Steam and Organ!

 

In July 2005 Barbara purchased a 'Showmans' steam engine. It is a Fowler DNB 5 NHP compound traction engine, registration number AV 1632, serial number 17502. It was built in Leeds in 1928 as a road roller and spent its working life in Scotland.

In 1959 the company J.Boughton of Amersham, Buckinghamshire, bought three engines at an auction in Ellon, Scotland; AV1045 Fowler 17290, AV1932 Fowler 17502 and another unknown one. AV1045 'Jubilee' was converted to a Showmans engine in 1977 and is now believed to be in Scotland. Our engine - AV1632 was converted and finished in 1991 we believe. It was named 'Sir Bernard' after the Works Manager at Boughtons who was Bernard Ruff. He was involved in all the steam engine work that Boughtons carried out. Boughtons were most famous for their manufacture of winches.

Around 1992 Sir Bernard was sold to a Mr Bolton who then sold it a museum in Europe. In 2005 Michael List-Brain from Preston Services, Canterbury, brought it back from a German museum where it had been on show and probably never steamed.

We held our first official steaming on July 17th (05) when about 60 friends and family turned out to enjoy a steam barbeque. We are looking forward to taking the engine to local rallies possibly this year (06).

During early 2006 we converted our lorry body from a flat bed to a beaver tail, re-boarded it and fitted a very large 15 ton winch to pull the engine on. As you can see from the picture below 'Sir Bernard' climbed up on to the back of the lorry quite happily and is now ready to go and visit rallies! Overall height with engine on is 15'3" so we should be able to get under most bridges.

If you have known this engine or have information about it we would be very interested to hear from you!

Nick and Barbara decided that really 'Sir Bernard' ought to run something when on show as the engine has a generator on the front and it would be more interesting. They decided to find a fairground style organ and in mid November 05 completed the purchase of a Bursens 69 key mechanical organ from Ian Crisp in Hertfordshire.

Video of organ below, press play to listen and see pictures of the organ.

 

Please click on images to enlarge