Quote from: Train Waiting on April 21, 2026, 10:19:15 AMThe video features Eddie, a native of these parts, pronouncing 'Gateshead':-

Fascinating stuff.

With all good wishes.

John

Well John - sitting here, far away, that video made just me feel a bit sad. Albeit meself was born on the other side of The River, me Dad was born in The Felling and brought up in Blaydon and branches of our family go back a long way round Felling and Gateshead....

Gateshead was a thriving town - had its department store ( Shephards of Gateshead, one to rival Fenwicks in its day ) - that land now occupied by, rant, Tesco. And don't get me onto to that, double rant, Metro Centre....

My paternal Grandma shopped there at Shephards as did many of her cohort. It all reminds me of of what "the planners" did to Blaydon - another victim of 60's concrete - they wrecked an architecturally fine town that I remember as a child. Yes a lot of the terraced housing had to go, it was unfit,  but not the town centre. For Blaydon they built a precinct - which they ended up knocking down and replacing with another which is still no replacement. And now - blink and you would miss the place as you drive by. I could really start to "super rant" if I am not careful...

Anyway - at least there is good news in that that Gateshead viaduct is coming down... what goes around comes around.

And at least Blaydon still has a library where Garibaldi's head is preserved ... look it up... and i am in a good Blaydon & Winlaton FB group full of history of the town that was once the terminus of 18th century Lead Road amongst its many other things of historical significance,

With all good wishes,

Colin.

BTW - and indeed "hud" - but there are those parts in the North East, or were because of the continuous levelling,  who would say "heed" ... an then there would be Pitmatic pronunciation or two as well...

Ah, Shephards of Gateshead. Used to love going there, cos they had a sliding door which opened and closed by itself.

Also used often to make a trip to Felling baths as a teenager. That was brand new state of the art back then!

An Old Boiler

Occasional Special No. 3. Part A


Hello Chums

When I wrote the postingtons about boilers for the remarkably brief mini-series, I was aware that I was describing parts of a boiler without being able to provide an accompanying picturingham. A recent visit to the Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway provided an opportunity to take some coarse photographs of a boiler from, I understand, a Hunslet 'Austerity' 0-6-0ST, which might be of interest.

Before we continue, my greetings and thanks to the wonderful people at Haverthwaite who seem to be intensely relaxed at a coarse modeller peering at the innards of their precious locomotives.





The picturingham shows the outer firebox and the part of the boiler which protrudes into the cab. Called a backplate, faceplate or backhead, according to whom one is speaking.

The firehole is obvious. As are the mounting pads for various fittings such as the gauge glasses. The profusion of dome-shaped thingamajigs are the stay heads.

At the side of the outer firebox you can see one of the flanges which hold the rear of the boiler in place on the frames whilst allowing it to slide back and forward, due to expansion and contraction as it heats up and cools down.

The front of the boiler is fixed firmly to the frames, which permits the fitting of the steam pipes to the inside cylinders and their exhaust to the blastpipe without worrying about movement.

Finally, even through the mirk of my coarse photography, the welded insert repair to the outer firebox can be seen. A corroded or cracked piece has been cut out and a new steel section welded in. Careful work and diligent testing is required for boiler repairs as we are looking at a pressure vessel - in other words, a potential bomb.

To be continued...


'N' Gauge is Such Fun!

Many thanks for looking and all best wishes.

Cheerie-bye

John

An Old Boiler

Occasional Special No. 3. Part B


Hello Chums

I know, I know! I shamelessly 'plugged' this 'Occasional Special' as having interesting stuff about locomotive boilers and all I've shown you is a picturingham of the firebox end of a boiler with the cladding removed. Nothing new about that - every steam railway enthusiast and her pet poodle will have seen one of these, either in the metal or in an illustration in a book or magazine. You'll be saying, "Pull your socks up, laddie, and show us something new."

After taking the course photograph seen in Part A, I shimmied [wobbled on crutches, more like] to the other end of the boiler and took another coarse photograph. "Not yet another picturingham of a smokebox," I expect you are saying. Not quite:-





You see, the boiler has been partly dismantled and this gives us an opporchancity to examine parts normally only seen by a boilersmith.

We have already discussed how, since Robert Stephenson's time, a locomotive boiler has an inner and outer firebox and a series of tubes. The tubes are absent, but you can see the holes in the inner firebox into which they fit. That's the bigger holes. The smaller ones towards the bottom are for the stays that hold the inner firebox to the frontplate of the outer firebox. This has been removed.

You can see the water space between the sides of the inner and outer fireboxes - possibly narrower than you expected.

The thick piece of metal, with lots 'N' lots of holes, at the bottom is called the 'Foundation Ring'. Certainly, it's the foundation of a boiler, but it is a bit of a stretch to call it a ring. More a rectangle with rounded corners. The inner and outer fireboxes are rivetted together through the holes in the foundation ring.

There's more to see, of course, but, for that, we'll look at another coarse photogarph in Part C.

To be continued...


'N' Gauge is Such Fun!

Many thanks for looking and all best wishes.

Pip-pip

John

Excellent, as always, John. Thanks for posting!

An Old Boiler

Occasional Special No. 3. Part C


Hello Chums

In my previous postington, I mentioned the frontplate, often called the 'throatplate', of the outer firebox seen in the picturingham had been removed. I thought it might be useful to see a boiler with the throatplate in place:-





You can see the heads of the stays securing the outer firebox's throatplate to the inner firebox. We saw the holes for these stays in the lower part of the inner firebox in the previous postington.

This picturingham also shows, as far as my coarse photography permits, the rivets for the foundation ring - lots 'N' lots of them, closely spaced. Running in a vertical direction at the front corner are the rivets holding the throatplate of the outer firebox to the wrapper plate [the 'side plate', if you like].

Hopefully the picturingham gives you an idea of how the inner firebox fits inside the outer firebox.

***

At the front end of the boiler is the tubeplate, which separates the boiler from the smokebox. It is rivetted in place and has the maximum working pressure of the boiler on one side and, when the engine is working, smokebox vacuum on the other. Here's what it looks like - please excuse the gravel!





This is from a saturated locomotive - if it was superheated there would be larger diameter holes for the flues as well as the holes for the boiler tubes. The large hole is for the steam pipe from the steam dome to the cylinders.

Next, we'll have think about stays. No tittering at the back, please. Not the stays on a lovely lady's corset - the stays stopping the inner firebox from bulging out all over the place. Come to think of it their jobs are similar.

To be continued...

I wish to acknowledge the especially kind assistance given to me by @Hailstone and @chrism in the preparation of this postington.


'N' Gauge is Such Fun!

Many thanks for looking and all best wishes.

Tickety-tonk

John

When I first glanced at that second picture, it reminded me of the toilet on the second floor of the three story terraced house in Stockton-on-Tees I lived in back in 1972....

Nuff said!!!

Quote from: Bealman on April 24, 2026, 10:01:22 AMWhen I first glanced at that second picture, it reminded me of the toilet on the second floor of the three story terraced house in Stockton-on-Tees I lived in back in 1972....

Nuff said!!!

Then I shall be forever grateful that I didn't find myself on the first floor of said dwelling hoose in SuperbStockton!

All the best, George.

John

Without re-reading much of John @Train Waiting  excellent thread, I'd like to add a bit more about compounding, which I don't think has been mentioned before (at least I hope not).

From, once again, the RCTS LNER green bible, talking about the N8 class, but applicable to many locos of the time.

Quote;

'A factor which made compounding attractive at that time [1886] that Class B [N8] was introduced, when low pressures were in use and before superheating (my emphasis, not just to this class) had been adopted, was the smaller expansion ration of the steam in each cylinder [of a compound loco], meaning that the temperature difference between exhaust and live steam was less. This meant that there was smaller loss due to cooling and condensation of steam entering the cylinders. The compounds were thus able to demonstrate and efficiency of the simple classmates'

End quote.

All of this class were changed to simples, with some being superheated. This was not the only class of locos to be so treated.

HTH is of some use to others reading this.

[information inside this style brackets] added to make sense of the extract.

Martyn

An Old Boiler

Occasional Special No. 3. Part D


Hello Chums

In Parts A-C, we have been looking at a boiler from an industrial tank locomotive at Haverthwaite. I think we'll return for a last look in a Part E. However, I was fortunate enough to find a rather sad film, which is instructive as it shows detail around a main line tank engine's superheater header and elements that can otherwise be difficult to see.

If you have time, the film is worth watching to the end. Very sad but interesting.

I must apologise in advance to @martyn , who has helped me so much with this threadingham, regarding the choice of locomotive being dismembered.




'N' Gauge is Such Fun!

Many thanks for looking and all best wishes.

Cheerie-bye

John

That's a very scary video, John. I'm gonna have nightmares tonight

Thats a very good shot of how a superheater header and tubes fits into the smokebox on the N7....I wonder if the numberplate still exists.

As a youngster, I wasn't that interested in real railways, just models, but I do remember on our roughly monthly trip to see family in Kent whole rows of locos being broken up at Stewarts Lane (?) just outside Victoria station.

Martyn

Yes, indeed, it was a sad, ignominious end for a type of motive power that had served this country well for 150 years. But, at the same time, what else could you do with them? Better that the steel should be re-used than that they sat rusting in a siding somewhere. Arguably, it was the unseemly rush to get rid of steam that spurred the heritage railway industry into being that at least preserved enough to give a taste of what the railways used to be like.

Cheers,

Chris

In post #315, John showed hid excellent model of cylinders and valve gear arrangement.

On a recent holiday, we visited the Amberley museum. In the railway hall/exhibition  shed, there is this model of 'how valve gear works'. It may help understand the process. The 'valve' is slide type, not unknown but unusual for Walschaerts valve gear. The gear can be operated to show the workings.










On at least some railways, a withdrawn loco would have had its boiler removed but retained the valve gear; this was then towed to the loco sheds so that staff could see how the gear worked, and practice how to cure faults or dismantle it as a 'First aid' measure to get to the nearest station.

I think if you magnify the photo, you can read the explanation of how this type of valve gear worked.

Incidentally, if you wish to visit the museum, it is only a few yards from the (still open) main line railway station, across the former goods yard and private siding.

Martyn

We haven't been to the Amberley Museum for years, which is ridiculous because it's not far from us and we drive past it quite frequently. We need to go again - I'm sure it's changed a lot.

Just up the road is a fine pub, the George and Dragon at Houghton. According to family legend, this is where Mrs Papyrus used to be taken by her grandparents from time to time as a child, and she was introduced to cider at about the age of 8... Apparently she saw grandad taking a sly mouthful or two from her glass and complained bitterly!

   Papyrus has gone  again. 

Cheers,

Chris