Many years ago, in those heady days before I had children (!), three road-rollers came up for sale, owned by a council and installed in their parks as play equipment. After several "near miss" accidents, the council's insurers decided that the time had come to dispose of the machines before somebody's child was seriously injured - they were duly put up for sale by tender. Two were elderly diesel-powered rollers, the third a 1925 Aveling & Porter 8 ton steam roller. It had worked for thirty years, then spent forty years in the playground during which time it had fallen derelict (and had most of the non-ferrous fittings removed).

Having bought the engines, I set to with two friends and, over a couple of days, managed to liberate the Aveling from its brick and concrete enclosure before getting it loaded onto a lorry and brought back to a local yard, by kind permission of the owner - a man with a large collection of traction engines, rollers and portables who has been a constant source of tea, good advice and help over the last ten years. Work on the mechanical bits has proceeded in fit and starts over the years, with the boiler being the biggest challenge - see below! A few months ago I took my boiler inspector down to the yard to conduct a thorough survey before sending it off for major repairs. I finally brought it up home last Sunday, prior to taking it on to the boilermaker next week. With luck, by the time it arrives back in Spring of 2005, there will be most of the top works ready to put back on, allowing the odd stationary steamup whilst finishing off the rest of it. 

To be continued...

Feb 2004