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Hinthada Pick-Up, Burma 2009

This is the twenty first part of our 2009 Burmese Odyssey. To read more about our 2009 bash which includes many non-steam items, please see Rob and Yuehong in the Golden Land 2009.

Finding a taxi driver stupid enough to take us where we want to go in Burma is an art that Han has perfected to the extent that some are even willing to repeat the experience. However, this time he can't find a single white Toyota driver who fancies a day out to the west of Hinthada and the only option is to charter a whole pick-up at an extortionate price, the only bonus being that the driver we end up with has previously done a similar circuit with the district boiler inspector. It is going to be a very long day, the main question being as to when we will cut and run for home. We always try to soften up our drivers so we all gather for a bread and beans breakfast at 07.00. Afterwards, we visit the bottle store for some petrol and head off.

The planned trip is based on observations from a Hinthada to Pathein train and also rumours from rice mill owners in the area during our 2006 trip. Of course that was three years before and things can change... We don't expect a great deal on the early part of the journey and two chimneys with trees growing our of them do not greatly concern me. However, when we pull into a site which we have confidently assumed from the train is a steam powered rice mill we discover that it is in fact in the business of boiling up something similar to tapioca. The owner helpfully points out that what we were looking for is just half a mile down the road and then adds that the last he heard it was out of action pending boiler repairs. He is quite right, the Hosain Hamadanee Tangye (#11584) is under wraps although the owner quickly removes them:

It is one of the first stationary steam engines I have seen with roller bearings, I don't think they were an original design feature. But we are assured if we keep on going we will indeed encounter some active steam mills. Quite honestly, the road looks like something from 'Out of Africa', never more so than when we meet a 'Made in China' truck which has totally failed, blocking our progress. Pushing it out of the way is not an option as Yuehong points out that it is full of rice sacks, it is way past 09.00 and the day is rapidly going belly up:

It's time for the intrepid Han to show a new side to his character and ten minutes later we are on our way again:

Undeterred, our driver suddenly and without any prompting lurches left down another track, followed by another left in a small village and lo and behold we are outside a working mill, this is definitely insider knowledge at work. Welcome as it is, the indeterminate girder engine had no provenance whatsoever and is as grubby and unphotographable as anything we have seen in the country:

It was probably a fairly early Marshall but I really am not very bothered. Back to what might laughingly be called the main road we go and into a small town. The first mill is out of action needing running repairs but it has worked earlier in the day which is extremely fortunate given its steam engine:

Spencer & Co. Limited of Melksham (near Chippenham, Wiltshire, UK) is yet another hen's teeth job, the current owner says that the previous (and original) owner had brought it to the mill when he set it up in 1958, I am sure this is yet another engine imported second hand. The repairs are likely to be protracted and we don't have the option of a return visit. There is 50 psi left on the clock and the slightest hint is more than enough to get all the belts off and the engine ticking over, it runs extremely sweetly for the cameras:

The next mill at the bottom end of the village is also running well, it has a 9" MacDonald type engine with a former portable boiler providing the steam. The only lettering is the agents plate on the valve chest cover, "The Burmah Engineering and Trading Company Limited, 75 Merchant Street, Rangoon":

I have a soft spot for this kind of engine, they are all very old but most have very little in the way of provenance.

We now turn south and a small village produces one of the most disgusting engines I have seen here (and we have seen quite a few). Although the light is quite good, it is covered in half an inch at least of oil and dust, it is totally unbalanced and seems likely to shake itself to pieces in the very near future. Unfortunately, it is also the first of the larger Struthers Wells (USA) engines we have seen working here and, as such, merits our attention.

Bolt on crosshead guides work very well until the bolts shear, these were rocking with the engine:

Yuehong has a foul sore throat from the dust in the region and is suffering from the heat so she wisely retreats to our transport:

The next town produces one of the most unphotogenic Tangyes I have ever seen, it has worked two days earlier which spares me wasting tape and thence hard drive space on it:

It's time for lunch, while it was the first time I have faced up to a Burmese chicken curry on the trip, the same could not be said of the jar of draught beer. The next mill has a Bulloch Brothers engine with a magnificent brass plate which we get cleaned:

But the engine as a whole is less than well presented, and poorly lit. There is no temptation at all to come back the next day to see it working:

We have reached our furthest point and it is time to head back, using a slightly different route. Our fifth and last working engine of the day is a monster, a Tangye K size (14 inches) #5057 which has a voracious appetite for steam and works one of the most dusty and unpleasant mills I have ever seen.

On the other side of the river in a mill reported closed for three years is a real treasure, a Marshall trip valve engine. Alas, it has no number on its makers plate or behind the regulator. Of course, we are lucky enough to have seen one example at work elsewhere in the country:

The next closed mill brings what appears to me to be a well conserved early Marshall, although it has no markings at all:

Along the road are many new small mills with diesel engines, it seems that their flexible operations has done for the larger mills although there may well have been some local politics involved. We have just one more mill left to visit and it also provides us with a Marshall trip valve engine, I suspect that this is a bit older, it looks more like our working engine although it has the opposite 'handedness':

It has indeed been a long day, my younger companions maybe lack my obsessive nature and are much happier than I to be heading back to base, but we have done quite well in an entirely new area to us.

Next day, we swap four wheels for two, it brings me far more bruises on my posterior than good luck.

The full list of 2009 trip pages is on:

These are the individual (stationary steam) pages from the 2009 trip:

Our earlier explorations are described in pages linked from:

Rob and Yuehong Dickinson

Email: webmaster@internationalsteam.co.uk