ENGINEERING APPRENTICE DAYS 3




The day arrived for the roller to be steamed up and driven over a course of about three miles skirting the busy parts of the city to end up in the railway yards. Thus the foreman and I spent the morning raising steam, seeing that the feed-water injector worked properly and jiggling the machine out of its state of rest in the ground indentations into which the rolls had settled. After lunch all was ready. He to be the inexperienced driver and I to cycle ahead to be the traffic lookout at street intersections. All of the streets that we traversed had relatively narrow high-crowned tar-sealed ways with grass verges both sides. This latter feature proved a benefit in rescuing our charge from collision with the footpath edgings during the fearfully zigzag course that we inadvertently followed.

The engine throttle was a simple stop valve at the boiler. The driver’s seat was almost over the rear roll that was steered either by a hand wheel with its shaft across the machine or by a neat little three cylinder radial engine whose rotation was determined by a fore and aft hand lever beside the driver’s seat. Movement of the hand wheel or the lever forward or backward steered the machine to the right or left. The water tank was formed over the leading roll with a raised edge deck to carry the coke and coal. The boiler fire-door was at the side so that the machine had to be stopped and the driver dismounted to replenish the fire.

The engine was driven a few laps of the yard for familiarization then out onto a busy street at very slow speed for the short rumble to the main leg of the journey. The high crown on the road and the steering that demanded fore and aft lever movements and the lack of a centre indicator for the steering engine control caused frequent angle parking diversions into the grass verges. Thus there were plenty of opportunities to replenish the fire and boiler water. All was finally delivered to the railway loading bank and our duty was done.

In those times apprentices were required to attend technical classes associated with their trades three evenings a week. The subjects in my area were applied mathematics, technical drawing and engineering workshop practice all of which I enjoyed. The school was well set up with engineering, plumbing, woodwork and electrical workshops.

The years 1935-1937 were lean times in the engineering business and workshops of moderate size had shrunk to relatively small concerns. Businesses that operated foundry departments that dropped back to two or three staff lost that part of the business to their tradesmen going out on their own and setting up in opposition. The same thing also occurred with the then fledgling and promising light industrial refrigeration industry. Another growing business at that time was the reconditioning of car, truck and tractor motors. The established engineering firms saw this as an opportunity and equipped with generally low production machinery. Again highly motivated young employees gained financial backing from automotive parts wholesalers and taking advantage of more highly developed machinery coming onto the market set up shop and took over this work.

So it was in this atmosphere of not gaining employment in the engineering works of my first choice and seeing the premises used more or less as a dumping ground for the plant of its closing branches in other towns and the threat of closure of the current workshop that I considered looking for employment elsewhere.