On 8/18/2016 8:19 AM, harry wrote:
On Wednesday, 17 August 2016 21:23:08 UTC+1, newshound wrote:
On 8/17/2016 12:03 PM, whisky-dave wrote:

Not sure if anyones intrested but I found this which is next to the re-opened station that was first opened in 1840.

I'm not sure what this Evaporator might have been used for or whether it has any conection with the trains at the time.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/whisky...57672501820525

Is the cylindrical tank a storage tank for boiler water? In which case,
was the Kestner evaporator actually operated as a "still" to provide
high purity water for the boilers, perhaps from the relatively hard
water which would have come from artesian wells in the London basin?

By keeping the undistilled fluid liquid prior to disposal, perhaps it
was a way around the "scaling" problems that you might get in a more
traditional still?


Seems it was left there for a reason rather than just scraping it.

History of the station here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lea_Br...ailway_station


Nobody can afford to distill water for industrial boilers.
Water is recirculated in most cases.
However in steam locomotives it's not, which is one reason they're so inefficient.

Instead the boiler is frequently "blown down" to keep dissolved/suspended solids down.

The thing is not a still anyway.


You make good points, but do you have *any* alternative explanation?