During the Easter bank holiday, I took the opportunity to visit Prickwillow pumping station in Ely Cambridgeshire. It is a great museum and I was greeted by an impressive collection of six large diesel engines from surrounding pump stations which were added to the site as they were decommissioned. In the entrance hall was a surprise selection of smaller stationary engines all with hoppers and tanks filled with water ready to start up at a moment’s notice, a nicely presented tank cooled Lister L, both a lister D and petrol/paraffin DK, a Bamford EG1 with a curious Lister D carb adaption and lastly a ‘Made in Britain’ Amanco that if memory serves me, is a rebadged Bradford with a climax pump brought together on a trolley as a rather tidy pump set.
Being fortunate to be visiting on an engine running day the volunteers started various engines, some being started by request. There was a very impressive Vickers Petter 2 cylinder. I actually asked for this one to be started and I was in for a great show watching the blow lamps heat the hot tubes ready to start, watching this was nearly as impressive as the engine running the volunteers has to stand quite far back !.
There were a few engines started by air compressor. One such engine was an Allen T47 which being a super charged two stroke a made for an incredible soundtrack! A few notable quirks of this engine are that it has valves instead of transfer ports and also that the pistons are fired on every down stroke instead of every other stroke, this makes it a rather rare engine. The museum had installed a mirror to watch the pistons work, this was very rhythmic to watch.
Downstairs in the museum was a excellent Ruston Hornsby 9HRC which was started eloquently using another Ruston Hornsby this time a VSH powering a compressor, once up to speed the room shook! Another nice Ruston Hornsby spotted was a lovely 6XHR
This museum is really worth a visit on their engine running days which are each second Sunday in the month from April to early October.
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Country: GB