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A STEAMING WEEKEND!No, we weren’t in the tropics we were much nearer home, Kempton Park in Middlesex. Several months ago Peter Matthews, who as well as being a keen amateur cinematographer is also an engineer, suggested members of the club may be interested in visiting the Kempton Park Water Works. Now visiting a pumping station may not sound very interesting , but this isn’t any old pumping station. This is a purpose built pumping station that in 1928 was designed to house the largest triple steam engine in the world. The elegant lines of the Metropolitan Water Board building reflects the architecture of the time which combined practicality with style and once inside, the same attention to detail has created a clean work space which is completely tiled in attractive white tiles with black edging leading up to the ceiling. Ten of us from Surrey Borders enjoyed the guided tour as the engines were started. Mike Sanders kindly explained to interested members why he was taking certain shots, what he was looking for with a view to holding the attention of a potential audience. He interviewed Peter and also two of the young apprentices for the human interest side. Watch this space for a future film. The huge 62 ft high engines were made in Newark, Nottinghamshire, and had to be designed so that no part would weigh more than 16 tons. The reason being that at the time, the pay load on the trains was a maximum of 16 tons. This meant that the enormous fly wheels, weighing 32 tons had to be designed in two parts, each weighing 16 tons and assembled on site. The pumping station worked 7 days a week, 24 hours a day from 1928 to 1980, pumping millions of gallons of water to areas of London. In 1980 the triple expansion engines were turned off. The site lay dormant, cold and derelict until in 1995 Peter Matthews picked his way in the dark through the sludge, grime and rats and, shining his torch onto these sleeping giants had a dream that one day these mighty engines would work again. On 13th December 2002, HRH The Prince of Wales inaugurated the museum. To help finance the Trust the pumping house has been used as a location for several films and television programmes including one of the James Bond films, recently The Golden Compass and also for several of the Poirot films. Steaming Weekends, when the No. 6 Engine will be in steam take place seven times a year. Details can be found on: www.kemptonsteam.org Rita Wheeler |