From Ruston to Siemens. 150 years of engineering history

[@stephaniesadie832]

My father started as an apprentice with R&H in 1936, and worked there until the entire Small Engines Division to Staffordshire, finishing as Chief Development Engineer. He worked on many of the Diesels and Gas Turbines mentioned. The shame is that Lincoln County Archives is not interested in the huge Rustons Archive, literally hundreds and thousands of images and records of every single engine they built - they were all fully documented and tracked. This includes the build and delivery flight logs of all the Sopwith Camels. Its all sitting in a virtually derelict building on Firth Road, Lincoln, looked after by Ray Hooley, now an old man, who was the Librarian at Rustons in the 60's 70's and 80's. When Ray dies this entire historic collection will possibly be lost. It has nowhere to go, and is rotting away. The Rustons cars failed because they were built on the same 9 inch chassis used for the tanks, and only had 50hp engines. This made them expensive, heavy, very slow and cumbersome, and within a couple of years much more attractive, faster, lighter, cheaper cars were available.

[@philcrowphoto1]

Hi Stephanie. The collection is - or rather was - held in the Canon Building. In 2011 myself and Steve Wildman managed to convince the University of the significance of this material and so a grant was applied for and the material was moved in 2013 to the Lincoln Archive for storage. I believe the conservation dept at the University are cataloguing it all with the help of a volunteer program. I've added a link to the only info I can find and as you can see, material that was due to be skipped has now a good home, although myself, Steve and, more importantly, RAY, are not even mentioned in dispatches: Frank Carchedi, a great chap and good friend was instrumental in the project...of course he was- he had to sign it all off on behalf of Siemens: none of this would have happened if it had not been brought to his attention. www.lincoln.ac.uk/news/2013/03/650.asp

[@mikhailmorozov1132]

150bhp = 750kW?! 6:54

[@maddogmadeley]

Is it availiable in higher resolution ?

[@philcrowphoto1]

Hi David- sorry for the late response (like 2 years! DOH!)... as you can see, originally made in 4:3 for DVD only. If I can find my original edit, I'll be converting it to 16:9 and hopefully in HD.

[@AdamEvansuk]

brilliant film. was it made by Siemens?

[@philcrowphoto1]

Hi Adam. I was commissioned by Siemens (Lincoln) quite some years ago to make this. Hope you enjoyed it