Kempton Steam Museum
Visted the Kempton Steam Museum today. It was as really fascinating visit. I had been to see the engine run before but just the sheer size of these steam engines is enough to keep my attention. The building is listed and so are the Triple-Expansion Steam Engines. These are huge 3 story high team engines that used to pump ~33 million gallons of water per day to north London (15 miles). They did this for 57 years! The engines and the building have been restored by volunteers with some support from Thames Water (built a boiler house for them). Just an amazing achievement to get one of the engines running again. They are so huge and heavy, around 100 Tonnes, that they had to start warming the engine on Thursday for today’s run (Saturday)
They do guides tours, definitely recommended, tea/coffee and snacks (great value and good quality). Out side there is a Steam railway and a play area for kids. Today there was bit of a car show, Jaguars from the Surrey Hants Border JEC Club (Thanks for the lift and company Neil) and a range of other classic cars plus a long row of American classic cars too.
Nice video of the engine starting on youtube.
These futuristic looking Glass Bulbs are actually AC to DC rectifiers (Diodes) They use Mercury as one contact and mains AC electricity is fed in whilst DC is the output. These are replacements and came from an Opera house of all places.
