New engine display at Ellen Road Steam Museum

The Allen engine being removed from storage

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The Allen generator set and the Ashworth and Parker engine have been from storage at the rear of the Ellen Road Steam Museum engine house to the car park to join the Brown Boveri steam turbine.

The three engines now form a significant display for the public and enables volunteers to work on them. The Society intends to build a shelter and protect the engines from the weather and has been awarded a grant from the Pennine Township of Rochdale Council towards the cost of hiring the necessary crane.

The Allen generator set was built about 1912 by W H Allen Sons & Co in Bedford and is similar to those used for producing the electricity on the Titanic - the Titanic had eight of these.

This generator produced the power for a colliery until the end of the last century when it was moved to Ellen Road to save it from being scrapped.

It is owned by David Arnfield who has agreed to formally loan the engine to the Steam Museum.

The Ashworth and Parker engine was built in Bury and powered the Turner Brothers Asbestos works in Rochdale until the works were closed in the 1990s.

It is a two cylinder high speed engine which drove the works via the rope drive to line shafts.

The Brown Boveri Steam Turbine is one of the earliest in existence.

It was built around 1910 not long after the engine type had been demonstrated by Parsons in the Turbinia. It is believed that it operated for some time in the Caribbean before being moved to the BOCM Paul site in Selby around 1930.

It powered the seed crushing machinery and the exhaust steam was used to help extract the oil from the crushed seeds.

It is very unusual in that it drove the machinery via a rope drive powered through a very large reduction gearbox.