A STEEL BENCH, A SAMOSA, A REVELATION AND A PEEP INTO ENGLISH ENGINEERING HISTORY

 

A STEEL BENCH, A SAMOSA, A REVELATION AND A PEEP INTO ENGLISH ENGINEERING HISTORY

 Living in Churchgate, close to the station, I have always relied on the suburban railway to travel either for work or leisure for the last three decades. It is astonishing how one may in one’s daily perambulations pass the same place hundreds of times without noticing some striking objects that form part of the milieu of that place.

It happened with me recently.

It was early evening and I had set out for my evening walk when a sudden desire to eat a samosa made me trace a path to the station where I made my way to the Seema Pandey stall which serves nice samosas throughout the day. This stall is located at the beginning of platform One at Churchgate station. I have been buying samosas from them for quite some time, either taking them home to have with tea or eating it standing on the platform close to the stall or carry it with me to eat on the train.

On this occasion the shiny steel bench located at the mouth of the platform adjacent to the stall was empty and seemed a very inviting spot to park myself while I savoured my samosa. 

 

Seema Pandey Stall                                

                                                                                                                                                                                                          The vacant bench

                                 

 Sitting on the bench, nibbling on my samosa my gaze suddenly went to some faded letters stamped on the metal casing that covered the distal end of the buffers that guarded the end of the metal rails of platform One of Churchgate station. On a closer look I could make out indistinctly the words Rapier and Ransomes and a faded date that appeared to be 1958. These were the buffers that were encased in hard concrete to withstand and hold back any train that may inadvertently overshoot its parking place on the metal rails.

 

The Buffers

 

 

 

                                                                                  The Buffers sideways                                        

The indistinct writing on the metal plates, Rapier seen on the top line.

                                            1958 seen indistinctly                                                                               

One such incident did occur on Sunday 28^th of June 2015 when a train coming into platform Three did not stop but hit the buffers and the first coach got lifted up into the air by several feet having encountered the hydraulic buffers.

 

 

I have passed these buffers on many occasions but never noticed them in particular, however sitting on the bench facing them as I savoured my samosa I noticed them for the first time and the faded writing piqued my curiosity and interest and it was then that in a jiffy Mr Google provided me with interesting details of the buffers and their manufacturer, to wit, the engineering firm of Ransomes and Rapier of Ipswich, county Suffolk England.

Ransomes and Rapier was a major British engineering firm that in addition to manufacturing heavy machinery like cranes and wheat threshers and steel bridges had a division that was dedicated to railway equipment that manufactured Locomotives and hydraulic buffers like the ones installed at Churchgate station. They were in operation for over a century from 1869 to 1987. Ransomes and Rapier supplied railway equipment including hydraulic buffer stops all over the world including Argentina, India, China amongst other places.

A Buffer stop is a safety device at the end of a railway track designed to prevent trains from overshooting their parking areas and are typically placed at the end of the line at train terminals. Hydraulic buffer stops were an important safety development capable of handling higher impact speeds than the then available rigid buffers. They were first described in 1886 but were available for commercial use by 1907.

Buffers work as shock absorbers to prevent damage to rolling stock and prevent injury to passengers. The buffer stop frame is equipped with gas which on impact compresses, converting the kinetic energy of the runaway train into thermal energy that can be harmlessly dissipated. After impact the gas pressure allows for automatic reset.

The buffers in Churchgate station are marked 1958. On Wikipedia there is a clear picture of a similar buffer stop marked 1927, installed in a station in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

For me a vacant bench, samosa in hand and leisure time led to a discovery of an intriguing object that had escaped my notice and a peek into English engineering history.

 

# Nooks and Crannies of Mumbai.