A STEAM TROLLEY.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 735, 12 April 1933, Page 5

A STEAM TROLLEY.

Timaru Schoolboy Constructs Vehicle. SCRAP METAL USED. (Special to the ” Star.”) TIMARU, April 12. A Timaru High School boy, Noel Dennison, aged fourteen years, of 43, Theodocia Street, has constructed a vehicle which is the envy of a host of small boys. With smoke pouring from the chimney and steam hissing from its single cylinder this high-wheeled steam trollev proceeds along the street, followed by a crowd of delighted boys and the astonished gaze of pedestrians. Steam engines seem to have a greater appeal to the juvenile imagination than an internal combustion engine. What boy doesn’t envy the locomotive driver his job, and what boy hasn’t proudly declared his intention of one day being an engine driver? Noel has gone a step further and made his own steam engine. Built from odds and ends of scrap material, it can travel at fifteen miles an hour. The chassis is of the simplest kind—several planks lashed together and erected on wheels, the front ones being taken from an old bicycle and the rear ones from a discarded motor-cycle. The steering wheel is from an old perambulator and operates guide ropes to the front axle. Made From Petrol Tank. A vertical boiler, complete with pressure gauge and safety valve, has been made from the petrol tank of a broken-down car. Young Dennison turned the connecting rods, crosshead, slide bars and piston rod on his own lathe. The cylinder was one made by his father many

years ago and resurrected from a heap of discarded metal. He made the piston rings and the two-speed gear box under his father’s supervision. There are two forward and two reverse speeds operated by a lever on a sliding cam. The engine is a double-acting one with a 2in bore and a 4in stroke of $ h.p. About SOlb steam pressure is maintained. Many improvements could be made, but this boy’s idea was to make a steam trolley as cheaply as possible. Father’s Precedent. Noel is following in his father’s footsteps. In 1900 Mr F. R. Dennison built, at Christchurch, the first motor-car in New Zealand. The following extract from the “ Lyttelton Times ” of May 9, 1900, indicates the impression it made: “ A weird-looking vehicle has recently been seen travelling through the streets of this city, much to the amusement and astonishment of the onlookers. At first appearance it looks like an ordinary packing case placed on four wheels. The Jehu of the concern sits on the top. A constant series of explosions suggests that it is on the principle of a motor-car. Closer investigation corroborates this view and shows the mechanism hidden within the case. “ To the lay mind the position of the passenger seated on the case is by no means an enviable one, and seems something akin to sitting on the edge of an active volcano. However, the machine covers the ground at considerable speed, and on Saturday evening it was driven for twenty miles. It has been constructed by Mr F. R. Dennison, cycle mechanic and engineer, of Cathedral Square, who is to be congratulated on the successful results of his ingenuity.” It remains to be said that Mr Dennison’s car made a successful trip to Oamaru, but on the return journey blew up at the Waitaki Bridge. The analogy to the active volcano was not far wrong. The constant cry in Timaru homes just now is: ‘‘Dad, show me how to make a steam trolley.”