Sandfields Pumping station - the cockpit

Image: © Chris Allen Taken: 28 Feb 2020

Beneath the driving floor of the 1873 built Cornish beam pumping engine that is being preserved by the Lichfield Waterworks Trust. In Cornish beam engine parlance, the area under the driving floor where the cataracts are located is called the cockpit. This view shows the bottom end of the valve operating gear with levers and weights to open the valves, the twin plug rods to close the valves and one of the tappets and levers to reset one of the cataracts. The big pipe at the back is the eduction (exhaust) pipe that takes spent steam to the condenser on the other side of the central wall that is behind the photographer. Access to this space is through an oval penetration in the central wall that has to be crawled through. Overalls are recommended as the walls are lime-washed. Engines like this are a good example of the fact that the more you look the more you see and I need to go and take another look.

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