It’s quite likely that many readers will have harbored dreams of owning, or at least driving, a steam engine of some kind. [James Hervey-Bathurst] was lucky enough to do so in a time when it was still possible to find scrap steam-powered machinery for restoration, and at the recent Electromagnetic Field event in the UK he took the time to describe his journey from finding an abandoned steam lorry in a Buckinghamshire field in 1975, to a few years later, taking it to the road.
The talk starts with the story of its retrieval, then the long process of rebuilding, and finally its first run. He’s the owner of Eastnor Castle, the ancestral pile that serves as venue for EMF Camp, so we’re guessing that having somewhere spacious for such a project must have helped. Along the way, we get a comprehensive run through the workings of a 1920s steam vehicle, from its double-expansion compound engine to its three-speed gearbox, stopping for small details like its injectors, and a curious exhaust steam heater designed to reduce the clouds of visible steam.
Most of us will never get the chance to take the wheel of a Foden such as this one, but at least we’ve had a chance for a closer look thanks to EMF. The full video is below the break, meanwhile if you’d like more on steam injectors we have you covered.
“He’s the owner of Eastnor Castle…”
When money is no object, anything can be restored.
People who complain about other being rich are usually too ignorant to get rich themselfs. I went to university, got a degree in CS and started working as a programmer because I wanted to buy myself an FSO Polonez, restore it and turn it into the car I alwayes wanted to have as a child. You just have to use imagination and everything is possible.
Did you ever end up doing it?
The Polski Fiat remains one of the more resilient vehicles against CAN-bus hacking, after all.
What is the point of your observation? That ignorant people do not become rich? Even if that’s true, they’re still right to complain! People don’t choose to have an ignorant personality which reduces their quality of life; who would?
Oh lord; I am aquatinted with some very rich and powerful people. I went to highschool with the children of two presidents, one vice president, an attorney general, and the CEO of the biggest media conglomerate in the country. There is stupidity and ignorance at every level of the social pyramid.
If you’re honest you’d be willing to admit there’s a lot more of it on the bottom
There’s a lot more people at the bottom.
You didn’t learn to spell at your superior high school with your rich and powerful friends. I, in my poverty thought that aquatint was an artistic technique.
Funny that someone accusing of others of ignorance misses so much.
“If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men
I’m doing just fine myself. But I know plenty of people who are working hard at jobs that society NEEDS them to do but doesn’t value the people doing them enough to pay them well.
One might argue that they should have seen the writing on the wall and picked something else. And that is not wrong. But if everyone did that… we would all be f****d with some very important societal functions not being filled.
I have a pretty equal and very low level of respect for people’s opinions when they are so quick to blame the rich for their own personal lack of success or so fast to defend them.
I can’t speak for the UK but in the US we have a real problem with people who either inherited wealth or did something great once to get it but have not innovated since using said wealth to tip the scales in their own favor.
None of that is meant as a judgement against the owner of Eastnor Castle. I know nothing about this person except that they host EMF camp and that probably means they are pretty cool.
I’m sure the guy is reasonably wealthy, but I don’t think it follows necessarily that someone who inherits and then commits to maintaining a giant historic castle-style mansion has tons of money free to spend on other projects.
This. Right here. Most people assume that if you own a castle or castle-style house (or any large old house) that you’re wealthy, but especially in Europe that’s rarely the case. Those houses are EXPENSIVE to maintain, and they generally make zero dollars of income. They’re constantly on the verge of insolvency.
I would disagree.
Having a blacksmith for a dad I have encountered more than one owner and restorer of steam engines in my time, and while some might be the young future heir to a stately home as he was in the 1970s, many are not.
As a friend of mine said at a recent historic race event – I’m OK with rich folks using their money like this so the rest of us can enjoy it.
Restoring and displaying historic vehicles, buildings, etc., building or sponsoring museums or galleries, etc. are at least some sort of contribution to society and culture and sure beat buying ever bigger luxury yachts or whatever other vapid nonsense the average HNWI gets up to.
Money, assuming he actually does have lots of it (many of the old wealth families these days are pretty much broke, even if they still own the stately home), is only helpful not at all required.
Steam tech is so simple and actually quite compact that on my little (by industrial standards) benchtop scale lathe I could probably machine most if not all the machined parts in a steam lorry like that. And boiler construction isn’t some impossible high tech debt problem either – you need a source of suitable raw metals, some knowledge, and if you wish to use it legally an inspection. But again something basically anybody could do themselves for practically no money – probably cheaper than maintaining a pre-computer everywhere classic car!
We are not talking complex silicon chip engineering where the design you wished to replicate might well still be secret and the feature size so small you need one of ASML’s better machines, or to build your own equivalent…
All money lets you do in restoring something like this is speed up the process and skip some amount of hours learning a craft to the level required by paying somebody else to do it. Also these days thanks to the mail order metal parts coming down in price so much even that shortcut route isn’t really expensive.
I’ve read reports of the long past about steam explosions when the tank went, and the results of that, and it makes me specifically NOT want to restore any steam device, of unknown metallurgical quality.
Not that I have the capability of doing such restoration, but you get the point I think.
The boiler has to be tested and certified before it is allowed to be fired.
Ok, I’ll admit to having found a steam engine cheap and in unknown condition, thrown some water in the boiler, and fired it up to see what would happen.
In my defense, the boiler was smaller than a can of beans.
As long as it has a rupture disk somewhere it shouldn’t be too bad
Aaaaaaaand, what happened?
beans on the wallpaper. beans on the ceiling. beans in my hair. beans everywhere
Some people don’t have the stomach for a bit of adventure. If your risk tolerance is low enough, is it really a life that you are so carefully preserving?
Yeah, it is. But if you get a sinew cut by a shard, for the rest oof your life, was it worth the adventure?
There are ways to die or get wounded, and then there is the steam way…
The USA and I would guess England in the time before WWII were littered with unused and abandoned “Donkey Engines” of the 5 to 20 HP types. A great many had been replaced by a Ford Model A engine and then electric motors. They had been used for everything from running a machine shop to pumps and saws. Many were portable on wheels. But the scrap metal campaigns of the war collected a great deal of old machinery of all sorts. A vast amount of very cool stuff vanished in the enthusiasm of what was mostly a morale building exercise. The ones that survived were deep in forests or other remote areas or too difficult to remove from a building, etc. And actual steam shovels stayed in service for quite a while. The full torque at zero RPM made steam work very well for those machines.
Fred Dibnah comes to mind. if you dont know him, youtube is sometimes your friend
James and Fred were well acquainted.
I once met Fred Dibnah at an event at, you guessed it, Eastnor Castle.
I identify as a Foden
I sent a link to Hewes’ email in case he hadn’t seen it.
From “Steam Boiler Maintenance…” from the Strasburg Railroad:
“Boiler repairs aren’t just about fixing a problem; they are about preventing disasters…”
Anyone who would attempt to repair, and then USE previously-operated steam boiler should not be considered a reliable associate.
I know a group that restores and maintains steam locomotives. There are A LOT of inspections and approvals needed before they can use it.
And this is why a boilermaker’s apprenticeship is long and arduous, and boiler certifications are a thing.
I don’t trust a single person who had never almost blown themselves up in their youth
I’m a married person who has almost blown himself up three times in his youth. Am I trustworthy?
Yeah you seem like you can hang
Somewhat like the old saw —
“Never trust a skinny chef” , eh?
So you are suggesting that everyone who ever worked in maritime/railway/mining/power industry where steam boilers are/were common and do/did get repaired shouldn’t be considered reliable?!?! I hope there is a context to that quote and nuance to your position…
Yes they are dangerous if you don’t do it right but that applies to almost everything to some extent, especially things that are by their very nature high energy! Which is why you inspect these things carefully, test to well beyond working pressure safely, fit safety systems to vent the pressure, grates that let you drop the fire, or put in RCD and fuses etc.
A steam boiler is no more dangerous than piping natural gas into everyone’s homes full of ignition sources, air and further fuel and yet nobody seems to think twice about that! Until one of those rare gas explosions that level a building happen and reminds everyone it is dangerous and to pay attention to the foul smelling chemical added to make gas leaks easier to detect before disaster…
My father use to drive a Sentnal