A Two-Hobby Trip: Motorcycles And Steamers
(Page 2 of 3)
May/June 1991
John Moffat, 64 Gourok Ave
The museum part of the operation has six or seven engines, three
of which are operational and are used to haul the passenger cars
around as well as bring in the loaded crates of cranberries for
sorting. There are also collections of cars, fire engines, and farm
implements.
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Sunday, on a short run into Boston, we visited the aquarium and
also the science museum, where there was a display of
interplanetary transport, lunar modules and other machinery related
to space and time. Shadows of Einstein and E=mc squared!
Monday and a short visit to the Haffenreffer Anthropology Museum
in Rhode Island to see an ongoing exhibition of native Canadian
arts and crafts. Exhibits from tribes reaching from the Micmacs and
Maliseets of the eastern provinces to the Haida in the west and
Innu and Eskimo of the far north.
Now to our final destination, Connecticut, with several items on
our agenda. First, the East Hartford Trolley Museum, closed for the
season! Second, Peabody Museum in Yale University. Fantastic
display of prehistoric monsters. Third, the Essex Railroad for a
trip by train and then boat up the Connecticut River by imitation
steamboat.
The engine pulling our trainof 2-8-0 configurationwas built in
1989 in China, the only country still making full size coal fired
steam-powered railway engines. The railroad has four other engines,
two of which are able to work and two of which are not worth
repairing.
At last, the inspiration for the visitthe Connecticut Antique
Machinery Show, to be held in Kent, which we mistakenly thought was
to be open from the 27th-30th inclusive. Ouch! It is to be open
only on the 30th, and by that time we had to be home for Ian to
return to work.
Wednesday, we visited the site of the show and found several
members of the local club polishing and painting a beautiful single
cylinder steam engine with a stroke in excess of three feet and a
bore of approximately eighteen inches. As we had nothing else in
view for the day, we offered our assistance in polishing the metal
parts and spent the rest of the day doing just that. We were
invited to come back on the Friday, because the inspector was
coming to examine the boilers of the staionary engine, as well as
the boilers of a Russell traction engine and a Buffalo steam road
roller.