Hied we today to this museum, in a series of buildings originally established to house electrical generation for Sydney's tramway system (which is long gone - but that is another story).

One of its most cherished exhibits is the oldest rotative steam engine still existing, build by James Watt and Matthew Boulton's enterprise in 1785. It is truly enormous, and generated a motive power of somewhere between 5 and 10 horsepower (4 to 8 watts).

After a working life of 102 years it has somehow found its way to Sydney. The flywheel alone is around four metres in diameter:



The rocker beam, which connects the piston from the steam cylinder with the flywheel actuator, is made of cast iron, is perhaps 10 metres long and weighs 9 tonnes:



Miniaturisation of heat engines has come a very long way since 1785.

The museum has also been running a photo contest, TRAINSPOTTING, inviting photos in a number of categories of railway images from around the world. The overall winner was David Hill of Midhurst, England, for a photograph taken at a giant coal mine in the north of China:



Other category winners and highly commended shots are here.