests, everything and eventually the insurance company stopped it one afternoon and they said it was cracked. They never found any proof mind you, with all their tests. I went up there and they said they were stopping the engine because the rod was cracked. I told them there was no need to stop it because I’d have it going again tomorrow. Jim Pollard said How you going to do that Newton? I said I’m going to take the back cover off and saw the piston rod off at the end of the high pressure piston rod taper. Then I’ll put a blank flange on the stuffing box and we’ll run without the tail slide. Well they asked me if it was safe. I said yes, there’s no marks on the front end at all. It was always the tail rod that suffered because when the engine was stopped, ready for starting, at dinner time and night time with the crank up at the top and the piston towards the back end of the cylinder, always in the same position and that made water marks on the rod and of course it spent all weekend stopped in that position. And that’s what happened, I cut it off and we ran for about a month without a tail slide while I made a new piston rod and it satisfied ‘em did that but the insurance inspector it worried him because of course he was responsible for it. He happen did the right thing but I brought that rod back to the shop and used it and when I cut it up we never found any cracks even where it were marked. I cut it through and we never found anything, not a flaw in it anywhere that was more than a couple of thou deep. So that was that, we put a new rod in and it marked it right away. It’s all water marks now as you know.
Aye it is.
R-But I made it bigger. I satisfied him, again it was very small was that tail end rod and I think I made it either three eighths or a half an inch bigger, bored the cover out and put bigger packings in.
Now tell me something about that. There’s two things. I can’t see how you can ever avoid getting water marks on the rod because when you think about it, even with the engine stopped, you’ve got a steam atmosphere inside the cylinder , both cylinders as long as the warmer is on. In effect you’ve got a cold rod sticking into the cylinder. It’s cooled down on the outside so it’s got to be cooler so that’s where your condensation’s going to be isn’t it?
R-It’s part of it and chemical action in the packing joints which are only a matter of a sixteenth apart and that makes a different colour just there. [Certain metals when close to each other, especially in a warm moist atmosphere set up corrosion cells which are essentially small sources of electricity and this causes the corrosion of one of the metals, in this case, the steel.] And in time, if it’s kept in the same position it just eats a groove in. We’re talking about eating grooves of about a couple of thou deep, that’s all. Crow Nest tail rods were the same, absolutely full of ‘em. Nobody ever worried about it. Absolutely full of them, Crow Nest were a good example of that.
Now tell me something Newton. I know what the theory was behind it but tell me, why did they put tail rods on ‘em?
R-To carry the weight of the piston, [stop it rubbing] on the bottom of the cylinder.
Yes. Now tell me something else. Imagine this, if you were to take that piston rod and piston complete, both front end and back end, out of the cylinder and set it up on two blocks, on at the cross head end and one at the tail slide end and that piston in the middle I’m bloody sure that rod would bend.
R-That rod ‘ud be down. We’ll take an engine like Bancroft. If you put the rod in a lathe with the piston on and run a scriber down parallel with the bed it’d happen be down three eighths of an inch in the middle. So, as you’ve pointed out, unless you do something about it, that tail slide isn’t doing a bit of good, you might as well not put it on. Ahhhh, but what we used to do, we [had the shaft in the lathe between the live and dead centres] and we put a hydraulic jack under the middle , in th’old days we hadn’t got hydraulics but later on we had, and we bent it up till that rod were happen a sixteenth the other way. As long as it wasn’t under it was all right. Now then, it was carrying the weight of that piston but we bent the rod deliberately to compensate and it levelled itself out.
Did the engine makers do that?
R-I don’t think they did. Some of these firms like Yates and Thom might have done but they used to put such hellish big piston rods in. We had an experience of this at Holden’s at Barrowford. It was a Cole Marchant and Morley engine, drop valve job, about 1100hp, beautifully made thing. They kept having high pressure cylinder trouble, long before I went to it and eventually they sent for us to it and it had already been bored twice had that cylinder. We stripped it down and we found that we could bore it but we didn’t think it would clean up because it was five eighths of an inch down was that high pressure and it had no tail rod on. So anyhow they told us to do the best we could with it. So I bored it and I’d to go through it three times and it didn’t clean up, it left an inch of black in the bottom of the cylinder. Me father said Don’t take any more out of it Newton, it’s down at minimum thickness. Because it were 160pound pressure and superheat steam. Now what we did, we made a new rear cover for it and we put a five inch tail rod on with a tail slide , all the bag of tricks. All that job done in a week After that it run for fifteen years before they decided to inspect the cylinder again. I think the engineer were a good bloke and he discovered it were using more coal than usual so we had a look at it and it was worn again but it were only a matter of a tenth of an inch or so. The boss came and he says Well, what do you think about it? Well I said, It’s worn. He asked if it were serious and I says No. Well what does it really want Newton? I says It needs a new cylinder so he said we had to get it done. Just like that, and we made a new cylinder and we put it on at the holidays and took it back down to the original size again but that piston rod were bent up five eighths of an inch to carry the weight of that piston. Then of course we did the low pressure and that had only like a four and a half, five inch piston rod in at the cross head and it only came out at about two and a half inch at the back. So what we did we made a new rear cover, new back cover for the low pressure cylinder and put a five inch piston rod straight through it. Bored you know, bigger packings and everything and that engine never ailed another thing right up to the end of its days.
‘Cause of course the low pressure pistons were so much bigger.
R-Bigger but they were hollow you know. They’re all cored out. You could make the low pressure pistons less thickness in metal than what you made your high because there wasn’t the same pressure on. About an inch, an inch and an eighth metal, they were cored out. If you could picture a pulley with six arms in, an ordinary belt pulley with six arms in, well that’s what a low pressure piston would look like if it had no faces on. Six ribs and then two faces on. They used to make them about an inch thick as near as you could all through except for the rim which had top be thicker to take the rings.
Yes. I’ve heard you say about Bancroft that when it first started it didn’t run reight and in the finish you had to turn that piston over didn’t you.
R-Aye well, you see, it’s what I’ve been told is this, I mean I’d nowt to do with that, but I used to hear what me father told me about sending Stanley, the engine hadn’t run many months and it were giving a lot of trouble in the low pressure cylinder. Stanley Fisher, that’s Walt’s father, went up and they turned the piston over. Now whether he bent the rod at the same time I don’t know, but he must have done something because it never gave any more trouble and it were running up to twelve months since.
Yes, that cylinder had never been opened.
R_I had it open once when Almond were there, some insurance company or other wanted to have a look and there was nothing wrong at all. Nothing, it would have run another fifty years. Now whether Stanley did camber that rod, what we called cambering it, I don’t know but I do know they had trouble in the first few months of its life with that low pressure. It’d be grunting and groaning and playing op and the rods would have been running black which is a sign of wear you know. [This repair would be in 1920 and Johnny was foreman for Henry Brown and Son at the time.]
All down that side actually, I mean another thing that was wrong was that cap on the low pressure shaft bearing.
R-Oh aye, well that had allus been loose. I did nine weeks for the engineer before you went there and one dinnertime I was cleaning round, I’m allus scratting! Went cleaning round and I found these low pressure cap nuts loose and tightened ‘em. I might have known like because it were me that slackened ‘em back in the first place, years before. I only tightened ‘em up wi’ me hand, I thought hand tight wouldn’t hurt it. I set on at half past one and at twenty to two that bearing were ruddy well smoking! Course you see my trouble was then when I dashed round to loosen the nuts to keep running which I could have done if I’d got them loose, I couldn’t loose the damn things because of the expansion of the cap and the shaft, everything had gone ruddy tight and Newton couldn’t loosen them nuts with his hand so he had to stop and look for a spanner. Anyway, I couldn’t find a spanner so I loosed ‘em wi’ a hand hammer eventually. Jim Pollard came down [when I stopped] and we got the hose pipe on to it and Newton Pickles were the luckiest chap in the world and within half an hour that neck were stone cold and it never ailed another thing any more but he didn’t tighten them nuts up any more at dinnertime! But I think he told Stanley about it when he took over, to leave them nuts well and truly alone! Unless we take the cap off and put some shims in.
Well, that’s what it wanted, some shims in.
R-No, you see them Roberts engines had a big fault, they tried to save ten bob on them fly wheel shaft bearings. They put a bottom brass in, two side brasses and a cast iron cap on top and in Bancroft’s case that cap’s touching the shaft.
Yes, and by a long way, on the low pressure side you can get your fingers in the gap between the cap and the pedestal.
R-Get your fingers under it. But it had never been bored eccentric hadn’t that low pressure like it should have been done. You see when he bored that pedestal, after he’d bored it to size he should have lifted his boring bar up and taken another cut through the top cap and then it wouldn’t have touched the shaft, but he missed. We could have cured it by putting some shims in but with knowing about it we never had any trouble with it did we.
No, and another fault with Roberts engines you know, I don’t know how they usually did them. I’ve not taken enough notice of other people’s engines but I always thought it was a fault that the two bolts that held your pedestal of your fly shaft bearing on to the bed were holding down bolts as well. Now I should have thought that it would have been better if them bolts had just been through the bed and the pedestal.
R-No, well most engines of most firms, pedestal bolts were holding down bolts as well. As well as your corner bolts in the bed.
Yes but when your bed comes loose, as it does do…
R-As it does do, yes.
It means your pedestals loose as well because those wedges, packing pieces, at the front and the back…
R-Well they call ‘em floats in the trade.
Floats, yes, well those floats they start to wear a bit as it tries to move
R-Chews them up. But most of ‘em, the pedestal bolts were holding down bolts as well. I don’t think I ever went to one where the pedestal bolts just went through the bed, they went right down through the brickwork and stone work did them just like the corner bolts in the bad. That’s why, when we had a bad one, one that were very loose, we used to have to go to it to reset the engine beds. We used to take the weight off the flywheel shaft and then pop folding wedges [two opposing wedges] into grooves under the bed and we used to be very careful round the flywheel bearings that we got plenty of wedges in and plenty of [grout after]. And then we used to grout it with Foxes cement and then tighten everything down. Take all the holding down bolts out and run the threads down and then tighten everything up before we dropped that shaft back in again. Because if you hadn’t, and just started messing about tightening beds down that’s walking about you’ll just break that bed. Because you’ve bent it, you see it’s worn them stones underneath with sliding about.
Aye, that bed up at Bancroft on the high pressure side…
R-High pressure were moving and it had done for years.
It was moving aye.
R-If that engine had been fully loaded at latter end, well, you mentioned it anyways, when they talked about filling it up a couple of years since, we’d have had to fasten that bed.
Well I told them that if they were going to go up to five hundred looms I’d want that side fastening down.
R-Aye, yes. It were getting worse anyway.
Yes, and you know what I put that down to. Apart from the fact that Roberts weren’t the best men in the world at putting beds in.
R-No they weren’t.
Because there’s an inch of grout under that bed.
R-They used to put grout under them. Such firms as Burney Ironworks they used to rub them beds down on to the ashlar stones and fit them like you fit a metal key in a wheel.
Yes, but another thing I put it down to you know, and it’s going back years and years, is letting oil get under the bed. Letting them troughs down the side of the engine get full and run over. Once that oil gets under the bed.
R-It’s jiggered!
It’s like pumping abrasive grit round underneath it.
R-Aye, it is and more so when it’s grouted. Now Pollit and Wigzell’s, I did one or two of them, they used to caulk [the gap between the bed and the foundation] ‘m wi’ iron borings and sal ammoniac.
Just like the old rust setting joints on cast iron pipes.
R-That’s right, like in gutters and sewer pipes, yes. That’s right, they caulked ‘em wi’ iron borings out of the machine shop and sal ammoniac. [This was a very common caulking compound in the early days. The principle was that if a dry mix was made of cast iron borings, which are in effect powdered iron, and sal ammoniac {ammonium chloride NH4CL} and this was caulked or driven into the joint a chemical reaction took place which resulted in accelerated oxidisation of the iron, rusting in fact. As this took place the compound expanded and as it hardened, tightened the joint up.] I fastened one or two of them. But Burnley Ironworks, they could put an engine in could Burnley Ironworks. They used to rub the beds down and there was nothing under them at all, not a wedge or a shim or anything. They used to rub ‘em down on the top of the stones and then lift ‘em away and let the masons chip the bedstones down until they fit perfect. There were no messing about, none at all. The foundation under the beds were generally ashlar stones cut to shape and sized before the engine beds were put in. Aye, beautifully finished, bevelled edges, just like a joiner’d put on if it were a wooden one. I can picture Crow Nest now round them tail slides. These stones, about ten feet long and about four foot six wide with about a two inch bevel all the way round, beautiful, aye, beautiful. Especially when they used to keep ‘em scoured and then of course later on they painted ‘em which spoiled ‘em. Because you could see the actual colour of the stone if they weren’t painted you know.
Anyway, back to this engine, we’ve got all the oils on, now then…
R-No, we’ve only put the crank pin lubricators on, we haven’t done anything else you know.
Oh. I thought we’d ……
R-And we’d put the warmer on. We’re warming up quietly and by the time you start warming up we’re wakening up and all because we’re talking about the old days you know when we used to be there at quarter past five to start at six. You get your warmer on and your crank pin lubricators running and you start wakening up a bit then and you go round with your oil can. And you know they want to know this bit do these people, that you only, that an engineer might appear in a mill to have a blinking good job because once he starts up , first thing he does after he’s walked round there times to see all these oils are running he puts his kettle on and brews up. Then he sits down in his chair and he might not do anything else for a couple of hours. Now they just want to bear one thing in mind about that chap when they see him sat down in his chair. Before he sat down in that chair he went round that engine with a fine tooth comb and an oil can and every hole that had been drilled and every lubricator that had been put on that engine had to have some oil in. If he missed one, especially such as the crossheads and slides, that mill wouldn’t be running that mill above five minutes that morning. A lot of people have got this engineering job all wrong as far as a mill were concerned Stanley. They thought we’d such a job as never was because we were sat down and reading the paper when everyone else were working. They didn’t realise [what were involved] and how responsible we were for it. The job only took a matter of what, we’ll say quarter of an hour, twenty minutes to do it but you’d only one chance. You missed one of those oils and you had to stop the engine to do it or it stopped for you.
Well, I’ve always put it this way Newton, you were always on trial and it wasn’t like going to court, you were tried, judged and sentenced all within five minutes and there was no appeal.
R-No appeal at all.
And another thing , I know you’re the same as I am, that if someone makes the slightest bit of noise behind you you jump round and people say , eh aren’t your nerves bad. Now just tell me about that.
R-Oh God yes. You know every little noise there is in that engine house. If there’s a little change of note or anybody drops a six inch nail you jump straight out of your chair. Never mind, you’re sat with your back to the door doing a bit of writing at your desk and there’d somebody walked through the door and the door’d go bang and you’d jump off that chair and go straight through the engine house roof. What the Hell’s that! That’s why we had notices on the door , Strictly Private.
Aye and that’s why Charlie Almond painted up on the [stone at the bottom of the window] Silence Is Golden.
R-No, it were George Hoggarth. He was very nervous was George. He had a big notice up on the wall, it’s painted on the wall, silence is golden.
Aye, in aluminium paint.
R-I mean we were just talking about missing things. You know, missing lubricators and that sort of thing. I remember me father going to run for his uncle at Sough. He’d always knocked about that mill as a lad and it was a Roberts tandem gear driven job. One dinnertime he started up and I think he said he’d run about half an hour and he’d this crank pin stinking red hot. He said he’d never turned th’oil on, but it were on before anyone come to look! He he he! I’ll tell you another little tale while I have it in mind Stanley about running an engine, when Coates Mill had the old beam engine in. I knew the feller that ran it, Edwin Waterworth. Well he finished his time at Calf Hall, that were a Roberts’ cross compound at Calf Hall but we’ve got that on tape. Anyway, he ran Coates Mill which were a beam engine in the old days. He were a good bloke were Edwin, a good engineer, but he’d nodded off this particular morning in the engine house, it were happen winter and he’d have been there since about four o’clock and he must have nodded off. He woke up, now Bankfield Mill were just across the canal and he could look out of his engine house into the one at Bankfield, he could look into one of the engine houses, there were two engines at Bankfield and Bankfield’s stopped. He jumps out of his chair and looked across at Bankfield and it’s stopped. So Edwin gets up and stops Coates thinking it were dinnertime but by the time he gets the engine stopped and had a look at the ruddy clock it were quarter to eleven! He he he. So he thought Now then, I’ve made a mess of this, what to do now, Bankfield must be broken down so I’d better be broken down and all! So he picked a big hammer up and went down into the cellar and started banging on the air pump. Then the managers all came in, Now then Edwin, whatever’s to do? Oh he said, It’s all right, we only had a cotter loose we’ll be on again in a minute. He he he! Aye he told that tale many a time did Edwin. But you see it’s easy done, you can imagine him doing it can’t you!
Oh, definitely!
R-He’d nodded off. Jumped straight up, half awake, looked across, Bankfield’s stopped. Oh my God, it’s dinnertime! Looked at the clock and it’s quarter to eleven.
Course, we know about a feller that kept running after stopping time don’t we!
Oh by gum, a bloke at Nelson, Pendle Street. Aye, he did a reight trick he did, he got up you know, he’d been down in the boiler house with a new fireman he’d got. Went up into the engine house at quarter to five, normal do for doing his chores round th’engine, cleaning up which I’ll say that for him, he kept it spotless he did and all. He did all his cleaning up in the middle of summer, it’d be about 110 degrees in that engine house. Five minutes to five he just sat down on the form which were at the side of the engine and next thing he knew there’s someone standing at the top of the steps shouting Newton! Aren’t we going to stop this bloody thing tonight! It’s ten past five! He he he! I’ve never lived that one down you know.
I did the same thing there [at Bancroft] you know but the difference between you and me was that whereas with you they kept weaving, with me they all went home.
R-they all went home and left you running didn’t they. Aye.
I woke up, and you can laugh, you know we stopped then at half past four and I’d done the same as you, I’d gone round and wiped everything down and I thought Right, I’ll just have five minutes and a smoke before I go…
R-That’s all it took, five minutes.
And I sat down at about twenty past and of course at twenty five past I was going to go round and start shutting everything off and I woke up and it was twenty to five and the engine’s plonking quietly away with no load on.
R-No load on, no load at all.
So I’ve laughed at ‘em many a time when they’ve come to me and said How are you going to go on when we’re weaving out, will it run with no looms? He he he!
R-Will it run with no looms on. Aye none at all.
I’ve said to ‘em many a time it’s run many an hour at stopping time with no looms on when they’ve been going home at quarter past.
R-But I were at Pendle Street a long time, I stopped while that engine finished when they were electrifying and I never lived it down, that ten minutes.
There’s something I’d like to get on here. We’ve talked about boilers but there’s one aspect of it that I don’t think we’ve mentioned. It was summer time last year, now I knew we were going to be finished in good time because as you know, the last day before the summer holidays, especially at Bancroft, as soon as they got their wages they went home. We always used to finish at happen dinnertime or three o’clock in the afternoon something like that. Anyway I said to John Plummer, me firebeater, don’t bother about keeping your water up this morning, let your water go quietly away and at dinnertime don’t have any coal in the hoppers. They’re going to be going home early and [if we do need any steam after dinner] just for curiosity we’ll see how long it will run on it. He finished up at dinnertime wi’ about half a glass of water, just below working level and he’d have about 140 pound on and his fires were out. So he shut his dampers and [ashed out] and I told him it would be all right because none of them would be coming back. Now it just so happened that they had a bit of bother over holiday pay that year, they didn’t get as much as they thought they should have done.
R-[Laughs]
And bugger me, one o’clock we’ve got a shed full of weavers!
R-They all came back didn’t they. Weavers in but no fires in the boiler. He he he!
No fires in the boiler. So I said the John, Well! I got hold of Jim [Pollard the weaving manager] and I said Look, We’ve dropped a bit of a bollock here because we’ve no fires in. Oh he says, There’s plenty of time, light ‘em again! I says Well, I’m not lighting any fires and he said we’ll have to! No, I said, We’ll start, we’ve plenty of steam but I don’t know how long it’ll run. What I’m going to do, I’ll start up and run as long as I can.
R-Run as long as it will.
As long as it will. Now it didn’t take ‘em long to sort out the [the problem with the holiday pay] and by about half past two they were all sloping of and getting ready to go home.
R-Well, that’s an hour and a half.
I know that nobody will ever believe it but that engine ran from one o’clock until quarter to three with no bloody fires in the boiler. Mind you, there was hardly any load and there was no water in the glass when we finished.
R-No but we’ve had all this on tape before, that’s why a lot of these engines were taken out or scrapped, everybody got it into their heads, the management of the mills, that it were the bloody engine that were burning the coal. Now if anybody could ever be wrong it was them that were wrong. And these experts used to come along, I’ll give no names, and they used to say your engine’s doing this and your engine’s doing that. If you get rid of your engine you’ll have money hand over fist. And my God, were they wrong and I kept telling ‘em and telling ‘em and anyway I proved it at Pendle Street. One afternoon I were on me own, I’d no firemen for about five months and I were a lot better without. It were oil fired and I’d only some buttons to press and I’d two boilers on and it’d be about oh, end of March may be. Now then, they used to send someone down every now and again to see if I were OK which was the law of course. This particular afternoon, about twenty five past four the manager comes in, he was the boss, running the place for Duckworths. He said Are you all right Newton? I said Aye. He says Eh, won’t we save some money here when we get rid of this engine and all this stuff we’re burning! I says I’m not going to answer that, I’ll tell you what to do, I’ll let it answer itself. You sit in here. Now I’d four tapes running and I’d all the steam into the mill [heating]. So at half past four which was my normal routine I went up and shut all the tape valves and shut the steam out of the shed, that left nothing on them two boilers only the engine and I’d above a thousand loom running at that time. I says, You stop here and you tell me how many times them burners fore up before five o’clock. I’ll do that he says. I knew damn well how many times them boilers were going to fire up before five o’clock, Boilers were full of water, feed valves were shut and the pumps were stopped. I went up in the engine house and did my work, I stayed there on purpose while five o’clock I wandered back down into the boiler house about five past and he’s still, well he weren’t sat there, he were stood there with his mouth open more or less. I says Well John, how many times did that boiler fire up before five o’clock. He says They’ve never lit. I says No, and I knew damn well they weren’t going to, how much has the steam dropped? Hew says About five pound. You see them boilers were re-generating that steam at that pressure.
Aye, it were flashing off.
R-That engine ran that mill while five o’clock and the steam came down five pound and if it had come down ten pounds them boilers would have fired but I knew they weren’t going to fire.
We’ll go into that a bit further on the next tape but now we’re coming near the end of this one and I want to ask you a question and I want you to think very carefully about it. Now I don’t mean any disrespect at all, you know that because I think a lot about you but I don’t want any bull shit. I know you’ve got enough experience to give me a correct answer, I don’t want any sentimentality or bullshit, I just want a straight answer. Now honestly, can you tell me of any firm where you knew the engine and the plant where it could fairly be said that they saved money by doing away with the engine and going on to electric.
R-No, but I know plenty that’d wished they’d got it back after they’d had electricity in for three months.
Now tell me, if when someone came and I mean we're really talking about the National Fuel Efficiency men, some of the people we’re talking about. If when them clever buggers and the fellers that were after the electric contracts had come [and if the management had said to them] yes, we’ll electrify the mill but will you put a clause in your contracts that guarantees us that energy costs per yard of cloth woven will be less with your scheme than they are with the engine. Will you guarantee us that if they aren’t you’ll take your motors out and reinstate our engines. How many mills would the electric fellers have taken on?
R-Nobody, you know that. That happened up at Bancroft when Jim Pollard sent for me when the NIFE men came to do your shop. I went into that office and I just listened to that load of bullshit that they were coming out with and I’ve never heard anything like it in me life. I just turned round and Jim Pollard’ll back me up on this, I said Will you make ‘em a contract out that guarantees how much money they’re going to save and then they’ll happen be able to find the money to get the job done. It were going to cost about £150,000 to do the job to start with. But no, nothing at all, they just put their stuff in their bags and went and that’s why Bancroft engine ran to the end of the firm. I’m going back fifteen or twenty years since when this happened.
I’m always reminded of Earby Council you know. If you remember, Armoride had a lot of plastic waste and they were getting rid of it by burning it in that quarry at the top of Stoneybank, and it was a nuisance and it was poisonous. Earby Council decided to put an incinerator in and get rid of the waste and they were going to charge Armorides for doing it. They had a guarantee from the firm that put this incinerator in that it would do the job they demanded of it. After twelve months that firm came back and took that incinerator out and went off with it. Put it in their pockets and went away with it because it didn’t work. Now isn’t that a fine thing.
R-It is a fine thing. I’ll just say this, the only thing that did work with electrification, I’m not saying it was any cheaper but it did work, was when they ran automatics twenty four hours a day. But for ordinary Lancashire looms and to weave the best quality stuff like we were weaving in them days, no go at all, no way were electricity any cheaper. In fact it were a hell of lot dearer, it put a lot of firms out of business, it did that. Michael Grey, that were Sir John’s son at Burnley, they’d four mills and I used to go to them all and he said to me one day, My God Newton, if my father had known what I had done he’d be spinning round in his grave.
SCG/30 November 2000
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