Engine Punk

Wrightbus have successfully won market share in the fiercely competitive bus market. I'd never heard of them until recently. Obviously I'm a lapsed industrial designer. Or they build buses too quietly. Some people refer to modes of public transport, particularly omnibuses, as loser cruisers. I think this originates from Margaret Thatcher who described "A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself a failure." From a snobbish Tory point of view, public transport is not aspirational. Despite my engine punk proclivities, I am an enthusiastic and regular user of public transport. Having adopted the train and walking as the means of my commute (apart from the short drive to the station) I have become a leisure driver. Apart from shopping trips, these days I drive purely for pleasure. From my latest environmental audit, I am greener than most. This always surprises me because engine punks like me are suppoosed to be public enemy number o...

The White Notation is a means of describing different types of engine but I've been exploring some more of A E Durrant's works on obscure steam railway engines and found a very curious pair that defy classification according to their wheel arrangement. Wheel arranging sounds suspiciously like flower arranging to me but is really a very serious business involving weight restrictions, chassis flexibility and maximising adhesion. Most engines can be classified very simply and the White system quickly allows an impression of the engine to be formed, whether it's a humble 0-4-0T or an express 4-6-2. The French, being the French, had to be different and used their own system that counted only the wheels you could see from one side, so a 4-6-2 became a 231 - perfectly logical but determinedly different. However, neither system copes perfectly with some engines. Look closely between the middle and trailing driving wheels and you'll see an extra pair of carrying wheels...

Virtually line perfect, Norvins look the part but probably don't offer much over the standard Vincent. Still, wooargh, though, eh? The green shoots of spring are bursting through and nowhere is this more noticeable than in my piles of old photos that not only grow but creep around the house. The date and location of this snap of a Norvin at some show or other have long been lost but the look of the bike was enough to stop me dead in my tracks. For many years, Norvins were my ultimate British bike until I discovered the Egli-Vincent and that's more European than British. The Norvin was a logical extension of the Triton - put the best engine you can find in the best frame you can find. While this worked well for the marriage between Triumph engines and Norton frames, the Norvin didn't make quite so much sense. The standard Vincent frame was more of a small box behind the headstock. The engine didn't really need cradling in tubes. What counted against the Vincent ...

If you've ever suspected Dr Beeching wasn't playing fair read this. Although partial to steam engines, it's internal combustion that I really like. It seems that much more accessible to me and oil based fuels still seem to pack the most bang-per-buck-by volume, which is critical for automotive transport. But sometimes I come across stories where petrol and diesel powered machines were promoted for political reasons. One collection of these was The Great Railway Conspiracy , in which David Henshaw gathers evidence on deliberate policies to make railways unusable before citing lack of use as a reason for closing lines down. But I recently came across a reference to another anti-steam engine conspiracy. It was in A E Durrant's book on The Mallet Locomotive . It would appear that in the USA diesel engines were promoted by the oil companies, whose political might was sufficient to ensure that the operating companies remained fragmented and offer a united challenge ...

Mad Max and the last of the V8 Interceptors Somebody asked me about this the other day. A sound bite response would've been good but I couldn't think of one.  So... Engine Punk is the joy of making, expressed in metal, composites and tyre smoke - a tribute to accessible technology - an indulgence of finely engineered excitement - high-octane works of imagination, fantasy and mech-anarchy. What a beauty! Marcel Sylvand's Zoomster. Photo : Nitro Engine Punk is nostalgia for the twentieth century and a celebrations of all the freedoms we had. Note past tense (unfortunately) Engine Punk is Steam Punk with a go-faster stripe.  Engine Punks talk the torque and race the race.  Form over function - a motorcycle conception by Zero Engineering (like there's a lot of engineering actually, actually) Photo : Zero Engineering Engine Punks are openly retro-sexual, speed celebrants with a chequered eroticism (but not that bloke who has sex with his car) The fast...

Mallet 403 awaits to take us out of the Ardeche hills at Lamastre Articulated steam railway engines have appealed to me from an early age when I discovered A E Durrant's book on Beyer-Garrett locomotives on the mobile library that used to come to our village. Wouldn't the steam come out when they articulate? And Beyer-Garratts were not the biggest - that accolade belonged to the semi-articulated Mallets. Mallets are pronounced malaise actually but Anglo-Cornish/Cornu-Saxon force of habit still makes me describe then as Mallets - as in the hammer - even though I now know better. I have in mind the hammer blows their great cranks must make on the track as the wheels go round but, in reality, one of the virtues of a Mallet was that it suited lightly laid tracks. CFD Vivarais 403 is a classic mallet design with large, low pressure cylinders in front and smaller, high pressure cylinders behind. For a French engine it looks remarkably neat but then it was built in Switzerl...

Steam Punk is a close but older relative of Engine Punk. I don’t want to get bogged down in defining differences right now - I aspire to breakdown barriers not reinforce them - but with the exciting prospect of the Steampunk Kernow party in Falmouth , with its nautical theme and evocation of the age of exploration, I’ve indulged in some ancestral delving into the first generation steam punk activities of my grandfather's favourite uncle. From an ancient scrapbook, I am fortunate to have this watercolour self-portrait of Great Uncle Walter. On the same page were very small photos of gondolas and heavily flooded streets. Great Uncle Walter is world famous in my family. Like me, he was a man of many parts, except that most of mine are old car and bike parts. Great Uncle Walter was an artist, a photographer, sailor, entrepreneur, founder member of the Falmouth volunteer fire brigade and inventor. His portrait of the Mayor of Falmouth still hangs in the civic chambers. Among his sur...