Foster Engines in Burma

This is part of a series of pages covering the known steam engine manufacturers for Burma. Click here for the full list.

Fosters of Lincoln, England, seem to have been a relatively late entrant to the Burma market, their known engines all being delivered after the First World War, as far as I know they were all portables and as such tend to look older than they actually are. This is the only complete one we have seen, it was stored for resale in the Industrial Zone in Yangon in 2007. Even then it had lost its wheels:

In several cases we have seen engines and boilers in the same location after separation. This was the first example we saw, note the mountings for the original regulator:

This is another similar engine in the Shwebo area, I was standing on its boiler for the shot. Note the lever regulator at the front of the cylinder as opposed to the otherwise universal wheel and what appears to be a railway wagon wheel added for balance.

Also in the Shwebo area this mill is a really smart operation:

Where a Foster plate exists, it will be on the boiler:

The owner here was really helpful as he arranged an extra 'shift' for us at very short notice:

This is what the engine looks like working:

Back in Mon State we found this at a quite new mill in early 2009, the engine had come from a closed mill in Kyaimaraw nearby. What made this operation very unusual is that engine and boiler were in the charge of two rather camera shy ladies:

Click here for the full list of known steam engine manufacturers for Burma.