Waller Steam Engine

This steam engine was used to power the flow of gas in Aberdeen Gasworks.

From the 1800s until the 1970s every town had a gasworks. This was because before natural gas was discovered under the North Sea we had to rely on ‘coal gas’ which was literally gas extracted from coal.

© Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of

Scotland. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk

The coal gas had to be cleaned before it could be used and this engine drove two ‘exhausters’, which pumped the gas through the various cleaning treatments before it was stored in a gas holder. This was one of several exhauster engines in the gasworks.

Generator

This generator was used to make electricity on board a Second World War submarine recovery barge.

The tall part is a small steam engine that powers two dynamos at the same time. The dynamos turn the movement from the engine into electricity.

The dynamos were built by the Sunderland Forge Engineering Company.

We know very little about the barge on which this generator was used - can you tell us any more?