Steam Engines To Be Brought Back to Life at New Year Party
Water & Steam Museum to reactivate machinery silent since 2022
One of the engines at the London Museum of Water & Steam
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November 3, 2023
A steam engine, which is nearly a century old, is to be brought back to life in Brentford for the New Year.
The London Museum of Water & Steam intends to reactivate its 96-year-old Lancashire Boiler which fell silent in early 2022. During its working life it helped provide water to millions of Londoners. It will be restarted as part of a three-day celebration which kicks off a ‘Steaming into Sustainability’ project that takes the steps towards maintaining a working industrial steam museum with carbon positive historic engineering. The engines will be operating from 30 December 2023 to 1 January 2024.
The Museum has been working hard to find a way to bring the life and dynamism back to the collection and, working collaboratively with international specialists, supported by a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, this is just the start of a series of initiatives.
The Museum team says it wants to futureproof the heritage of steam engines for generations to come and bring new advances to move the industrial museum sector forward.
There will be a New Year’s Eve party to mark the first Steam Up in almost two years, as well as a programme of exciting activities and workshops to join. The Association of 16mm Narrow Gauge Modellers will be demonstrating its model steam trains on a purpose-built track, a water Sommelier will be there to share the delicate art of water tasting, and the steam locomotive Thomas Wicksteed will be running rides around the museum site all weekend.
Museum Director, Hannah Harte says: “the London Museum of Water and Steam is an amazing place, packed with ingenuity, fascinating engineering skill and great stories. We want to share the thrill of our world class, well-loved dynamic collection in motion once again. We’re really excited about the future too and what we can bring to the museum and industrial heritage, in the next chapter of the technology’s history. It’s fantastic to get our monumental engines back in motion, and a New Year’s festival of steam is the perfect celebration for it!”
Richard Albanese, Project Manager says, “With some of the oldest, biggest and most impressive engines left on the planet, you get to see two hundred years of breathtaking working mechanical ingenuity and development.”
A crowdfunding appeal has been launched by the London Museum of Water and Steam on Brentford High Street due to it currently going through what it describes as a difficult time financially.
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