Re: Up and down engines

From: Richard Jenkins
Location: Boston, MA
Email: cuyahogaatboatnerd.com
Remote Name: 205.158.43.222
Date: 10/30/03
Time: 02:17:21 PM

Comments

Just to answer a couple of the questions that came up in this thread, the Valley Camp has a triple, the Edna G. has a two-cylinder compound, and the Essayons engine in the museum in Duluth is also a two-cylinder compound. A couple of good examples of operating triples in museum settings are the preserved Liberty Ships in Baltimore (John W. Brown) and San Francisco (Jeremiah O'Brien), which are still steamed up from time to time. Seeing the statically-preserved ones turning over with an electric motor is so much better than having such a dynamic machine just sit there, but it still doesn't capture the essence of the real thing. You can re-create the visual movement, but an up-and-downer under steam is a symphony for all the senses: the heat and humidity, the smell of hot oil, the gentle undulation of the deck as the massive rods move up and down, the sense of pure power that seems to fill the whole engine room... all those things are usually missing in a museum setting, replaced by the whine of the electric motor. However, in this day and age, I'm just happy to see any of these things saved at all.