FRONTISPIECE 'THE OLD GIRL'

The Crossley Engine, affectionately known to Crowborough staff as 'The Old Girl' was commissioned in
1942 and had its final run on 23 May 1968. It clocked up a staggering 172,000 hours, which, if you
equate this to the life of your car, would mean approximately 3 and half million miles of motoring - on
one engine!

For the technically minded, the engine was a 16 cylinder horizontally opposed vis-à-vis compression
ignition type with a stroke of 28 inches and a bore of 18 and half inches developing 3000 BHP. It was
virtually two half engines with a 17 ton flywheel alternator sandwiched in the center, the output of which
was 2 megawatts at 60 hertz. Its output was at 60 hertz because ASPI I was of course an American
transmitter, but it had the capability of 50 hertz generation by changing the exciter pulley and altering the
engine speed. The whole set covered an area of approximately 700 sq ft.

During its 26 years' service it provided the total power for the Crowborough station, backed up by five
English Electric diesel sets in No.2 Power House.

It was carefully nurtured and maintained during its life by the dedicated mechanical and electrical staff,
many of whom are still with us at Crowborough and have progressed to new skills.

With its massive flywheel rotating between the two blocks of eight cylinders, the kinetic energy was more
than a match for the load changes imposed upon it by the (sometimes) 100% modulation from the ASPI I
transmitter broadcasting at 600 KW.

In its later years the output was down-rated when cracks appeared in the main frame due to subsidence of
the bed at one end, but with careful maintenance the 'old girl' coped quite adequately with most demands
made upon her. This often resulted in irate phone calls between the Power House engineer and ASPI I
Console and some TTOI shift engineers were regarded as the enemy!

There were of course many moments of humour concerning the day to day running of the engine; all the
old staff at Crowborough still remember the Administration Officer (who will of course be nameless) who
regularly took parties of visitors into the Power House on a conducted tour complete with a lecture on the
technicalities of the 'old girl'.

The engine itself had the last laugh because on the last official run it was shut down by the Director of
Communications accompanied by many senior staff of the department and its final gasp coincided with a
failure of the grid due to lightning striking the overhead lines.
We at Crowborough mourned the passing of our old friend when she was finally dismantled and broken
up for scrap But if there are such things as ghosts of the diesel engine variety, then I am sure she smiles
at the present occupants of her former home and at the two Deltic generating sets, and says 'You may
have a better power weight ratio than I had but could you do what I did'.

As a footnote, Fred Kingston, who was in charge of the maintenance of the old engine for many years,
died last Christmas Eve at the ripe old age of 87 years.

RIP two old friends.

Ken (CT) Baker - CED Crowborough