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Winter 1999 Vol. 26 Issue 4.
Front Page |
The Boats: M-boats and BolindersThe Grand Canal Company had long been aware of the problems of transportation on a mixed navigation of canal, river and lake.When internal combustion oil engines became available, they carried out trials in 1910. In May 1911 they ordered six (subsequently reduced to four) Bolinder engines - and two complete motor barges equipped with the same engines - from the British Bolinder agents, James Pollock and Sons.The engines were successfully used in horse boats in July 1911 and thus the Company became the first to motorise in the British Isles.The boats were the Athy and 9M, measuring 60' X 12' 6". The Athy had a 20hp engine with a 12" bulwark all round. 9M had a 15hp engine. The Bolinder CompanyThe Bolinder Company was founded in Stockholm by the teenage brothers Karl and Jean Bolinder in 1832. They first produced components for steam engines, railways and sawmill machinery. They developed their first internal combustion engine, a four-stroke hot bulb, in 1893.In 1903 E A Rundlof invented the two-stroke, crank case scavenge hot bulb engine and passed it on to the Bolinders, who developed their range of semi-diesels from this - and the legend was born. The engines were so reliable and durable that they were used in barges throughout the world and Bolinder became synonymous with barge engine. The engines installed by the Grand Canal Company in 1911 were the 1908 E-type single-cylinder 8.35-litre direct reversing engines (invariably 15bhp). These were in continuous use in the fleet until CIE removed the last working Bolinders from its maintenance boats in the mid-seventies.Consequently the E-type is known as the Irish engine. How the engines work The semi-diesel is the link between steam and internal combustion. A semi-diesel relies for combustion on heat and compression, whereas in Dr Diesel's engine combustion is caused by compression alone. The vertical block of the Bolinder is surmounted by a pre-heated cast iron hollow hot bulb, where combustion takes place, driving down the piston through a vent in the bulb. This remains hot, allowing the fuel to combust and the air to change without high compression. Peripherals such as the water-pump, fuel-oil pump and five lubricating-oil pumps in line, each with its own oil well, are driven by eccentrics from the shaft: all exposed and fully accessible in the steam engineering tradition. The silencer or expansion chamber is bolted to the block and almost as large, being water-cooled by direct circulation with the engine. The starting ritual involves pre-heating the hot bulb with a blow-lamp and hand-pumping oil to the main bearings, big end,small end and piston, and greasing several exposed lesser bearings. Heating takes about ten minutes, but varies according to the age and condition of the bulb. At the crucial moment, a few squirts of fuel are pumped into the bulb and a smart swing of the great flywheel, with the hand or the boot, results in combustion. Non-starting usually arises from attempting to start before the bulb is fully heated, with repeated squirts of fuel and exhaustive flywheel swinging - and an engine-room full of noxious diesel vapour. Spontaneous loud explosions contribute to spectator sport on the bank, followed by resolutions (over pints) to get rid of it and put in a proper engine. Overheating of the bulb causes expansion of the block and loss of compression, with the same result: non-starting and similar resolutions. Writing in Canal Mania (Arum Press, 1993) Anthony Burton, the canal historian, deduced that life was seldom dull with a Bolinder! The new fleet In 1925 the Canal Company commenced building a fleet of custom-built steel motor canal-boats. Powered by the 15bhp E-type Bolinder, they measured about 60' X 13' X 5' 6". They had bluff bows with accommodation forward for a crew of four. The cargo hold was 40', separated from the engine-room and bows by watertight bulkheads. The plates were quarter-inch and hot-riveted on angle rames. Over the next fourteen years, 48 boats were built, numbering from 31M to 79M. With a few exceptions, they were built by Vickers (Ireland) in the Liffey Dockyard and were over-engineered - with the exception of the turn of the bilges which, being subject to constant wear when fully laden on the canal, needed regular patching. In James's St Harbour the forge was at the dry-docks. A day at the harbour Gerard D'Arcy, whose father was canal manager, describes a typical day at the harbour in the early 1950s. The first sound at 5.00 or 6.00 was of a blow-lamp starting, followed by a colossal bang, back-firing, starting and further back-firing. (It was often difficult to get the bulb hot enough, with the old paraffin blow-lamps, to ensure a smooth start.) After the engine was started, it was essential to keep the bulb hot, so the clutch was engaged as soon as possible and the throttle turned fully up. There was no gearbox, in the steam tradition. The throttle was of the hit-and-miss variety peculiar to these engines. A striker on an eccentric engaged the end of the fuel-oil pump-piston, injecting some fuel into the bulb. The tension on a spring above the striker determined the frequency with which the striker engaged. At full tension and throttle, it engaged nearly every time. A short distance out from the harbour, dropping revs and black smoke would indicate over-heating and pre-ignition. At this stage the engineer would introduce the combustion water, from a deck tank, in a gradual drip into the engine; this would cool the bulb, increasing the revs and ensuring a small puff of blue exhaust. The engine was now more or less set. Locks There was no reverse gear. To put the engine into reverse it was necessary to put it out of gear and cut the engine, re-engaging it in reverse when it was about to stall. The boatmen were expert at this procedure; however it was not used routinely. With 47 tons of cargo and drawing 4' 6", the boats were run into the locks at high revs and checked by an 80' rope whipped around the wooden stop post at the lock. The volume of water against the bluff bows also acted as a brake. With the stop-rope made fast, the clutch was kept engaged at high revs to keep the bulb hot and prevent the engine from cooling and stalling in the lock. Then and now So on to Shannon Harbour at about 4 knots, reaching Limerick in around four and a half days. But that was in the early 1950s and, while hot bulb handling was transformed subsequently by bottled propane/butane gas, in Ireland the Bolinder, with its unique sound, is going the way of the Corncrake. As far as can be ascertained, at the present time only four boats - 45M, 50M, 75M and 78M - retain their original engines. In Britain, where canal heritage is cherished, the Bolinders are highly prized. Reconditioned and restored engines are frequently reinstalled in traditional narrow-boats, attracting much attention at rallies, and Volvo (who acquired the Bolinder Company) present an annual trophy for the best-kept engine. Oliver Connolly |