The Pump House, Starcross

11/10/08

The Italianate pumping engine house in Starcross is the best surviving building from Brunel's unsuccessful Atmospheric Railway.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Atmospheric South Devon Railway ran between Exeter and Newton Abbot, most of it on the coast. The railway used air pressure to provide power for propulsion. A pneumatic tube was laid between the rails, with a piston running in it suspended from the train through a sealable slot in the top of the tube. By means of stationary pumping engines along the route, air was exhausted from the tube leaving a vacuum in advance of the piston, with an arrangement for admitting air to the tube behind the piston so that atmospheric pressure propeled it (and the train to which it is attached) forward. It wasn't very successful, partly because rats ate the leather seals!

It isn't the most handsome of buildings, and is probably best viewed from the Exe estuary, as seen in this photo (which is available for sale in the gallery)