STEAM ENGINES AND WATERWHEELS

[Tripps]

Not the Spinners, The Moonshiners, from a charity CD called "It's Grim Up North."

[Stanley]

That's it, I have a copy somewhere....



The large three legger Weir steam boiler feed pump at Ellenroad. Biggest I have ever seen. When I got onto Weir at Glasgow for details it turned out it was secondhand at Ellenroad. Originally one of a pair made for ICI at I think Immingham. It had a stainless steel pump rod, piston and bucket because it was one of a pair made for pumping sulphuric acid. A very powerful pump.

[Bodger]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLJaQFun1RM
Stanley, the link ref. to machine tools, about 4 min in they refer to pump impellers used in the space programme, in operation it runs at 36,000 rpm, & generates 76,000 hp, it would empty an Olympic sized swimming pool in 59 seconds now thats a pump !

[Stanley]

Bancroft engine air pump.

[Stanley]

John Plummer, firebeater at Bancroft, burning the fires off before banking for the night in 1974. This is a forgotten corner as well, this job no longer exists.

[Stanley]

Not many people enjoyed this view. The interior if Ellenroad stack. 240 feet to the top from the flue.

[Stanley]

Chimneys came in different sizes! This is the base of Swabs Flue at Middleton in 1976. The stack was 340ft high and the chimney bottom was 40ft across (And full of flue dust!). The stack has now been demolished.
Notice that it had internal lightning conductors, never seen that in any other stack. They must have been very worried about it, with reason, it was at the edge of the pavement on the main road.

[Stanley]

Swabs at Middleton in 1976. Reputed to be the biggest brick chimney in Europe.

[Stanley]

Edna Lumb's painting of the boiler tops at Ellenroad. Five large Lancashire boilers were needed to supply steam to the engine.

[Bodger]

Health & Saftey walkway ?

[Stanley]

And lots of dry asbestos!



Charlie Sutton and his mate jack from 'Weldone' fluers from Brierfield in 1976 at Bancroft. These men were the unsung heroes who cleaned the flues three times a year, I reckon it was the worst job in the world and most of them died young.

[Bodger]

Not often you see Muslims cleaning chimneys

[Stanley]

Stanley stops Bancroft for the last time in December 1978.

[Stanley]

One for you Comrade. An old pic of Lower Clough Engine at Barrowford. Must be early, still gas-lit. It looks like an early Yates angine to me like the one at Jubilee at Padiham.

[Stanley]

The engine at Sam Holden's in Barrowford.

[Stanley]

Steam engines needed engineers to keep them going. Johnny Pickles in about 1895 as an apprentice in Henry Brown's shop in Earby.

[Stanley]

If you needed a major repair you had to go to these men. Brown and Pickles fitters with a new second motion shaft they had made. This was a simple job for them.

[Stanley]

The moulding floor in Henry Brown's foundry at Havre Park. Now the centre building in Gissing and Lonsdale's works.

[Stanley]

Wellhouse Mill in about 1900.

[Stanley]

The Whitelees beam engine running at Ellenroad. Rebuilt by the Old Fart c.1989 and run in steam ever since. (Of course they tell me now I did it all wrong.....)

[Stanley]

Steam wasn't always used in a permanent location. Newton Pickles (hands on hips) with a portable boiler used for well-sinking in Barlick in about 1930.

[Stanley]

My mate Paul minding Metcalfe's Fowler ploughing engine at Utrecht in 1989. If you ever get a chance to watch a pair of these working, take it! They are immensely powerful and very quiet.

[Stanley]

The flywheel pit at Bancroft in 1976. Not a good place to be if a rope broke!

[Stanley]

The cellar under the Ellenroad engine in 1987. An impressive space and more going on down there than most people imagine.

[Stanley]

The air pumps, coffin bottom and condenser on one side of the Ellenroad engine.