Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #141571 in Books
• Published on: 2006-07-06
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

The Good Book Guide, 1st July 2003
A loving testimony to a seemingly lost era of beautiful machines and elegant engineering

Synopsis
Britain's favourite steeplejack and industrial enthusiastic, the late Fred Dibnah, takes us back to the 18th century when the invention of the steam engine gave an enormous impetus to the development of machinery of all types. He reveals how the steam engine provided the first practical means of generating power from heat to augment the old sources of power (from muscle, wind and water) and provided the main source of power for the Industrial Revolution. In "Fred Dibnah's Age of Steam Fred: shares his passion for steam and meets some of the characters who devote their lives to finding, preserving and restoring steam locomotives, traction engines and stationary engines, mill workings and pumps. Combined with this will be the stories of central figures of the time, including James Watts - inventor of the steam engine - and Richard Trevithick who played a key role in the expansion of industrial Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries.

About the Author
Fred Dibnah has always been a man out of his own time. Growing up as a youth in the 1940s in Bolton, Lancashire, he lived near the railway lines and there began a lifelong fascination with steam locomotives. Fred's love for all things steam is also a practical one; for the last 27 years, he has been renovating a steam boiler and engine in his back garden and it is now nearly complete. As Fred grew up, despite parental disapproval, he pursued his first goal of becoming a steeplejack and it was his outstanding skill in his chosen profession that led to his first appearance on television.