Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/140

 late chief mechanical engineer of the Company, and consists of two huge blocks, each weighing 30 tons, moving upon rails, with eight small wheels. The blocks are actuated by steam cylinders placed behind them, and on steam being admitted to these, the blocks are propelled with enormous force against the mass to be forged, which is held between them.

An interesting machine to watch in operation, is the large circular saw, 7 feet in diameter, which is used for sawing off the crop ends of forgings, and which is driven by an engine at a great velocity, running at no less speed than 13,000 feet per minute. This will cut its way through an iron axle 9 inches in diameter in 30 seconds.

The tyre mill, plate mill, and merchant mills require no detailed description, as, although the machinery employed is powerful and admirable of its kind, it is analogous to what may be seen at work in other rolling mills, and possesses no features of special interest. In the steel works there are thirty-seven furnaces for heating the metal, all of which are Siemens' Regenerative Gas Furnaces. There are also seven for making steel by the Siemens'-Martin process, viz., three 20-ton, two lo-ton, and two 5-ton furnaces. The gas for the furnaces is generated in a series of forty-nine gas producers, the gas being conveyed to the furnaces in underground pipes.

Steam is supplied to the various engines and steam hammers by two ranges of stationary boilers, each range consisting of eight boilers of the Lancashire type, 7 feet in diameter, and 30 feet long, with double flues, and constructed entirely of steel plates.

The engine repairing shops occupy an extensive range