On 26/07/2011 13:29, Andy Breen wrote:
On Tue, 26 Jul 2011 12:35:10 +0100, Graeme Wall wrote:

On 26/07/2011 12:29, Andy Breen wrote:
On Tue, 26 Jul 2011 12:23:14 +0100, Graeme Wall wrote:

When did mandatory boiler inspections come in?

Not sure. Boiler insurance and inspection was very common, even of
stationary ancillery colliery plant (which always lagged on investment)
by the 1860s - 'Agenoria', now at York, was inspected by such a company
in her last working years, and it was the same inspector who
rediscovered her remains and persuaded the owners to put her back
together and donate he to the Patent Office Museum. That implies
inspections were routine (and, if they were checking something like
Agenoria, probably mandatory) by the 1860s.


That probably gives a latest date for the introduction of gauge glasses.

Agenoria, as far as I can seen, has never had, since restoration in the
1880s), a gauge glass:
http://www.stourbridge.co.uk/agenoria.htm
so inspections may not have originally required such things (possibly
an "are there any obvious holes?"[1], "is there a safety valve that works"
kind of regime at the start - still probably regarded as unwarrented
interference by many...).
Wylam Dilly, which worked into the 1860s, still didn't have a gauge glass
when photographed at Craghead in the 1880s (though she was an exhibition
piece by then):

http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/r...reenwidth=1004

Stephenson's Billy, now at North Shields museum, got a new boiler in the
1870s (after 1862?). The photograph in ER2 taken of the machine at Killingworth
post-rebuild (certainly the same machine as is now at Shields) shows what
looks like a single gauge glass on the LH side of the backhead. This suggests
that when the new boiler went on such things were required, at least on new
boilers...

We may be looking at the very late 1860s/early 1870s for such things becoming
mandatory. Annoyingly, my copy of Ahrons' 1825-1925, which would have given
the answer quite quickly, has turned coy and hidden itself.


A photo of the GW broad gauge single Sultan seems to show a gauge glass
on the boiler backplate. The photo isn't dated but the loco was built
in 1847 and withdrawn in 1874. Sultan is the loco depicted in Frith's
painting of Paddington Station. The painting itself is at the Royal
Holloway College in Egham.

However what appears to be an offical broadside picture of Lord of the
Isles, built 1851, doesn't have one.

Supplementary question, when did the railways start taking 'builders'
photos' of new engines?

Bulkeley, built 1871 definitely has one.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read, substitute trains for rail.
Railway Miscellany at www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail