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[h=1]Metalworking/Machinery Museums[/h]There are several museums that deal in some way with metalworking. Basically, if it has something to do with big machinery or manufacturing, it's a candidate for this list. This includes transportation museums because they often have interesting machinery like locomotives. This list is organized by geographic areas.
[h=2]U.S.A.[/h][h=3]Maine[/h]Owls Head Transportation Museum, just South of Rockland, Maine (about midway up the Maine coast). Many airplanes, but also bicycles, static and cutaway aircraft engines, automobiles, and early steam and gasoline engines. In summertime they do car shows and regular weekend flying shows, and run some of the other equipment such as a Buffalo Springfield steam roller and a one-cylinder Mogul tractor. Occasionally have auctions of engines, model and full-size, and other mechanical stuff; these are consignment auctions that benefit the museum, not "overstock" of the museum itself. Phone (207) 594-4418.
http://www.midcoast.com/~ohtm/
[h=3]Maryland[/h]The Baltimore Museum of Industry has a large display of turn-of-the-century machine tools as well as some model steam engines and other machinists' projects. 1415 Key Highway in Baltimore. http://www.charm.net/~bmi/
[h=3]Pennsylvania[/h]Coolspring Power Museum, Box 19, Coolspring PA 15730. Phone (814) 849-6883. This is a museum mostly of turn-of-the-century engines, many operable. The museum is in western Pennsylvania on route 36 about midway between Punxsutawney and Brooksville. For the past 10 years they sponsor a show with many collectors showing their engines. In 1995 this is scheduled for June 16-18.
The Cumberland Valley Antique Tractor Assn. has a 20 acre site, several buildings full of tractors, in the heart of Pennsylvania farm-land, at St. Thomas, PA. They display at various fairs and shows around the Cumberland Valley (PA, MD, W.VA., VA) during the summer. And on (generally) the first weekend of August, on the Association grounds, they host a massive show of steam and gasoline tractors, along with antique farm machinery. At the show, they have live demonstrations of rock crushers, sawmills, threshing machines, pumps and other equipment powered by steam and old one-cylinder "hit-and-miss" engines, many of which are bought and sold at the show.
Rough and Tumble Museum. Lots of antique tractors and trolleys. On US route 30, just east of Lancaster, PA. (Village of KINZERS, I think). I don't have any details on them, but they are a well-run operation, quite a tourist attraction.
[h=3]Vermont[/h]American Precision Museum, P.O. Box 679, Windsor, VT 05089, (802) 674-5781. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Precision_Museum/ On display are mostly metalworking tools which date from the early 1800s up through some of the first numerically controlled machines. In addition there is some woodworking equipment. The museum is located just off U.S. route 5 or South Main St. in Windsor, Vermont and from May 20 to November 1 it is open 9 to 5 on weekdays and 10 to 4 on Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays.
[h=3]DC (Discrict of Columbia)[/h]The Smithsonian Museums, Washington DC.
[h=3]Massachusetts[/h]Boston Computer Museum. Lots of computers of course, if you are interested. They also have a mechanical "computer" that plays tic-tac-toe made from tinkertoys and string. Also a robotics display which should be enjoyed by metalworkers.
Cambridge: the Science Museum has several mechanical displays and a full machine shop in the basement. Future: In Greenfield, Massachussets, they are trying to put together a cutting tool museum. As of this writing (6/15/94) they are still trying to find a place to house it, so it may be mid-1995 or so before it opens. May have early steam/gasoline engines when open. (8/26/94: plans are to put it in the old Greenfield Tap and Die plant).
Around central Massachussets, there is also the Springfield Armoury, LS Starrett, Old Sturbridge Village (a colonial "theme" village), Charles River Museum of Industry (154 Moody Street, Waltham, MA 02154 tele (617) 893-5410), a textile museum in Lowell with machinery and lots of displays of cloth, and the American Precision Museum (mentioned earlier); all within an hour and a half of Greenfield.
The L.S. Starrett Co. Crescent Street, Athol, Massachusetts 01331 USA. (Contact person is Joel Shaughnessy in the Personnel Office in Building 7, open 8-12 AM and 1-5 PM tele: (508) 249-3551 x 295, and it is suggested to phone ahead for a guided tour reservation). The museum is opened by tour only and the guide will spend time with interested visitors. Factory tours of two hours duration are also possible.
Nantucket Island (off Massachusetts) has a 1740 windmill grinding corn (maze) when there is enough wind and it's wooden works are a fine example of the tech of the time... they also have machinery for manufacture of candles from whale oil in the Whaling museum there.
At Saugus (North of Boston), the iron works is a fine example of a 1650 iron works right down to a replica of one of only 8 rolling and slitting mills that existed in the world at that time.
Another trolley museum is forming now in Shelburne Falls, about 10 miles west of Greenfield, which will restore the original trolley car which served that town and may have a small workshop/carbarn by 1995/1996(?). (That is c/o Shelburne Chamber of Commerce.)
[h=3]Rhode Island[/h]Slater Mill Historic Site, in Pawtucket. Machine shop with 1850s/1860s machinery, much in running condition, such as lathes and milling machines running under lineshafts powered by a breastwheel.
At North Kingstown, Brown & Sharpe have several interesting examples of their "turn-of-the-century" lathes on display in the main lobby of their building at 200 Frenchtown Rd. They currently manufacture high-precision measuring equipment there.
[h=3]Tennessee[/h]National Ornamental Metal Museum, Memphis TN. (901) 744-6380
Dixie Gun Works, in Union City. They demo how gun barrels were forged around the time of the American Civil War. Lots of machinery, automobiles, nostalgic junk, photos, and of course guns.
[h=3]New Mexico[/h]Los Alamos National Lab (New Mexico) has a museum, including things like the Beryllium-Copper tools used in early atomic bomb work.
[h=3]Michigan[/h]Henry Ford Museum, and/or Greenfield Village (adjacent to the museum), near Dearborn/Detroit Michigan. Very large, described as a paradise for mechanical engineering nuts. The museum is 12 acres, and the village is 93 acres. One day is inadequate for a full visit! Old cars, steam engines, restored 1880s factories, Thomas Edison's workshop (Henry Ford had Edison's "old" workshop/lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey, disassembled and moved to Michigan; Edison's newer lab is in West Orange, New Jersey) and Henry Ford's workshop.
[h=3]New Jersey[/h]Thomas Edison's lab is in West Orange, New Jersey (not Menlo Park). It is officially the Edison National Historical Site and run by the National Park Service. What is there is the remnant of a factory complex that employed some 10,000 people at its peak, before WWI. The factory is gone, but there is a sizable two-story brick building, the lab, and several smaller buildings. The whole facility has been preserved since Edison's death in the 1930s. The lab contains a large machine shop, still set up as it would have been back then. It's called the "heavy machine shop", and it has the larger planers, lathes, and other machines. All driven from line shafts, which were actuated by large electric motors (of course!). There is, or had been, a second shop (the "precision shop") on the second floor. Access is only by tour. The takes 35 minutes, stops for 3 minutes to look at the roped-off heavy machine shop (there's also a chem lab, a library, and some other stuff). The precision shop is off limits. The level of detail is geared to the interest of the general public, and don't confuse the schoolchildren. It's at Main Street and Lakeside Avenue, in West Orange.
[h=3]Connecticut[/h]Lock Museum of America, Inc. 230 Main Street P. O. Box 104 Terryville, CT 06786-0104 phone (860) 589-6359 Open Tuesday through Sunday, from May through October, from 1:30 to 4:30. http://www.backroadsusa.com/mysterious7.html
http://ohwy.com/ct/l/locmusam.htm
Connecticut Electric Railway Museum at Warehouse Point (2 miles from I-91, about 20 miles north of Hartford) has a repair shop with the usual machine shop tools for its fine collection of trolley cars.
The Torrington Historical Society has put together a display of lineshaft driven machinery made in Torrington by the Hendey Machine Company. The display is an actual running display that uses a Hendey 12" Conehead Lathe from 1912, a Hendey Friction Shaper from 1890s and a Hendey #2 1/2 Universal mill from 1903. All machines have been restored, actually run and are capable of making parts. Phone (860) 482-8260, address 192 Main Street, Torrington CT 06790.
[h=3]Ohio[/h]Future: the National Inventors' Hall of Fame due to open in 1995 in Akron... the PR says that it will allow "Visitors to tinker with wind tunnels, lathes, molds and other engines of creation".
[h=3]Colorado[/h]Colorado Springs: just north is an excellent museum dealing with hard rock mining, including working examples of machinery. The Museum of Western Mining is just off I-25 at exit 156 (North gate of the Air Force academy). Colorado Springs is about 60 miles south of Denver. They even have blacksmithing classes.
Denver has one of the US Mints, where they stamp out coins (not printed money). Tours; kind of boring, but it doesn't take too long.
Denver also has the Forney Transportation Museum, which I think is a real dump *except* they have a Big Boy locomotive on display you can walk right up to and look over (world's largest steam locomotive). (note the museum is currently (9/1999) shut down while they move to a new location).
East of Denver is the Georgetown Loop, a small historical railroad that also has a hardrock mine tour.
Just east of Denver, near Golden, is the Colorado Railroad Museum.
If you are in Durango, the Durango & Silverton railroad (a nice narrow-gauge mountain scenic tour) has tours of their steam engine shop, including the only known remaining engine-wheel "quartering" machine (sets loco wheels at 90 degrees on the shaft).
Fort Collins (North of Denver): Fort Collins Municipal Railway operates a vintage Birney electric street car on an original route on West Mountain Avenue on weekends and holidays noon to 5pm from May through September each year. Web page is at http://www.fortnet.org/CITY/Trolley/
Timnath Northwestern Railway at the Swetsville Zoo near Timnath Colorado just east of Fort Collins is the second longest 18 inch gauge railroad in the US and includes a 1/2 size (!) steam locomotive.
[h=3]Montana[/h]Miracle of America Museum, 58176 Highway 93, Polson, Montana 59860.
[h=3]Nevada[/h]Nevada Northern Railway, in Ely. A nice 18-mile excursion train, but for $2.50 you can get a walking tour of their facilities which includes the engine machine shop. Impressively large lathes and such, needed to service the steam and diesel engines.
http://nevadanorthernrailway.net
P.O. Box 150040
East Ely, NV 89315
(775) 289-2085, Fax (775) 289-6284
Email: [email]nnry@mwpower.net[/EMAIL]
[h=3]California[/h]Santa Monica Flying Museum. Santa Monica, CA. Don't know much about it except they have on display a "rotary" engine where the crank and pistons are stationary, and the case revolves.
The Antique Gas & Steam Engine Museum, run in part by the California Early Day Gas Engine & Tractor Association. 2400 North Santa Fe Avenue, Vista CA 92083. Call (619) 941-1791 or (800) 5-TRACTOR. Steam, gas, tractors, blacksmith shop, farm implements. Twice a year for two consecutive weekends they start engines, run tractors, and such (apparently the last 2 weekends in June and October).
[h=2]Canada[/h]Museum of Steam and Technology, in Hamilton, Ontario. Built around the original City of Hamilton waterworks plant and contains the two original Gartshore compound rotative beam pumping engines from the 1850s. These engines stand about four stories high. The museum also contains quite a bit of steam model oriented exhibits.
[h=2]England[/h]The museum of the early industrial revolution is located in Coalbrookdale (AKA Iron Bridge Gorge), has a lot of early steam engines -- walking beam, etc. The last working producer of wrought iron in England donated the complete factory when they went out of business.
Black Country Museum in Dudley (West of Birmingham, in the Midlands). This was in the heart of small-scale Victorian engineering, and it's now a restored canal basin & canal tunnel (boat rides available) together with a number of small terraced houses and manufactories. Most of the houses have an outbuilding in their back yards with the workshops of nailmakers, chainmakers etc.
The Hunday tractor museum (just off the A69 Newcastle-Carlisle road). A farm museum with tractors, implements, stationary engines, etc. They reportedly also have a grass landing strip for airplanes, but you'd better call before landing!
There's a museum in Bath (walk up-hill from the Assembly Rooms) which has an interesting collection of old workshop machinery (and an old fizzy-water bottling plant).
If you're in Bristol then visit the Industrial Museum which has a good collection of aero engines.
The Amberley (?spel) Chalk Pits Museum, Sussex. Perhaps not too relevant to this group, as there's more besides old metalwork-style engineering. But their narrow gauge factory railway is still running, along with a couple of stationary engines. Also, a good collection of old radio sets and related equipment, and for some, the prize exhibit, a UAX13 telephone exchange, still operating, which runs the museum phone system. Add to that a small collection of old domestic electrical appliances, demonstrations of old crafts, printing presses, etc.
The Cambridge (or is it Cambridgeshire) Museum of Technology, Cambridge. The old water pumping station on the River Cam, and they still run the horizontal oscillating steam engines. These were replaced by single-cylinder gas engines which they also run. There are a couple of other engines to see, the original boilers, a small collection of electrical stuff, a collection of printing presses, and a few other things. This museum only opens occasionally, so check opening times before visiting.
The Hove Engineerium, near Brighton. There are about 3 or 4 stationary steam engines that are run at some weekends, together with a very nice collection of model engines, etc.
Science Museum of London has a recently-built "difference engine", as designed by Charles Babbage (see February 1993 Scientific American). An amazing machine.
Kew Bridge Pumping Museum just West of London, across the bridge from Kew Gardens. Lots of steam engines working each weekend, including a 90-inch beam engine. Also internal combustion engines. Dave Edmondson has info and pictures at http://www.cre.canon.co.uk/~davide/kbsm.
The Mechanical Music Museum is a short walk up the road from the Kew museum (above).
NRM (National Railway Museum) in York, England. A great place to go look at Railway stuff in general, lots of nice big steam engines. The NRM is expanding their workshop/restoration area and opening it up to the public (from behind a barrier, obviously) so you can go and watch them rebuilding and maintaining their "stock". National Railway Museum (NRM) Leeman Road Voice: +44-904-621261 York YO2 4XJ FAX: +44-904-611112
Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. Manchester was one of the primary centers of the industrial revolution - the railroad trials in the 1820's were run between Manchester and Liverpool (Stevenson's Rocket won, of course), and the area was the heart of the cotton and silk industry. The first canal in Britain originated near Manchester to carry coal to factories, and Alan Turing did much of his computer work here. There was also a thriving automobile and aircraft industry. To support all these activities, there was lots of machinery manufactured and used in the area. The museum has many stationary engines (they claim the world's largest collection of working engines), in steam most days; also steam railroad engines, one of which does short trips on weekends. Also a great collection of microscopes, and interesting exhibits on computers, electricity and gas generation, sewers (as in sewage), cotton spinning and weaving (they demonstrate machinery at all stages from raw cotton to finished cloth). The machine shop where the museum staff work on many projects has a viewing gallery, and this also houses an exhibit of old machine tools, including a Holzapfel lathe.
[h=2]Ireland[/h]In Straffan, Ireland there's a museum called The Steam Museum. In particular, visit the Power Hall with functional steam engines, many of which are alive and running.
[h=2]U.S.A.[/h][h=3]Maine[/h]Owls Head Transportation Museum, just South of Rockland, Maine (about midway up the Maine coast). Many airplanes, but also bicycles, static and cutaway aircraft engines, automobiles, and early steam and gasoline engines. In summertime they do car shows and regular weekend flying shows, and run some of the other equipment such as a Buffalo Springfield steam roller and a one-cylinder Mogul tractor. Occasionally have auctions of engines, model and full-size, and other mechanical stuff; these are consignment auctions that benefit the museum, not "overstock" of the museum itself. Phone (207) 594-4418.
http://www.midcoast.com/~ohtm/
[h=3]Maryland[/h]The Baltimore Museum of Industry has a large display of turn-of-the-century machine tools as well as some model steam engines and other machinists' projects. 1415 Key Highway in Baltimore. http://www.charm.net/~bmi/
[h=3]Pennsylvania[/h]Coolspring Power Museum, Box 19, Coolspring PA 15730. Phone (814) 849-6883. This is a museum mostly of turn-of-the-century engines, many operable. The museum is in western Pennsylvania on route 36 about midway between Punxsutawney and Brooksville. For the past 10 years they sponsor a show with many collectors showing their engines. In 1995 this is scheduled for June 16-18.
The Cumberland Valley Antique Tractor Assn. has a 20 acre site, several buildings full of tractors, in the heart of Pennsylvania farm-land, at St. Thomas, PA. They display at various fairs and shows around the Cumberland Valley (PA, MD, W.VA., VA) during the summer. And on (generally) the first weekend of August, on the Association grounds, they host a massive show of steam and gasoline tractors, along with antique farm machinery. At the show, they have live demonstrations of rock crushers, sawmills, threshing machines, pumps and other equipment powered by steam and old one-cylinder "hit-and-miss" engines, many of which are bought and sold at the show.
Rough and Tumble Museum. Lots of antique tractors and trolleys. On US route 30, just east of Lancaster, PA. (Village of KINZERS, I think). I don't have any details on them, but they are a well-run operation, quite a tourist attraction.
[h=3]Vermont[/h]American Precision Museum, P.O. Box 679, Windsor, VT 05089, (802) 674-5781. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Precision_Museum/ On display are mostly metalworking tools which date from the early 1800s up through some of the first numerically controlled machines. In addition there is some woodworking equipment. The museum is located just off U.S. route 5 or South Main St. in Windsor, Vermont and from May 20 to November 1 it is open 9 to 5 on weekdays and 10 to 4 on Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays.
[h=3]DC (Discrict of Columbia)[/h]The Smithsonian Museums, Washington DC.
[h=3]Massachusetts[/h]Boston Computer Museum. Lots of computers of course, if you are interested. They also have a mechanical "computer" that plays tic-tac-toe made from tinkertoys and string. Also a robotics display which should be enjoyed by metalworkers.
Cambridge: the Science Museum has several mechanical displays and a full machine shop in the basement. Future: In Greenfield, Massachussets, they are trying to put together a cutting tool museum. As of this writing (6/15/94) they are still trying to find a place to house it, so it may be mid-1995 or so before it opens. May have early steam/gasoline engines when open. (8/26/94: plans are to put it in the old Greenfield Tap and Die plant).
Around central Massachussets, there is also the Springfield Armoury, LS Starrett, Old Sturbridge Village (a colonial "theme" village), Charles River Museum of Industry (154 Moody Street, Waltham, MA 02154 tele (617) 893-5410), a textile museum in Lowell with machinery and lots of displays of cloth, and the American Precision Museum (mentioned earlier); all within an hour and a half of Greenfield.
The L.S. Starrett Co. Crescent Street, Athol, Massachusetts 01331 USA. (Contact person is Joel Shaughnessy in the Personnel Office in Building 7, open 8-12 AM and 1-5 PM tele: (508) 249-3551 x 295, and it is suggested to phone ahead for a guided tour reservation). The museum is opened by tour only and the guide will spend time with interested visitors. Factory tours of two hours duration are also possible.
Nantucket Island (off Massachusetts) has a 1740 windmill grinding corn (maze) when there is enough wind and it's wooden works are a fine example of the tech of the time... they also have machinery for manufacture of candles from whale oil in the Whaling museum there.
At Saugus (North of Boston), the iron works is a fine example of a 1650 iron works right down to a replica of one of only 8 rolling and slitting mills that existed in the world at that time.
Another trolley museum is forming now in Shelburne Falls, about 10 miles west of Greenfield, which will restore the original trolley car which served that town and may have a small workshop/carbarn by 1995/1996(?). (That is c/o Shelburne Chamber of Commerce.)
[h=3]Rhode Island[/h]Slater Mill Historic Site, in Pawtucket. Machine shop with 1850s/1860s machinery, much in running condition, such as lathes and milling machines running under lineshafts powered by a breastwheel.
At North Kingstown, Brown & Sharpe have several interesting examples of their "turn-of-the-century" lathes on display in the main lobby of their building at 200 Frenchtown Rd. They currently manufacture high-precision measuring equipment there.
[h=3]Tennessee[/h]National Ornamental Metal Museum, Memphis TN. (901) 744-6380
Dixie Gun Works, in Union City. They demo how gun barrels were forged around the time of the American Civil War. Lots of machinery, automobiles, nostalgic junk, photos, and of course guns.
[h=3]New Mexico[/h]Los Alamos National Lab (New Mexico) has a museum, including things like the Beryllium-Copper tools used in early atomic bomb work.
[h=3]Michigan[/h]Henry Ford Museum, and/or Greenfield Village (adjacent to the museum), near Dearborn/Detroit Michigan. Very large, described as a paradise for mechanical engineering nuts. The museum is 12 acres, and the village is 93 acres. One day is inadequate for a full visit! Old cars, steam engines, restored 1880s factories, Thomas Edison's workshop (Henry Ford had Edison's "old" workshop/lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey, disassembled and moved to Michigan; Edison's newer lab is in West Orange, New Jersey) and Henry Ford's workshop.
[h=3]New Jersey[/h]Thomas Edison's lab is in West Orange, New Jersey (not Menlo Park). It is officially the Edison National Historical Site and run by the National Park Service. What is there is the remnant of a factory complex that employed some 10,000 people at its peak, before WWI. The factory is gone, but there is a sizable two-story brick building, the lab, and several smaller buildings. The whole facility has been preserved since Edison's death in the 1930s. The lab contains a large machine shop, still set up as it would have been back then. It's called the "heavy machine shop", and it has the larger planers, lathes, and other machines. All driven from line shafts, which were actuated by large electric motors (of course!). There is, or had been, a second shop (the "precision shop") on the second floor. Access is only by tour. The takes 35 minutes, stops for 3 minutes to look at the roped-off heavy machine shop (there's also a chem lab, a library, and some other stuff). The precision shop is off limits. The level of detail is geared to the interest of the general public, and don't confuse the schoolchildren. It's at Main Street and Lakeside Avenue, in West Orange.
[h=3]Connecticut[/h]Lock Museum of America, Inc. 230 Main Street P. O. Box 104 Terryville, CT 06786-0104 phone (860) 589-6359 Open Tuesday through Sunday, from May through October, from 1:30 to 4:30. http://www.backroadsusa.com/mysterious7.html
http://ohwy.com/ct/l/locmusam.htm
Connecticut Electric Railway Museum at Warehouse Point (2 miles from I-91, about 20 miles north of Hartford) has a repair shop with the usual machine shop tools for its fine collection of trolley cars.
The Torrington Historical Society has put together a display of lineshaft driven machinery made in Torrington by the Hendey Machine Company. The display is an actual running display that uses a Hendey 12" Conehead Lathe from 1912, a Hendey Friction Shaper from 1890s and a Hendey #2 1/2 Universal mill from 1903. All machines have been restored, actually run and are capable of making parts. Phone (860) 482-8260, address 192 Main Street, Torrington CT 06790.
[h=3]Ohio[/h]Future: the National Inventors' Hall of Fame due to open in 1995 in Akron... the PR says that it will allow "Visitors to tinker with wind tunnels, lathes, molds and other engines of creation".
[h=3]Colorado[/h]Colorado Springs: just north is an excellent museum dealing with hard rock mining, including working examples of machinery. The Museum of Western Mining is just off I-25 at exit 156 (North gate of the Air Force academy). Colorado Springs is about 60 miles south of Denver. They even have blacksmithing classes.
Denver has one of the US Mints, where they stamp out coins (not printed money). Tours; kind of boring, but it doesn't take too long.
Denver also has the Forney Transportation Museum, which I think is a real dump *except* they have a Big Boy locomotive on display you can walk right up to and look over (world's largest steam locomotive). (note the museum is currently (9/1999) shut down while they move to a new location).
East of Denver is the Georgetown Loop, a small historical railroad that also has a hardrock mine tour.
Just east of Denver, near Golden, is the Colorado Railroad Museum.
If you are in Durango, the Durango & Silverton railroad (a nice narrow-gauge mountain scenic tour) has tours of their steam engine shop, including the only known remaining engine-wheel "quartering" machine (sets loco wheels at 90 degrees on the shaft).
Fort Collins (North of Denver): Fort Collins Municipal Railway operates a vintage Birney electric street car on an original route on West Mountain Avenue on weekends and holidays noon to 5pm from May through September each year. Web page is at http://www.fortnet.org/CITY/Trolley/
Timnath Northwestern Railway at the Swetsville Zoo near Timnath Colorado just east of Fort Collins is the second longest 18 inch gauge railroad in the US and includes a 1/2 size (!) steam locomotive.
[h=3]Montana[/h]Miracle of America Museum, 58176 Highway 93, Polson, Montana 59860.
[h=3]Nevada[/h]Nevada Northern Railway, in Ely. A nice 18-mile excursion train, but for $2.50 you can get a walking tour of their facilities which includes the engine machine shop. Impressively large lathes and such, needed to service the steam and diesel engines.
http://nevadanorthernrailway.net
P.O. Box 150040
East Ely, NV 89315
(775) 289-2085, Fax (775) 289-6284
Email: [email]nnry@mwpower.net[/EMAIL]
[h=3]California[/h]Santa Monica Flying Museum. Santa Monica, CA. Don't know much about it except they have on display a "rotary" engine where the crank and pistons are stationary, and the case revolves.
The Antique Gas & Steam Engine Museum, run in part by the California Early Day Gas Engine & Tractor Association. 2400 North Santa Fe Avenue, Vista CA 92083. Call (619) 941-1791 or (800) 5-TRACTOR. Steam, gas, tractors, blacksmith shop, farm implements. Twice a year for two consecutive weekends they start engines, run tractors, and such (apparently the last 2 weekends in June and October).
[h=2]Canada[/h]Museum of Steam and Technology, in Hamilton, Ontario. Built around the original City of Hamilton waterworks plant and contains the two original Gartshore compound rotative beam pumping engines from the 1850s. These engines stand about four stories high. The museum also contains quite a bit of steam model oriented exhibits.
[h=2]England[/h]The museum of the early industrial revolution is located in Coalbrookdale (AKA Iron Bridge Gorge), has a lot of early steam engines -- walking beam, etc. The last working producer of wrought iron in England donated the complete factory when they went out of business.
Black Country Museum in Dudley (West of Birmingham, in the Midlands). This was in the heart of small-scale Victorian engineering, and it's now a restored canal basin & canal tunnel (boat rides available) together with a number of small terraced houses and manufactories. Most of the houses have an outbuilding in their back yards with the workshops of nailmakers, chainmakers etc.
The Hunday tractor museum (just off the A69 Newcastle-Carlisle road). A farm museum with tractors, implements, stationary engines, etc. They reportedly also have a grass landing strip for airplanes, but you'd better call before landing!
There's a museum in Bath (walk up-hill from the Assembly Rooms) which has an interesting collection of old workshop machinery (and an old fizzy-water bottling plant).
If you're in Bristol then visit the Industrial Museum which has a good collection of aero engines.
The Amberley (?spel) Chalk Pits Museum, Sussex. Perhaps not too relevant to this group, as there's more besides old metalwork-style engineering. But their narrow gauge factory railway is still running, along with a couple of stationary engines. Also, a good collection of old radio sets and related equipment, and for some, the prize exhibit, a UAX13 telephone exchange, still operating, which runs the museum phone system. Add to that a small collection of old domestic electrical appliances, demonstrations of old crafts, printing presses, etc.
The Cambridge (or is it Cambridgeshire) Museum of Technology, Cambridge. The old water pumping station on the River Cam, and they still run the horizontal oscillating steam engines. These were replaced by single-cylinder gas engines which they also run. There are a couple of other engines to see, the original boilers, a small collection of electrical stuff, a collection of printing presses, and a few other things. This museum only opens occasionally, so check opening times before visiting.
The Hove Engineerium, near Brighton. There are about 3 or 4 stationary steam engines that are run at some weekends, together with a very nice collection of model engines, etc.
Science Museum of London has a recently-built "difference engine", as designed by Charles Babbage (see February 1993 Scientific American). An amazing machine.
Kew Bridge Pumping Museum just West of London, across the bridge from Kew Gardens. Lots of steam engines working each weekend, including a 90-inch beam engine. Also internal combustion engines. Dave Edmondson has info and pictures at http://www.cre.canon.co.uk/~davide/kbsm.
The Mechanical Music Museum is a short walk up the road from the Kew museum (above).
NRM (National Railway Museum) in York, England. A great place to go look at Railway stuff in general, lots of nice big steam engines. The NRM is expanding their workshop/restoration area and opening it up to the public (from behind a barrier, obviously) so you can go and watch them rebuilding and maintaining their "stock". National Railway Museum (NRM) Leeman Road Voice: +44-904-621261 York YO2 4XJ FAX: +44-904-611112
Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. Manchester was one of the primary centers of the industrial revolution - the railroad trials in the 1820's were run between Manchester and Liverpool (Stevenson's Rocket won, of course), and the area was the heart of the cotton and silk industry. The first canal in Britain originated near Manchester to carry coal to factories, and Alan Turing did much of his computer work here. There was also a thriving automobile and aircraft industry. To support all these activities, there was lots of machinery manufactured and used in the area. The museum has many stationary engines (they claim the world's largest collection of working engines), in steam most days; also steam railroad engines, one of which does short trips on weekends. Also a great collection of microscopes, and interesting exhibits on computers, electricity and gas generation, sewers (as in sewage), cotton spinning and weaving (they demonstrate machinery at all stages from raw cotton to finished cloth). The machine shop where the museum staff work on many projects has a viewing gallery, and this also houses an exhibit of old machine tools, including a Holzapfel lathe.
[h=2]Ireland[/h]In Straffan, Ireland there's a museum called The Steam Museum. In particular, visit the Power Hall with functional steam engines, many of which are alive and running.
