First an appology, in my last upload I mentioned the Boiler House contained five Lancashire Boilers, there are in fact six - I obviously can't count !!! If you put Papplewick Pumping Station Notts into your search engine you should have no difficulty in finding their excellent web site, where you'll find lots of historical information and drawings with easily understood descriptions of what everything is and how it works, together with steaming dates.
V1,V2 & V3
There are two beam engines in the Engine House, each beam is supported on two decorated cast iron columns. I think the birds on each corner of the column capitals are Golden Ibis. There are fish and water symbols in the column decoration. The original oil lamps are still in place and the main Engine House lamp is located above the lady in the blue trousers. This lamp is supported by what I think are three Griffins. The doorway from the Boiler House is in the background.
V4
As you pass through the door to the Engine House, you enter the central walkway which passes between the 46 inch bore double acting cylinders (one cylinder for each of the two engines). Each cylinder has a steam jacket which is covered by thermal insulation held in place by mahogany planks and brass banding. At botton right, the steam jacket has been leaking and the Papplewick enginewrights have removed some of the planks and insulation, so the steam jacket at this point has been exposed.
V5
These two engines are thought to be the last built by the famous James Watt Company, at the Boulton & Watt Soho Works in Birmingham.
V6 & V7
Each engine has a steam chest at each end of the cylinder, which contains double beat poppet valves for inlet and exhaust. These valves are actuated by rotary cams, which are driven by a gear driven shaft connected to the main crank shaft. The exhaust valves have a fixed cutoff, whereas the inlet cut off appears to be varied by the lever at top left which moves the cam follower in and out of it's carrier. To start the engine, the driver has to operate these valves by hand using the four valve lifting levers until there is sufficient momentum in the engine flywheel to carry the big end past top and bottom dead centre and the engine can run by itself.
V8 & V9
Once the engine has got up to speed, the rotating governor weights move in and out to regulate the steam supply to the cylinders, by means of a linkage to a regulator valve located on the top steam chest.
Spike.
Tags: General
Architecture
Flash and lighting
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