Bronze Age Gold from Wales

Serial number '72802'. Diesel engine coupled to compressor (73.40I/4) for pumping gas into the mains at Newport Gas Works, where it was used into the late 1960's. Could run either as a high compression gas engine with separate ignition or as a diesel engine. The change from one fuel to the other was made simply by moving a lever.

4 cylinders: each 9" x 12" Output: 130 hp Efficiency: 35%

When it was realised, in the 1860s, that crude oil could be distilled into various components, experiments were conducted in order to modify gas engines so that some of these component oils could be burnt.

The engines were developed in various forms, one of which is known today as the diesel engine. In the diesel engine the mixture of air and oil droplets in the cylinder becomes so hot when compressed that it ignites on its own accord. It does not require and electrical spark as other petrol and oil engines do.

The engine, built in 1951 by the National Gas and Oil Engine Company, came from Newport Gas Works and is coupled to a compressor which pumped gas into the mains at the gas works. It was important that the compressor should keep the gas pressure in the mains above atmospheric pressure. If it fell below that value, air would be sucked into the mains with possibly disastrous consequences if a gas tap were opened.

With the advent of natural gas in the 1960s there was a gradual closure of all local gas works and hundreds of engines such as this were prematurely scrapped.

Source: Welsh Industrial & Maritime Museum Guidebook, 1984