Our kind friend, Harry Moore from Ilkley, took us to visit the Markham Grange Steam Museum.
There we went into this large building, probably the size of a small aircraft hanger, and one of the first things I saw was a steam engine! It was a cold, wet and rainy day, but once inside it was nice and warm (probably from all the steam). We found the chief engineer of the museum, George Dickinson. He showed us how to start a three cylinder boat engine. Once started, he let me go in behind the safety barrier to work the throttle (faster, slower, forwards and backwards), simply by pushing/pulling a lever up or down.
For me that was an experience of a life time!
But there was another surprise in store for me and Alfrie (Harry's grandson). George said to us to follow him into a staff only area. There he lifted off a piece of fabric and showed us an early boat version of power steering!
He explained the mechanism and showed me how to operate it. It uses a chain connected to the rudder and the output of the steering mechanism.
Besides having a lot of steam engines they also have a lot of old tools, which are very interesting to look at.
A big thanks to Harry Moore for taking us on this visit!
Thank you for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment