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Ellenroad Engine House - Whitelees beam engine

This is a close up of the engine depicted here- SD9311 : Whitelees Beam Engine - an early single cylinder house-built beam engine by Petrie of Rochdale. The cylinder valve chest is to the left. The valve with lever is for blowing the air out of the condenser and airpump for starting. Below that can be seen the piston valve drive mechanism. The angled pipe descending top left leads into the top of the jet condenser and the cold water injection valve is seen just to the right of the red air pump rod. The water and froth is the air pump discharge on the upstroke and is being led off to be recirculated. The green pipe in the centre leads to the feed pump which is right of centre. The brass ring that is dangling on the red air pump rod would have originally been a decorative ring sat on the floor plates. As displayed there is no floor and the underfloor workings are clearly seen.

The air pump is an essential part of all reciprocating steam engines and has been termed such since the days of James Watt. It removes the condensed steam as water along with any incondensible gas (air) and water vapour. If air was not removed the partial vacuum created by condensation would be eroded. The discharge is really largely water but the name air pump has stuck.

Anybody still awake?