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The Science Museum in London was our second exposure to multiple steam engines in one place. The first was our day at ThinkTank in Birmingham. ThinkTank was helpful because they had many of their steam engines rigged up so that you could see the moving parts. The Science Museum was helpful in a different way — they set up a chronological path through the display so that you could see the gradual improvements to steam engines over time. The signage included lots of diagrams to study and some computer displays with animation to show how the parts moved.

“Old Bess,” an early Boulton and Watt engine, was used to pump water during dry times to keep a water wheel working.

Rick learning about a 1788 rotative steam engine built by Boulton and Watt that incorporated Watt’s most important design features.

From the sign at the Science Museum in London: “an example of a ‘horizontal’ engine, a type that was widely used after 1850, and was direct-acting, doing away with the giant rocking beams of earlier engines.” This was still working in 1970!

Where have you seen steam engines?