A cold, dark shed. The lingering smell of slaked ashes and oil. Opening the doors only reveals puddles of oily water reflecting the half-light. There stands the machine before you like a looming sentinel silent, immobile, dead. You climb up the ladder onto the footplate, the occasional golden glint from some brass fitting. Swinging the door open reveals only the infinite darkness of the cavernous space in front of you. Then the clattering of wood scraps thrown into the void. Maybe a lump or two of coal. The splash of water from the gauges on the floor and then of paraffin into the rags. A spark, the fire grips the rags, you throw it into the darkness to bring forth life. It breathes. She’s alive.
More than any other device of Man’s creation, Steam Engines are said to be living beings. Why is this? Why is it that this dirty, heavy, noisy, and ultimately inefficient torque producer the subject of such devotion?
It might have something to do with their history. Steam Power is possibly the single most important invention since antiquity and it happened here, in Britain. The first engines were built by Thomas Newcomen (a Devonshire Blacksmith) in 1712 to pump water out of the coal mines of what was to become the Black Country. A Scotsman, James Watt (a scientific instrument maker by trade), then improved the design, first with the separate condenser and then in 1765 by making his engines generate rotating motion. Watt actually developed the concept of Horsepower as a marketing strategy which is a bit of an irony as the Metric unit of Power is named after him. Then a Cornishman, Richard Trevithick (a Mine Captain and school dropout) began to build engines using ‘Strong’ Steam building improved pumping & winding engines, a Road Carriage in 1801 and a Tramway Engine in 1803. George Stephenson then took up the idea in 1812 as the cost of animal-feed skyrocketed during the peak of the Napoleonic Wars and the disastrous harvests of the 1810s, eventually opening the first Passenger-carrying Railway in 1825 and the first inter-city line in 1829.
The story of the development of Steam Power is a story of the development of Britain. It’s the story of mavericks in sheds, after-dinner societies, the Class System, Property Rights and Heroic Will. No matter what your preferred field of study is, not a single one was untouched by the steam engine. It wasn’t just personal & public transport. The Portable Engine and then the Traction Engine revolutionised farming, Steamships opened up the Globe to trade (and conquest), deep mines brought forth the riches of the Earth, the desire for efficiency led to the science of Thermodynamics and for safety to modern material science. The prices of food, fuel, housing & clothing all fell leading to the invention of Leisure. William Murdoch, James Watt’s assistant, invented Town Gas which led to the development of the chemicals industry and is why Gas is seen as the default heating source in British homes. The speed of trains necessitated the standardisation of Time itself, first across the Kingdom and then across the World (the only Nation to vote against putting the Datum Line through London was the French…). It even affected how we talk. Not only did travel and mass media standardise English but phrases like ‘full steam ahead,’ ‘under pressure,’ ‘to blow a gasket,’ ‘to let off steam,’ and to be ‘clean as a whistle’ all come from this ubiquitous machine.
It might have something to do with the expressiveness of these creatures. From the very start they were known as Iron Horses. These huffing, chuffing, wheezing beasts that captivate and terrify children in equal measure. The blur of the motion work when at speed and the rhythm of the exhaust. The theatre of a departure with the cylinder drains screaming, filling the air with steam, the roar of the exhaust and then it emerges from the cloud like a Rock Star striding out onto stage. I defy anyone not to listen to an engine really working hard and not be secretly cheering them on in their heads.
Maybe it’s the perfect synthesis of Man & Machine, of Technology & Technique. The Driver, Fireman and their steed working in perfect harmony to deliver power from the fundamentals of Coal & Water. It’s not about simply burying the regulator in the bulkhead and away we go, you ‘work-up’ and engine to its peak performance. The Driver must balance regulator and cut-off (which regulates the admission of steam to the cylinders) using not only raw power but his knowledge of the track and the weight of the train to apply power to maximum effect. The Fireman must meet his Driver’s needs by bringing thousands of gallons of water to the boil at just the right moment and must choose his moment to inject fresh (but cool) water for the next challenge. He must understand the infinite variability in the size, shape, and composition of lumps of Coal to extract every last BTU of heat. He must maintain a fire over many square feet of grate at the intensity of a Blast Furnace in full cry for hours at a time with nothing but his wits and a shovel. Finally, the Engine must be at her best. With every passing moment, air flow through the fire changes, the heat moves through the boiler differently, oil flows over the bearings differently, part heat up or cool down, coal & water are drawn from the tender, she shuffles about on her wheels distributing slightly different weights in slightly different ways.
J.T. van Riemsdijk in his book, Compound Locomotives, put it best when he said -
“The steam locomotive is a rather frustrating machine to the scientifically minded. It is unlike most other machines in that there is an almost biological interaction between its different parts.”
Perhaps its because the steam engine harkens back to a time when “Working Class” wasn’t just a euphemism for poor. The Top-Link Engine Drivers who commanded the non-stop Anglo-Scottish Expresses were the heroes of their days. These were Men who could provide for their families with their technical skill, the strength in their backs and the sweat of their brows. Steam Engines also harken back to the days of Pit Villages, Steel Towns & Manufacturing Cities. Where work was not only rewarded but respected. Go and watch the old Public Information Films like The Elizabethan, or 6207 - A Study in Steel, and hear the respect for their trades in the narrator’s voice. These Men knew who they were and that the work they did was meaningful. These Men are Fitters, Machinists, Pattern Makers, Boilersmiths, Blacksmiths, Turners, Forgers, Painters, Signwriters, Draughtsmen and half a hundred other professions now all tragically gone forever. Now the most such men could hope for is to be some desk-driving middle-manager in some nameless portfolio management company going to meetings about stakeholder engagement. Real Men doing real Jobs making real Stuff. In some ways we envy them, and the Steam Engines lets us LARP as one of our betters if only for a fleeting moment.
To me it is all these things and more. Stood up on the footplate of a Steam Roller, towering over the traffic and the hedges, surrounded by dust, fumes, and noise, there is a curious calm which comes over oneself. In our age of abstraction and facsimile, the engine demands your whole attention and effort to work properly. Roads and hills which don’t even merit a second thought in a car, become titanic battles of will and determination. When do I put water in? When do I put coal on? Is there enough on to get up that rise up to the round about? Where can I pick up water? What’s that noise? What’s that smell? Where can I change gear? When will I go round again with the oil can?
They completely warp your sense of time and place. You start saying things like, ‘that was an excellent run. It’s four-and-a-half miles to here and it only took an hour-and-twenty!’ or, ‘well that one is scary-fast, she’ll do 12mph on the level!’ But, as a consequence of this you learn that all the hills are named and who is in each farm along the way. Trundling along at 4mph (or possibly 8mph!) gives you time to really look at our Green and Pleasant Land. The Whitsun Bank Holiday sees us again taking part in the Carnival procession at the village of Bere Alston, about six miles from Tavistock. The journey there takes you up over Morewell Down where the hedgerows will be full of wildflowers & bees and the fields will be full of lambs and calves. You can see down the Tamar Valley to the town of Calstock with its iconic viaduct and over the rich farms of East Cornwall all the way to Bodmin Moor. On the other side, West Devon, the last few miles of Wessex before the great dividing line of the eternal river. Over Tavistock towards the peaks of Cox Tor and Pew Tor on Dartmoor or behind you to Brentor with St Michael’s Church sat on top.
And do you know what? There’s nowhere else on Earth I’d rather be.
Alex writes on X as Alex - That Steam Guy [@a2_masters]. Read more from him there.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to receive more articles like this one.
If you have a comment, please click this link to the comments form. It might appear in the Letter’s Page, which will be published shortly.
Finally, we would encourage you to share this with your friends and family. They might like these stories too.