EXCURSION TO THE ADDINGTON WORKSHOPS.

Press, Volume XLVIII, Issue 7766, 21 January 1891, Page 6

EXCURSION TO THE ADDINGTON WORKSHOPS.

Yesterday afternoon various members of the Association made an excursion to the Addington Workshops under the leadership of Mr J. P. Maxwell and Mr R. JjScott. party started from Canterbury College in drag* and were met at the Addington Workshops by Mr Botherbam, Superintendent of Locomotives, aud Mr McDonald, Locomotive Engineer. The visitors, under tbe guidance of the various leaders, inspected the works according to a well arranged programme. One of the firet objects seen was a beautiful high-speed engine—the Porter Allen— run-lug evenly and noiselessly at some hundreds of revolutions. The party next visited tbe sand-blast machine, which, by the aid of a jet of sand driven out of an orifice by an airblast, grinds glass or roughens any hard surface. The man in charge of this machine was grinding tbe patterned glass one sees In the skylights and smoking-cars of railway carriages. The pattern, of gelatine or even brown paper, It pasted on the glass, and tbe shower of sharp sand, though it cuts the smooth surface of the glass, rebounds from the softer substance, and leaves the pattern in smooth relief against the ground surface. A little apparatus for making pads for lubricating purposes out of blanketing and wire, ana a steam-room for driving sap and resin out of new timber, were noticed; then the party moved into the car and wagon ahop, where scores ot men and machines warm

at work flttingup old cars and building new ones.- The machinery in this department was very interesting. One machine was engaged morticing holes In some stout square pieces of timber. First a tool came down with a swinging movement, rapidly revolving at the same time, and out an oblong hole with rounded ends, then a chisel shot down and squared the mortice to its size with a few sharp blows. Close to this machine was a band saw slicing through two inch wood as easily as the man guided it along the pencilled pattern. There were planing machines carving long boards into smoothly finished mouldings, tenoning machines, and nearly every other kind of machines used for Working wood into various forms. In one part of the shop was a new railway carriage, nearly completed, with an open platform running ulong its side—a luxury which travellers wishing to see the country and enjoy fresh air at the same time will appreciate. From the car and waggon shop the party Went into a yard where men were engaged bending cold steel rails into points and crossings, and then were conducted into the smiths' and boiler shop, where machinery was dealtng with iron almost as easily as that working the wood. A steel circular suw was cutting through a plate of cold iron an inch lv thickness. A punching machine was driving holes through boiler plates as easily as one drives a pencil through thin paper. Another machine was rivetting inch rivets with a single blow. Another machine was stamping out hooks, clips and bolts and moulding tbem into the desired shape with a few blows. Brawny smiths were working iron into all kinds of shapes. At one end of this shop was a great steam hammer and a low square built furnace. Into the furnace went compact heaps of scrap Iron—old chains, old bolts, cuttings and clippiugs of all sorts, i hey came ouC of the furnace partly fused and were conveyed to the steam hammer, which, with blows that shook the geouud, hammered the mass.into square blocks, which were again heated to be hammered again into buffer heads, couplings, and the massive gear used to attach rail wav trucks and carriages. At the other end of che shop men were at work putting new plates on to boilers. With power conveyed by endless cotton ropes a drilling machine was worked that had a pliable shaft of colled steel wire, something like that on a sheep shearing machine. This enabled the men to drill holes ia all sorts of places from inside the boiler or in corners where even a ratchet brace could not easily be used. From the smith's and boiler shop the party went into the brass moulding shop*, aud saw the molten brass taken from the furnaces lv plumbago crucibles and poured into the moulds made iv sand, to come out as bracket* and scroll work in graceful designs, which only had to be trimmed and polished to be ready for use. After seeing the molten brass moulded into various shapes, the party visited tbe pattern shops, where models in wood of pieces of machinery or anythiug required to be cast in metal are made, aud after visiting the copper tunica, who was braziug tubes, tbey wenc into the machine shop. Tnera they saw the brass castings being trimmed and cleaned by machinery. There were machines thac carved brass Into all the curious and perfect shapes required for engine fitting; inachiues that pluued cold steel rails, shaving off the hard metal in chick coils tbat grew to wonderf ol lengths; a machine that planed six greaC bronze carriage bearings at once ; dritliug machines, a milling machine, a rapidly revolving emery wheel polishing slide bars and emitting showers ot sparks; lathes turniug rough irou bars into straight polished shafting; lathes cutting the tyres ou waggon wheels, and a radiodrill.chat cuthol-'s through thiik copper plating, and a machine on the drill principle that cut grooves in brass or iron. The visitors also iuspected safety valves and slide valves and the many and manifold parts that go to make an engine. Then they examined the engine Itself, a brandnew locomotive, nearly completed, and saw men lagging the boiler with silicate cloth, a material made from the refuse slag from a blast furnace. They saw a travelling crane lift a heavy boiler out of its frame and move it about this way and that to the fraction of au inch. They saw spark-arresting gear for preventing that shower of fire which one sees sometimes issuing from che chimneys of eugiues burning liguite coal, perforated dampers, the water service on a locomotive, aud all the intricacies of the locomotive. Lastly, tbey went iuto the tarpaulin room, where machines were sewing double seams through thick canvas, and men were at work painting dew tarpaullus with, a patent weather-proof composition, stencilling on tbem tbe broad arrow aud other signs denoting they were the property of tho Government of the colony. Other men weie engaged repairiug some of the 5000 odd tarpaulins with which tbe railway service of Cbe country is provided. The tarpaulin room was the last place to be Inspected, and when the pirty had learnt all tbere was to learn of its mysteries, even to the fact' Chat tarpaullus could be made at 50s eacu, they mounted the drags ana drove off co Hambleden, where the Right Rev. Che Bishop of Christchureh aud Mrs Julius were to receive them at a garden party.