Blog at the Ballast: Engineering

Friday Photo 'Atlantic Locomotive'

One of our most popular and favourite'd images on Flickr is 'Atlantic Locomotive'. Built by Andrew Barclay & Co. in 1907 for the Campbeltown and Machrihanish Light Railway (Type 0-6-2 T. Works number 1098.)

The records of Andrew Barclay & Co. are held at the University of Glasgow Archives and Special Collections. Find out more about the Campbeltown and Machrihanish Light Railway. Records suggest that the locomotive livery was olive green lined out in black and yellow.

~ Jennifer Brunton, archives assistant (graduate trainee).

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, by Archivist (Ballast Trust)

Ballast30

Friday Photo #Ballast30

In preparation for tomorrow's theme on all things Engineering, I thought this week's Friday photo would be a nice opportunity to show some of Bill's collection of shipyard and engine works photographs.

This image is of the only diesel engine designed and built by Kincaids. This was fitted for the mv Kindiesel built by Ardrossan Dockyard, Yard no 361 in 1936.

This photo is from the John G Kincaid & Co Ltd Collection, held by Glasgow City Archives.

This Kincaids engine (K23) was fitted for Clan McDonald by Greenock Dockyard company. It was common for different parts which make up a ship, like the engine, to be made by another company and fitted at another shipyard. Each yard would have given the engine its own number for reference.

This photo is from the John G Kincaid & Co Ltd Collection, held by Glasgow City Archives.

This photograph of reduction gears for a steam turbine comes from the John G Kincaid & Co Ltd collection, held by Glasgow City Archives.

This image shows at least 7 steam engines, mainly triple expansion engines in the E-shop at East Hamilton street works. This was taken c.1920 and is from the John G Kincaid & Co Ltd Collection held at Glasgow City Archives.

You can view more here on our Flick page. Keep an eye out for tomorrows #Ballast30 on Engineering and our procedures for sorting through engine plans and drawings!

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, by Archivist (Ballast Trust)

Ballast Trust

Returning North-East engineering plans

Back in October we organised and shifted close to 10 tonnes of engineering plans. These were drawings relating to about 8 different engineering companies based in the North-East of England. They had come to the Ballast Trust along with other material for the Kincaid’s collection that had been cleared out of the premises of Clark Kincaids in the early 1990s.

Following discussions with colleagues at Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, we had agreed that these items would be much better placed with them as a repository that is local to where those companies operated.

They sent up a great driver who amazingly drove all the way up from Newcastle, spent 3 hours loading plans and then drove all the way back down! You can see what they have done since with the plans (including some snazzy and essential freezing of the plans) and find out more about how they fit into their shipbuilding and engineering collections here.

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, by Kiara

Bill Lind

Friday photo - John G Kincaids

Today's photo comes from a set uploaded from a box of miscellaneous photographs from John G Kincaids. The image below is of the K23 engine.

The engine was fitted in the CLAN MCDONALD built by Greenock Dockyard Co. The collection belongs to Glasgow City Archives.

More images from Kincaids are available on our flickr pages.

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, by Archivist (Ballast Trust)

Ballast Trust

Friday photo - William Beardmore & Co. Ltd

Today's Friday photo is from a set of images we have for Beardmore's Dalmuir Yard. One of the things we inherited at the Trust from Bill are a few filing cabinets full of prints of ships and yards that he collected over the years. There is a whole drawer full of images from different shipyards and engine works and I've decided to make this my next project for uploading a selection of them to Flickr.

So there is now a Yards set on Flickr that I'll be adding to each week. This week I've added a few images from the Beardmore folder. The problem with this collection is that it hasn't been catalogued so the information I have for each image is pretty scant. However, I'd recommend looking at them on Flickr at the largest size you can as the detail in them is amazing.

Here's what I do know about the images - they must have been taken before 1936 (as that was when the Dalmuir Yard was closed) but some could also be of the iron and steel works at the Parkhead Forge in the eastend of Glasgow.

The records of William Beardmore & Co. Ltd are held by Glasgow University Archives. If you want to know more about the company, there is a nice factsheet on them by West Dunbartonshire Council here.

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, by Kiara

Network Rail Archive

Image from The Guardian

Wonderful new Virtual Archive website for Network Rail's collection of engineering drawings and plans.

The archive collection held by Network Rail is massive comprised of more than 5 million records dating back more than 300 years.

The site has categorised items by people, stations, companies, bridges & viaducts and tunnels.

Explore it here.