Asquith
Diamond
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2005
- Location
- Somerset, UK
Flicking through an 1869 copy of The Engineer magazine (via Grace's Guide), this odd-looking steam engine caught my attention. Several hundred rivets featured in its construction, being several hundred more than are normally found in a steam engine. Each of the two 15" bore cylinders was made in three sections, plus the steam chests.
The engine was made by Kitson and Co of Leeds. It developed 40 HP nominal, 80 HP max, and was supplied with steam by two boilers by Galloways of Manchester.
The engine's strange construction is explained by its destination - the Cerro de Pasco silver mine in Peru, at an elevation of 14,000 ft. The weight of individual parts was limited to 275lb, as they had to be carried on mules' backs. The preferred maximum weight of individual components was actually 150 lbs, as two of these packs could be carried as panniers. The mine was 150 miles from Lima, and the caravan of components had to cross the Andes at 18,000 ft, with narrow precipitous paths in the mountains. Not so much oxygen up there. Cruel to mules, 'challenging' to people, scary to all with two legs or four.
The boilers were sent as kits of accurately punched or drilled iron plates and rivets, presumably accompanied by a riveter from Manchester (elevation 170 ft). He couldn't look forward to a decent cup of tea, as water boils at just 186 degF at 14,000 ft.
Intrigued, I found that this venture just represented one episode in a long story of determination and endurance, fuelled by greed on the part of capitalists who saw the Cerro de Pasco silver mines as El Dorado.
The first person to contemplate using steam power there was Fransisco Uville, who went to England in 1811 to see about buying engines from Boulton & Watt. They told him that they couldn't help, as the atmospheric pressure there was too low for the practical application of their low pressure engines. By chance, Uville then learned of the work of Richard Trevithick, who was the leading exponent of the new high pressure steam engines. Long story short, Trevithick went out there in 1816, and left penniless and bedraggled 11 years later. The known parts of his adventures have been well told by historians.
At some point Trevithick's engines were supplemented by a beam engine made by Blyth of London.
Shortly after the 152 packages of Kitson's engine were sent out, another Leeds firm had a strange commission. Manning, Wardle and Co made two 3 ft. 6 in. gauge locomotives for a railway at Cerro de Pasco. The maximum weight allowed for any one piece or package was 300 lb., and no object was to exceed 7 ft. in length. The cylinders and steam chests, usually cast in one, were made in five pieces. Manning, Wardle, and Co also constructed a fixed workshop engine and boiler, together with a wheel lathe, drilling machine, lathes, blowing fan, and smiths' hearths and tools. In this case the maximum weight allowed was only 150 lb. for each package. The headstock of the wheel lathe was made in no less than fourteen pieces, 'and yet these are so contrived that an ordinary observer would not notice anything special about it. A staff of boiler makers and fitters in charge of a leading erector have been engaged to go out to Peru to erect the engines on their arrival. So far as we know these are the first locomotive engines which have been sent out from this country in such small pieces.'
In 1871 Harvey & Co of Cornwall supplied the Cerro de Pasco mines with 'four steam pumping-engines, six boilers, four iron main beams, four balance ditto, and also a sufficient quantity of 24-in. pitwork for both shafts. No single piece of all this cumbrous machinery must weigh more than 300 lbs., in consequence of its having to be transported on the backs of mules from the coast to this mountainous region. Although the main distance be no more than 160 miles, those beasts with their burdens have to climb an altitude of 15,000 feet before they reach their destination. Moreover, the passes in ascending the Andes and Cordillera can only be correctly imagined by experienced travellers. Some of the defiles are not much wider than a sheep-path, and with a thousand feet below you a roaring cataract, and thousands of feet above you snow-capped over-hanging mountains, looking so dreadful that the awe-struck stranger in the pass fears that the next peal of thunder will cause them to topple. The conditions were onerous. No part of the engines was to exceed 300 lbs. weight, to be more than 2 ft. 6 in. broad, or 5 feet long. The engines had to carried to their destination on mule back through mountain passes, where the path frequently consists of mere shelf in the mountain side, little more than a yard wide. Messrs. Harvey undertook the work, and from Mr. Husband's designs four engines were made, condensing, with 37-inch cylinders and 7 feet stroke. Each of the cylinders is in 22 pieces, made up of 11 rings, each divided into two. Each piston-rod is in two pieces, and each cylinder cover in four. Every joint is metal to metal, and so truly is everything finished that they have never had a single leak. A man in the employ of the firm, named Hodge, was sent out with these engines.'
Source of most of the above information:-
Cerro De Pasco Mines, Peru - Graces Guide
