Makes yer proud

Makes you proud, dun’t it?

It’s nice.

Ey-up! Ee’s wastin steam.

Blimey!  Eh?

I said, ee’s wastin steam.  Pressure valve’s popped.  

I thought it was the whistle.

No.  Whistle sounds like mi Jack Russell when a stand on er foot.

You wouldn’t want a dicky heart.

I dun’t think they ‘ad ‘em back then.

What’s that moving?

Reversin gear.  Forwards, backwards.

Just two gears?

No, mate.  Endless gears.  Yer c’n move it anywhere in that slot.  Cut-off.  More steam, less steam in t’ cylinders.

More pressure?

No.  Longer or shorter cut-off.  Time.  Clever stuff, steam.  When it’s superheated.  It expands.  Pushes t’ piston forward.

Superheated?  Above a hundred degrees?

Aye.  Do it like in yer car coolin' system.  Under pressure.

What pressure does this one run at?

Not that ‘igh for its time: boiler pressure’s two-hundred PSI.  

Two hundred PSI straight into the cylinders?

Not quite.  T’ driver regulates it.  Through t’ regulator.  Them’s ‘is controls, more er less: reversing gear, regulator, oh and t’ brakes.

Blimey, the pressure valves are loud.

Not pressure valves this time.  Drain cock.  So ‘ee dun’t get water in t’ cylinders.

That bad?

Oh aye.  Water dun’t compress.  Ruin t’ cylinder or bend a connectin’ rod.  Hydraulicin’.

You wouldn’t want to be standing in front of the engine when he does that.

Heh, heh!  Yer’d get a bit scalded.

You would…  Blimey!!!

That’s t’ whistle.

You don’t realise how loud they are.

Nope.  Ee’s got t' reversing gear forward in t’ slot, look.  Not too far though, yer see, ‘cos ee’s running light engine through t’ station ter back onto t’ train.

Blimey!  No half measures.  Look at that power going up through the chimney.

That’s just t’ exhaust.  Light engine, though.  No load.  You should ‘ve heard ‘em starting ten or twelve bogeys, 600 tons.

Bogeys?

Carriages.

Get an express engine wi’ near enough six foot driving wheels slipping on wet rails and yer ‘ll ‘ear a racket, all right.

I bet.  I love that sound: it’s more a “huff” than a “chuff”.  People often call it a bark.

Ah've 'eard that. Good little engines, these.  BR Standards.  Very free-runnin'.  Copied from an earlier design, but a good job all t’ same.

I could watch those rods and eccentrics moving all day.  Mesmerising.

Aye.  Ah were no good at maths meself, but that’s all this is.  Geometry.  Levers.  All out in the open, reciprocatin’ force to rotary and back again.  Simple enough if you knew ‘ow.

It’s beautiful.  And all that weight on the move - you can hear the trackbed groaning.  They ought to show this to kids at school to get them interested in maths.

Aye.  Intrinsic strength means weight.  It’s what they based steam engine design on right up ter t’ end.  Probably did for ‘em.  Too much metal for too little return.  Too much ‘eat out er t’ chimney.  Cun’t mek ‘em any more economical, really.

Something real about them, though.  Something elemental.  All perfectly balanced.

Aye.  There is, that.  And they dun’t really work very well wi' out 'uman bein's inside ‘em.  Part man, part machine.

Yes.  I like that.