NEW JANUARY 2021. This consists of extracts from the book 'Steam and Other Engines' by J Duncan, published by Macmillan in 1907.

Duncan was Head of the Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at the West Ham Technical Institute. It was therefore appropriate that the example of an express engine described was the latest 4-4-0 of the Great Eastern Railway, with drawings reproduced by courtesy of James Holden.

There are three main sections here. One is the Locomotive Boiler with consideration of constructional details, the firebox and stays. The second, headed 'Boiler Mountings', includes the regulator mechanism, Ramsbottom safety valves, manhole (or mudhole) doors and the fusible plug.  The third section looks at the locomotive as a whole - the engine mechanism, valve gear, cylinders, crosshead and connecting rod, crank axles, balancing and the use of liquid fuel.

Our thanks are due to Mike Bootman, who submitted the scans and wrote an introduction to them.

It complements file LM017 which is a similar book published by Longmans in 1901, giving many drawings of the castings used in the new 'Claud hamilton' 4-4-0's.

The file is word-searchable and fully bookmarked. It will be available to download as soon as payment has been made. You go to your account and click on ‘Downloads’. New customers create an account as they place their order.