Gary Bahre shot this video at the Labor Day show in Minnesota. Big engines take a gentle touch when you are starting cold. Steam condenses when it hits the cylinder, so you have to allow the water time to escape through the petcocks. Open the throttle too quickly and you can damage the engine.
Getting a shipboard steam turbine generator ready for the load was not very different than watching the Corliss start.
ReplyDeleteWarm up the steam lines, take manual control, test the shutdown trip, warm the oil, bring the turbine up to speed and report ready for the load.
There is a lot less visible moving parts with steam turbines, and the only leather visible would have been in our shoes.
I saw a big Corliss start at the Rough and Tumble Museum in Kinzers, PA. There they had to bar the engine over to get to a start point.