Kempton Steam Museum

LC2

Negan
Messages
10,444
Name
Tim
Edit My Images
Yes
The world's largest working triple-expansion engine.
The steam is used 3 times, High, Intermediate & Low pressure cylinders (200/100/40 psi), with increasingly large bore cylinders to accomodate the larger volume of lower pressure steam (largest is 86" diameter).
The engine room is 99' 6" high, with the top of the engines around 70'. The walls are 2nd grade glazed bricks, not tiles. (Apparently the toliets are 1st grade!).

Decommisioned in the 1980's, only one of the two triple-expansion engines are in working order, the second is being worked on.
The Steam turbines cannot be run as they require superheated (dry) steam and the currentl boiler will only provide wet steam.

After the building closed in 1980, English Heritage declared it a National Monument and, along with its contents, was listed Grade II*. In 1995, the Kempton Great Engines Trust was formed with the aim of restoring and maintaining this magnificent piece of steam heritage for posterity.

The next 'running' weekend is the 26th / 27th September with the added bonus of a classic car show on the 27th.

My 11 yr old and I had the site to ourselves (baring the volunteers) even though today was a miserable wet day during the school holidays - if you like large scale engineering, it's well worth a visit, you'll most likely get a personal guided tour from one of the knowledgeable volunteers.

And onto my shots of the the engine taken today...

Kempton Steam Museum - Triple Expansion Engine
by Tim White, on Flickr


Kempton Steam Museum - Triple Expansion Engine
by Tim White, on Flickr


Kempton Steam Museum - Steam Turbine
by Tim White, on Flickr


Kempton Steam Museum - Pressure Gauges, Valve Settings and Pipe Map
by Tim White, on Flickr


Kempton Steam Museum
by Tim White, on Flickr
 
A very nice set Tim, you've captured the scale of the place very well and inspired me to visit the museum next time I'm "down south".

Chris
 
Terrific set.
Reminds me of "Abbey Pumping Station" in Leicester
 
These are great.

I used to regularly visit Kew Bridge pumping station to see the engines running. I should try to visit there and Kempton one day.


Steve.
 
Nice set - my only gripe would be that the first and last shots needed more care in setting up in order to avoid the perspective distortion that makes me feel a bit sea sick looking at them, the others where the straight lines are not parallel to the frames are just grand.
 
Thanks for all the comments.
@Alan Clogwyn, how would you have approached the first & last shots?
I have to say that my favourite was the second shot, which is straight out of the camera. The first & last needed a fair bit of work using the transform tool and lens correction tool in PS2 to attempt to remove the distortion (and I'm not 100% happy with the results).
Should I have taken the shots from an angle to avoid the need to do too much lens correction work (similar to shot 2)?
This is my first proper attempt at anything like this, so any tips are appreciated.

Tim
 
Thanks for all the comments.
@Alan Clogwyn, how would you have approached the first & last shots?
I have to say that my favourite was the second shot, which is straight out of the camera. The first & last needed a fair bit of work using the transform tool and lens correction tool in PS2 to attempt to remove the distortion (and I'm not 100% happy with the results).
Should I have taken the shots from an angle to avoid the need to do too much lens correction work (similar to shot 2)?
This is my first proper attempt at anything like this, so any tips are appreciated.

Tim

Using the last as an example what I'd aim do is get the film/sensor plane perfectly parallel to the wall, that way you will have no perspective distortion at all and if you can get yourself centre between the stairs you'd get a lovely symmetrical shot. In cases where it's not possible to get in the right position then I'd advise letting the perspective run free and not try and correct it, it's the most fun element you can play with on a wideangle lens and it almost always looks wrong when corrected IMO.
 
Back
Top