Irrawaddy Steamers 2010, Part 10
Pathein to Pyapon

This is part of our 2010 Burma Crusade.

• Click here for the rice mill index.
• Click here for the general trip index.

The petrol market may have been liberalised officially, but in practice it's very hard to find a station which will serve an unlimited amount, but Pathein is currently one of them. The differential between the official price per imperial gallon (Kyat 2500) and the wayside stalls (Kyat 3500 upwards) is such that it pays to be canny. We had pulled in on nearly empty the night before, filled up and during the evening Han and driver Mahtgyi had transferred the contents to a plastic container so we could fill up again in the morning and have a 'reserve tank'. But as we pulled away from the hotel it seemed they had been too clever by half as we got less than a quarter of a mile before the car ground to a halt. First some of the reserve was put in the tank, but it did no good. Up went the bonnet and the fuel pipes were examined. I had assumed that they had used a good old fashioned syphon but in fact they had used the car's fuel pump. This meant disconnecting pipes and in the process one had split... So the tyre lever cum spanner was pressed into service to undo one of the jubilee clips which shattered in the process, my Swiss Army knife cut the split end off the pipe, Mahtgyi got a mouthful of petrol as he cleared the air from the pipe, all was reconnected and we set off and got a refill.

It's part of the trainspotter syndrome to have a mild obsession with numbers and tabular data, I've got friends who can recite the numbers and names of entire (British) Great Western steam locomotive classes that came out of service nearly 50 years ago. I can remember the numbers of some of the steam locomotives which hauled trains near where I lived too as a boy and many of the steam locomotives I saw in Java over 30 years ago. Even our friend Han who knows nothing of such things knows that he has been to the Golden Rock at Kyaito exactly 243 times since he became a guide... And I have to confess to finding a steam engine in Burma with unequivocal maker and serial number far more satisfying than finding one without any form of identification at all. Again Han now grabs my Swiss Army Knife every time we find an engine that looks remotely like it might be a Tangye to scratch at it to be the one to find its number. Anyway, at some stage in Irrawaddy Division towards the end of our first trip through Burma in 2005, Yuehong innocently asked how many working steam engines we had seen so far. A cue, if ever there was one, for me to add them up. As I recall it was the best part of 100 and indeed a few days later in Bogalay, one of the seven Marshalls in a row had that proud distinction and of course it had no plate. I said nothing about 'targets' but we got as far as 117 before we left for home. We soon discovered in 2006 that the first 100 had been too easy but with the help of clusters of mills around Shwebo (Sagaing Division) and around Hinthada (northern Irrawaddy Division), we got past the 200 mark with a mill near Pathein, the engine was totally anonymous, naturally. We didn't make 100 new engines in the trip but I had to make a brief return to Burma in early May and that allowed me to make 100 engines in 2006. 2007 was probably a spotter's disaster, although we went as far north as Myitkyina, the score was abysmal and the two trips in 2009 were not very productive either and when we arrived in Yangon this time, the total had crept up only to 280.Yes that's an average of 21 per trip for our last three times, shame on us. We knew that 2010 would be probably be the last major 'grice' and while I was quietly confident that we could make the magic 300 during two weeks in southern Irrawaddy Division with something to spare, just in case I did provisionally schedule a day in Maw Gyun for the end of the trip where October 2009 had revealed more than 10 Marshall 12" engines potentially ready and able to work during the main season.

We left Pathein with the total standing at 298 and it was no longer a question of 'whether' but 'when'. In fact, I knew there were two 'sitting ducks' in Kyaunggon along the way, one had been a near miss on the outward journey when it failed to restart before we had to move on and the owner of the other had told us his mill would be working in less than a week. One cannot control these things and we did them in reverse intended order as we missed the turn off. Black smoke and puffs of steam told us that engine 299 was in the bag... I would dearly have loved Cowie Brothers of Glasgow #238 as 'the engine' but it was not to be, just as we shall never know who actually made it. 

Back over the river we went and as there was no smoke, we visited another mill which had yet to start its season, I was quite glad to find its new Marshall 12" dormant, it had been in pieces in 2006 ready to replace another far more interesting but life expired engine. So we bumped down the river bank, close up there was a hint of grey smoke from the chimney and #300 too was assured. It's an anonymous engine almost certainly built by T. Shore in Stoke on Trent. And here it is, reproduced a little larger than usual in honour of its unexpected glory.

Afterwards there was the inevitable feeling of anti-climax, rather like (so I am told) after completing the seduction of a particularly reluctant virgin. We adjourned to a small wayside hostelry near the big Irrawaddy bridge and sank a shandy, being the nearest thing to champagne that it could offer. The afternoon was spent in Maubin where just two engines are left working out of five previous 'runners'. The first was an absolutely disgusting Tangye, but it was an early E type (8", #3696) and it did have a Paris medal under the grime. Yuehong who was feeling increasingly 'chesty' wisely kept her distance.

The second was an engine I featured in one of the 2009 pages which is at the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of condition. It's a MacDonald type, badged for the Rangoon Docking and Engineering Company Limited, age indeterminate but let's settle for about 100 years old (the Tangye above is even older, at least 110 years, but that's no excuse).

The mill seems to have been established around 1954 as this is the date on much of the equipment (from Schule in Hamburg) which we are assured is completely original and was present when the current lady owner's father bought it from the founder some 50 years ago. It goes to show what you can do if you have the right attitude and look after your equipment properly, even in a country like Burma. We were in no hurry, so I took some video of the mill, it was definitely rather special and we relaxed outside afterwards where someone had painted an appropriate sign in English.

As we bumped along south near Kyaiklat, there was a very definite 'graunching' which turned out to be another flat tyre. Out came the spare and the jack but the all important tyre lever cum spanner was nowhere to be seen even after the hatch at the back of the car had been emptied. This was very strange as it had been pressed into service first thing in the morning. Eventually the penny dropped, maybe in the haste to get going it might have been left under the bonnet? Yes, amazingly, it was still there despite all the bouncing on the potholes from Pathein, much embarrassment and to save face the camera stayed in the bag.

And so we came to Pyapon, where we popped across the bridge and found that next morning the amazing 14" Marshall and Co 'Universal Engine' would start its main season's work at 10.00 which would give time for the tyre to be mended first. It would, perhaps, have been a grander number 300 but we don't really care about such trivia do we? There was a glorious sunset and the La Pyayt Guest House and Luxury Restaurant were in business as before.