Blowing engine

[2] Early steam prime movers were beam engines, firstly of the non-rotative (i.e. solely reciprocating) and later the rotative type (i.e. driving a flywheel).

A well-known surviving example of this type are the paired beam engines "David & Sampson", now preserved at Blists Hill open-air museum, Ironbridge Gorge.

[9] The large vertical blowing engine illustrated at the top was built in the 1890s by E. P. Allis Co. of Milwaukee (later to form part of Allis-Chalmers).

The steam cylinder has Reynolds-Corliss valve gear, driven via a bevel-driven auxiliary shaft beneath, at right-angles to the crankshaft.

In the late 1800s, internal combustion gas engines were developed to burn gasses produced from blast furnaces, eliminating the need for fuel for steam boilers and increasing efficiency.

[13] A few firms still manufacture and install multi cylinder internal combustion engines to burn waste gasses today.

[14] As blast furnaces re-equipped after World War II, the favoured power source was either the diesel engine or the electric motor.

[4] An 1817 beam blowing engine by Boulton & Watt, formerly used at the Netherton ironworks of M W Grazebrook, now decorates Dartmouth Circus, a traffic island at the start of the A38(M) motorway in Birmingham (see picture above, location: 52°29′33″N 1°53′17″W / 52.492537°N 1.888189°W / 52.492537; -1.888189).