XXXVl EXCUESIONS. 



EXCUESIONS. 

 Tuesday, 20th Jamtary, 1891. 



EXCUESION TO THE AdDINGTON WORKSHOPS. 



Members of the Association visited the AdcTingtou Workshops under 

 the guidance of Mr. J. P. Maxwell and Mr. R. J. Scott. 



They were met at the workshops by ilr. Rotherham, Superintendent 

 of Locomotives, and ]\Ir. McDonald, Locomotive Engineer, and inspected 

 the works according to a well-arranged programme. One of the first ob- 

 jects seen was a beautiful high-speed engine — the Porter Allen- — running 

 evenly and noiselessly at some hundreds of revolutions a minute. They 

 next visited the sand-blast machine, which, by the aid of a jet of sand 

 driven out of an orifice by an air-blast, grinds glass or roughens any hard 

 surface. The man in charge of this machine was grinding the patterned 

 glass one sees in the skylights and smoking-cars of railway-carriages. The 

 pattern, of gelatine or even brown paper, is pasted on the glass, and the 

 shower of sharp sand, though it cuts the smooth surface of the glass, re- 

 bounds from the softer substance, and leaves the pattern in smooth relief 

 against the ground surface. A little a^^paratus for making pads for lubricat- 

 ing purposes out of blanketing and wire, and a steam-room for driving sap 

 and resui out of new timber, were noticed ; then the party moved into the 

 car-and-waggon shop, where scores of men and machines were at work fitting 

 up old cars and building new ones. The machinery in this department 

 was very interesting. One machine was engaged mortising holes in some 

 stout square pieces of timber. First a tool came down with a swinging 

 movement, rapidly revolving at the same time, and cutting an oblong hole 

 with rounded ends ; then a chisel shot down and squared the mortise to its 

 size with a few sharp blows. Close to this machine was a band-saw slicing 

 through two-inch wood as easily as the man guided it along the pencilled 

 pattern. There were planing-machines carving long boards into smoothly- 

 finished mouldings, tenoning-machines, and nearly every otlier kind of 

 machinery used for working wood into various forms. In one part of the 

 shop was anew railway-carriage, nearly completed, with an open platform 

 running along its side — a luxury which travellers wishing to see the 

 country and enjoy fresh air at the same time will appreciate. 



From the car-and-waggon shop the i^arty went into a yard where men 

 were engaged bending cold steel rails into points and crossings, and then 

 were conducted into the smiths' and boiler shop, where machinery was 

 dealing with iron almost as easily as that working the wood. A steel cir- 

 cular saw was cutting through a plate of cold iron an inch in thickness. A 

 punclung-machine was driving holes through boiler-plates as easily as one 

 drives a pencil through thin paper. Another machine was riveting inch 

 rivets with a single blow. Another machine was stamping out hooks, 

 clips, and bolts, and moulding them into the desired shape with a few 

 blows. Brawny smiths were working iron into all kinds of shapes. Atone 

 end of this shop were a great steam-hammer and a low square-built furnace. 

 Into the furnace went compact heaps of scrap-iron — old chains, old bolts, 

 cuttings and clippings of all sorts. They came out of the furnace partly 

 fused and were conveyed to the steam-hammer, vvhich, with blows that 

 shook the ground, hammered the mass into square blocks, which were 

 again heated to be hammered again into buffer-heads, couplings, and the 

 massive gear used to attach railway-trucks and carriages. At the other 

 end of the shop men were at work putting new plates onto boilers. With 

 power conveyed by endless cotton ropes a drilling-machine was worked 

 thathad a pliable shaft of coiled steel wire, something like that on a sheep- 

 shearing machine. This enabled the men to drill holes in all sorts of 

 places from inside the boiler or in corners where even a ratchct-brace 

 could not easily be used. 



