Start up squence of the River Don 12000 HP steam engine {Sheffield]

I was working very close by in Sheffield so I droped in to view this mother of a steam engines, it shock the ground when in opperation.
The River Don Engine is a 1904-built steam engine used for hot rolling steel armour plate.[1] It is a 3-cylinder simple engine of 40 inches (1.0 m) diameter, 48 inches (1.2 m) stroke. At its operating steam pressure of 160psi, it developed 12,000 horsepower (8.9 MW), and was able to reverse from full speed in 2 seconds. The rapid reverse was an essential feature of an engine used for rolling, as delays would result in cooling of the workpiece. This engine was one of four built to the same design, one going overseas to the Japanese Government, one to John Brown's Atlas plant, and the destination of the final one being William Beardmore of Glasgow. It is claimed to be one of the most powerful steam engines ever built, and the most powerful remaining in Europe.[2]
The River Don Engine worked for over 50 years at Cammell's mill before being moved first to British Steel's River Don plant (hence its name) and then in 1978 to its present home at the Kelham Island Museum, Sheffield.[1] The engine was last used for commercial work in the 1970s, to roll out reactor shield plates for nuclear power plants.
The engine is normally regularly demonstrated at the museum, without load, and under 100 psi of steam pressure. It had to be taken out of service following the floods of July 2007, which extensively damaged the museum and parts of the engine, but was restored to working order in 2008.

[@Dave_at_Its_My_Model_Railway]

Yes that is an amazingly powerful engine and how quickly it can reverse ! I remember Fred Dibnah getting quite excited with it :)

[@hovermotion]

Hi Dave , Yeah is well worth watching in real life, stunning engineering..

[@gregharris3747]

Great vidoe & info too. We've clocked the engine at 90rpm in the museum just after It's had Its maintenance greasing sometimes It' can be a little slower than normal this can be down to the new boiler It use to cut out in the past It's still bloody impressive to watch. Some of the workers at the River Don works would spend time just watching It in action & I can't blame them to, I would have probably got the sack spending to much time watching It & not doing enough work. It's speed in the steelworks was 120 rpm pushing the ingot through the main rollers needs a tremendous amount of power & torque It maximum load was 80 tons in weight 44ft in length & 13ft wide steel plate

[@hovermotion]

Many thanks for your information.. I was blown away seeing this.

[@gregharris3747]

Your very welcome as a kid growing up in Sheffield my time with this engine goes back over 40 years I'm a volunteer at Kelham now I got friendly with all the engineering staff who helped to restore the engine which took 3 years of hard labour lots of money and a dedicated team. I was also lucky to meet some of the men who worked on this mill at the River Don works and a fitter who looked after It during It's working life It could roll an ingot 26inch think down to 2 and 3 quarters in 9 minutes 33 passes through the mill take care all the best Greg harris

[@acewarbringer4295]

So, when do they start this up? When they need to give a few extra revolutions to earth?

[@AlexanderWright1]

It's worth noting that a trip to Portsmouth to see HMS Warrior (and HMS Victory) is also a worthy use of time.

[@hovermotion]

Hi Alexander, Good info 👍🏻

[@hotdogpilot6319]

Flipin 'eck Jim what a piece of controlled violence. Only time I've seen something similar are the reciprocating engines hanging out of the wrecked rear end of the Titanic on the seabed! Thanks for this mate. ATB, Andy

[@hovermotion]

It was amazing to see in action, nothing else as big anywhere in the world that's in working order. The fact it was in industrial service for over 70 years means it was way ahead of its time on design.

[@ChapelEndJunctionUK]

Incredible piece of machinery .

[@LaytonJunction]

Hello Jim what a fabulous peace of engineering enjoyed seeing it a magnificent machine cheers for now al 👏👏🚂🤗👍👍

[@hovermotion]

Hi Al glad you liked this monster.. 😀

[@LaytonJunction]

@@hovermotion 😁😁

[@Terraceview]

How far the west has degraded...

[@ivovanzon164]

This one still looks like it's an oversized off-the-shelf product. The one they have at the Tobiashammer museum (a horizontal one from 1920) looks a lot more like a custom solution for the same problem.

[@davidyoder562]

Is that Johnny Vegas talking in the video!? 🤣

[@hovermotion]

😆

[@howarth004]

Some power house there Jim

[@hovermotion]

It's worth a visit the museum.. The area has loads of old abandoned steel Mills and small founderys very interesting place I might put another video up showing the area.

[@minsterley2002]

We used to be good in Shiny Sheff, a long time ago.

[@hovermotion]

It's tragic looking at all the abandoned rail infrastructure and huge work shops and foundries in the area , one factory even has a fleet of abandoned truck trailers in its yard...unbelievable..