The Railway With A Heart Of Gold

The Railway with a Heart of Gold

I spent long periods of time sitting on the top deck beside the cylinders, just watching the valves work. Goodness, I love this engine.

Us guys who were running her like to think that the ghost of Edward Pollard, the old chief engineer, was very happy with what we were doing.

Wanna know the best thing about Woburn? The engine is ALIVE! It can run! She is 100% unique in the United States. There is no other place in this country where you can go and see a running stationary steam engine in its original building, doing what it would have done a hundred years ago, more or less. Once abandoned, she has been made new again. And these folks need help!

If you live in the area, and even if you don't, write to the mayor! Urge him to keep the engine alive. It is crucial that we keep these things running so that people can come in and learn about them. You just don't get the same feeling when they're cold and stationary. When a steam engine is hot and running, it can speak for itself, and it's a lot easier to show people outside of our little group why we love them so much. It hasn't run since last year, and by golly it needs some exercise!

Follow the link below to their Facebook page.

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Woburn Municipal Waterworks Museum | Woburn MA

Woburn Municipal Waterworks Museum, Woburn, Massachusetts. 1,809 likes · 5 talking about this · 24 were here. To preserve and operate the 19

Monsieur Estrade lives in my walls

Who's Estrade? I'm glad you asked! He was an engineer in the late 19th century who came up with and successfully built a concept for an 0-6-0 with 8 foot high driving wheels. At the time it was built, it was very brave and controversial, but it had several advantages. For one thing, all of its weight was on the driving wheels, and this would have allowed it to pull heavier trains at the same pace as Cramptons and other singles which were popular in those days. Unfortunately, the boiler was, according to one report, too small to keep up with demand, a consequence of the boiler being sandwiched between the driving wheels.

Anyway, besides drawing existing locomotives and engines, I like to make speculative ones of my own. Keep in mind, everything I do is based on existing practice.

So, what have I drawn here? Well, it is, for all intent's and purposes, a copy of Mr. Estrade's high speed locomotive, but with a twist. This machine runs on 7 foot gauge track, which allows the boiler to be larger, thus fixing any steaming troubles the real engine had.

I have made a TON of 7 foot gauge locomotives over the past year, and I've been slowly building a universe for them to live in. It's a huge passion project of mine, so I'm excited to start sharing it with the public.

I always appreciate seeing a bit of steam pop up on the ol' feed.

A drawing of a steam powered machine at a fair. This was done in generally miserable weather, so I didn’t spend a while doing it. I stopped as fat, globulous drops of water began falling from the sky.

Inktober day twelve. I admit I’m late with posting my art: I apologise.

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@wispo-sky

This week's locomotive of the week is GNR No.990 "Henry Oakley". 990 was built in 1898 at Doncaster works and became the first 4-4-2 Atlantic type locomotive in the United Kingdom and carried the name of the railway's general manager. It was fitted with modified frames in 1919 and a superheater and piston valves in 1923. The engine was withdrawn in 1937 and placed in the LNER's railway museum at York. It was returned to service for short bursts in 1953, 1975 and 1977, though now resides at the National Railway Museum as object number 1975-7001.