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Irrawaddy Steamers 2010, Part 7 |
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This is part of our 2010 Burma Crusade. Our visit to Wakema was going well, we'd been to 6 mills and seen 3 working engines, none of which had been recorded working in 2005. We walked down to the next mill and a not unexpected treasure, this engine from T & R Lees Ltd, Engineers, Hollinwood, Manchester with an agents plate from Burma Engineers Ltd. The owner gave its building date as 1904 and when asked how he knew showed us where May 27th 1904 was etched on the governor... It was working as it had been on our previous visit. This type of engine is not uncommon, but mainly the manufacturer's name is not known and few still work with double eccentrics as does this one.
The next mill was also working, but instead of the expected Stewart Raeburn which had been first choice in 2005 (albeit not working when we called), we found their Marshall 12" (#64841):
Our next visit was a twin mill, but neither engine was working. The 12" Tangye (#9048) would have been interesting if it was still a full Tangye-Johnson machine but it wasn't so it was it was no disaster to see it idle even if it broke the 4 digit rule. I would have very much liked to see the old MacDonald type engine with Jessop as agents running, but it had not worked for some 3 months:
All that was left in town to see were two more Marshall 12" engines. The first was a K class being installed to replace a C class which was working on our previous visit and was now stored along with what appeared to my eye to be a smaller Robey. The second engine (#81656) was in use regularly but not today... In between Han demonstrated his boating skills as this boat was in 'one man operation' mode and needed to back out:
There was just time to grab another takeaway before we headed for home. The road was no better, we were reduced to using the cycle track, the bicycle in front was going faster than us.
We had some Tangyes to sort out. The mill with the pagoda above produced a Hosain Hamadanee Tangye (below left, #12074), the second mill which had no less than 4 in 2005, had sold one on. Its own Hosain Hamadanee was still in store and had had its number obliterated as had one of the 12" Tangyes (working but not shown). The other (below right) which had worked in the morning was #12369.
Certainly, no-one would have made today's journey for the scenery; the rice fields are pretty with the harvesting and the odd poor villages with their shacks are of the type that the word hovel was invented for, quaint as long as you don't have to live in them but it's pretty bog standard stuff here and the dust gets everywhere. Worse, we would have to come part way back up this road in a couple of days to visit Einme.
We made our Tangye mill in Myaungmya comfortably well before sunset and, as I had promised, I let Yuehong loose with the video. Word of the mill's operation had obviously reached the local pigeon population too.
Once again, the expedition had gone well, there were a couple of known (and seen) mills further off the beaten track which had to be missed out, I am sure there are even more unknown remote mills in this area which we will never be able to reach - we never thought for a moment that we could do every one in the country. Next day would be a second lazy day in Myaungmya. |
