The International Steam Pages


Temples of Steam, Shwebo 2009

This is the fifth part of our 2009 Burmese Odyssey. To read more about our 2009 bash which includes many non-steam items, please see Rob and Yuehong in the Golden Land 2009.


This was our third visit to Shwebo researching the stationary steam engines in the local rice mills. Clearly we expected the law of diminishing returns would apply having found 38 working mills in 2006 and 18 (new) working mills in 2007, I had prepared a 'hit list' of likely candidates and knew there was always a chance that something unexpected might turn up although we were having to travel further and further from town to find it. Please bear in mind that our video record is paramount and that the pictures of working mills below are very much 'grab shots' taken during an intensive schedule.

We cleared one of my target mills on the journey up from Mandalay, a decrepit old Marshall engine. Next morning, at no small expense, we charter another taxi to head north-west some distance from Shwebo. Breakfast at 07.00 is a snatched affair and we load up the car. However, our first two stops are in town. Behind the station, the mill which had housed a standard Tangye in 2007 has been gutted and the contents sold which is not an auspicious start. On the outskirts, however, we find the expected small Ruston poised to start its day's work. Fortunately, parts of the tiny but modern mill are seized up and the belts have to come off so we have more than enough time to set up properly before work starts.

Normally the 'engine man' rakes out the ash but in this case and some others we saw later one of the young girls employed in the mill is helping out. It's a very attractive small scale operation and we stay far longer than we should.

It is to be our last working mill of the day, but there is still plenty of interest to come and we head for Yeyu district. After 10 minutes of potholed tarmac, we turn off along a familiar drainage channel. It's always a moot point as to whether it is less unpleasant to survive continual judders on a 'sealed' road or a smoother ride on the dirt with your dust cloud catching up with you every time you have to slow to cross a bullock cart on the single track 'road'. Anyway, it's an excellent short cut to avoid Kinu and there are compensations in the bird life near the water. There are egrets and herons of all shapes and sizes, the occasional kingfisher, moorhen and what looks like a cormorant and just once this time a small group of cranes flying by. Still, it's nearly 11.00 when we reach Yeyu.

Our first mill has a small "Macdonald" engine, basically this means an engine with 4 bar crossheads mounted on parallel iron/steel bars. It's not working today, but the enthusiastic owner recognises us and tells Han they will start at 08.00 tomorrow. 

That means another (expensive taxi) day here, for it's an absolute delight and by far the smallest engine of this type we have seen remotely serviceable.  The owner also tells Han that there is no point in going south of Depeyin as the three or four potentially active mills there have all finished, but he gives a few leads to other mills south of the town. First, though, it's already lunch time in a roadside tea shop which serves a more than passable fried rice and a bottle of very cold beer.

We have only a few miles on the 'tarmac' before we head off down the dirt again along another drainage channel. We get diverted off through a small village because a bridge is 'broken' before we finally get to our destination. There is some mild communication problem and we circle almost the entire village before we find 'the chimney'. It's a really nice Tangye E type, very old (#2643) but cold. We are offered an 'instant steaming' but since this mill is also working tomorrow, we book ourselves in for an 11.00 viewing. In my enthusiasm I abandon a torch here, but it is safely returned next day.

Back to the drainage channel and on we go to a much bigger place because it has a police station with its name in English and even a small railway station. There are three rice mills here, the first is the only active one but they are using a 'gasifier' as power and their steam engine is only used three or four times a year for their peanut oil mill. It's got a cast Hosain Hamadanee on the 'girder' and a similar plate, also a late Tangye number but the valve gear and general arrangement suggest 'Robey' to me. I look at the archives later to sort this one out it's almost certainly a Tangye, we have seen several engines like this with what are obviously Tangye numbers (#11564 here) but none of their markings.

The second mill is locked and bolted - it hasn't worked for over 6 years following a family dispute.  Before the caretaker lets us in, I peer through the slats, poke the camera through a small gap for a precautionary picture and declare to Yuehong "It's very old!" - it has its valve system mounted over the cylinder, we have seen just two such engines working here and not many more out of use.

Inside is what will be a serious candidate this year's greatest discovery, an engine whose provenance makes it by far the oldest we have ever identified in Burma. It reads "A. & W. Smith, Glasgow, No. 322 1867" - I have a feeling these may have been agents, I'll have to check this when we get home (it's a name I have seen in sugar mill books) but what a treasure..

There is one last mill left between the other two, it's been closed so long the boundary fence has vanished into the scrub and the wooden walls are totally rotten. Inside is a less exciting find, it's Tangye #12356, almost the latest one we have found so far here:

So we are quickly back in the car and it's time to go down the drainage channel in the opposite direction. There are two mills in the first village, one has abandoned steam power and put it up for sale. It's an old 'Cowie Brothers' engine, God knows who actually made it, and there's not even their number on it:

The other mill is surrounded by barbed wire and looks like an army compound but the welcome is as warm as ever. They have a MacDonald engine which will also work "tomorrow" which looks like becoming a busy day:

A bit of a scrape doesn't help hugely because only "Bros & Co. Ltd Engineers" is visible. However, based on experience there is a very good chance that the hidden key words are "Bulloch" and "Rangoon", not that it says very much about the builders as Bullochs were agents too. By now the adrenalin is losing its effect and we shift to battery charging mode for the two hours bounce back to base and an arrival in the dark because to make the most of the anticipated action we shall have to be up by 05.30 for an early breakfast in a tea shop. Even a very cold shower and a very palatable dinner later in Shwebo's Garden of Eden don't revive us, not surprisingly my daily blog expires in mid sentence to be completed later.


I have a well tuned internal alarm clock and as usual an external stimulus is redundant, we have more than enough time for a mug of Java coffee before we rendezvous with Han and our regular driver for breakfast. We are earlier on the road than usual and the drainage channel road is almost deserted, the small squirrels have to scatter quickly. Since yesterday, the dry channel has been flooded which is bad news for the boys who have been using it as a football pitch but good news for the ladies whom we have seen digging wells in the sand for domestic water. At the other end, for the first time we actually see a train heading from Yeyu to Kinu, it's got one of Burma's home made diesel railcars hauling three four-wheeled toy coaches. Given the condition of the parallel road, the infrequent buses and the cheap tickets it is not surprisingly 'heaving' with customers.

Our hosts are still not quite ready, and Yuehong inserts herself in the gap between the belt and the mill proper which makes for a tight squeeze getting out later through the belt with the engine running! Most mills make quite a palaver of starting up but here it's more like flicking a switch and I am almost caught out. Frankly, it may be a lovely engine but it's a pig to record and we have to take it in turns to shoot. Being a gentleman of some kind, I defer to Yuehong who then rewards me by interrupting me mid-clip not once but twice - you can see that the recording light on the video camera is on:

Just when I am getting into the groove, without warning the engine is brought to a halt. Part of the mill needs running repairs of an indeterminate length. I sense that Han and the driver can scent a snack stop but I have "Plan B" and we head for the north side of town where a Tangye-ish engine has always been an occasional performer which has eluded us. Smoke is gushing from the chimney and while it's hardly gold dust, the mill operation is quite attractive.

The ash man comes and goes, just as a solitary cloud passes overhead:

Our first mill still isn't ready to go again so it is time for mid-morning refreshment, tea with a huge pile of fresh fried samosas which I have to guard carefully from someone's attentions. It takes a lot less time to find our Tangye E type than yesterday and the mill is definitely laid out with photography in mind, so the shot is much better than yesterday's effort:

Once again a lady is tending the boiler, her tentative efforts suggest that her husband who also works here has put her up for the job, but I'm not complaining!

Yuehong, Han and the driver are visibly wilting and I have to be dragged away. Just over half an hour later we are at our next scheduled appointment and the assumed Bulloch engine is gently turning over, it looks too big for the job to me so is generously geared down, it's a bit of a shame really as my new toy freezes its motion too well:

At this point we had intended to head back for our last known outstanding mill near Shwebo, but Han brings news that this owner's son has a mill a few miles south. It is working and apparently has a rather unusual engine. He was quite right but this picture doesn't quite give the game away unless you look very carefully:

This one does:

It's the first working 'over-boiler' engine we have seen in Burma, it may once have been a true portable but that is merely conjecture. Certainly many similar engines have been separated into their component parts. It came here some 25 years ago from a small saw mill and everything about it screams 'Marshall' to me. Feast your eyes on a 'real' machine, not a bulled up (but very worthy) preserved item at your local show:

At which point even I am ready to call it a day. But first we are invited into the owner's home for a cup of coffee which turns out to be an early dinner. Afterwards, Yuehong urges Han to keep the driver awake by talking to him and in due course we make it back to base safely after more than 12 hours on the road. It has simply been a fabulous day out with no less than five new working mills (in 2009!)... The budget is totally broken but that it is what such things are made for. I am pleased to say that our enthusiasm has rubbed off on both Han and driver to the extent that there are times when I have to wait for them to finish their own photography with their own digital toys. Yuehong is asleep by 19.00 having skipped dinner, I follow a couple of hours later when I've written this, dinner was two bottles of beer..

Tomorrow is another day, hopefully in fact just a half day starting at 08:00 before we return to Mandalay and some more traditional tourist activities.


In just half a day we can scarcely match yesterday's strike rate. In fact, it looks as if we shall be struggling to fill the time available as the first mill on my hit list is taking a day off after working the last two days - we saw the smoke in passing. We just didn't have the time available and the fact that this example of a Tangye E type is filthy and in a darkened room makes it easier to take the disappointment. Yuehong's flash picture is extremely flattering:

Back in the car we head for a new village some way off the familiar drainage channel which reportedly has two mills we haven't seen yet. The first also worked 'yesterday' and their filthy engine and most of the mill is in pieces. It has a Hosain Hamadanee plate and no doubt it's a Tangye but someone has welded some metal right over where the number should be. That's a sea of oil under the engine...

That leaves just one mill to see and when we arrive there is no smoke and no rice piled up outside. 

Unlike the previous two, this is a really smart operation, the staff are sweeping up from yesterday and I casually remark that it will be just our luck if they have an interesting engine. Of course they do, it's one half of a Foster portable, note the mountings which will have held the original regulator:

"We need to see the boiler" I say to Han as I know that is where the plate may be, which of course it is:

The boiler is still warm, Han needs no encouragement and turns on the charm, although it is quite obvious from the look on the owner's face that Han is pushing at an open door, he quite fancies having his operation recorded for posterity. It's 09.00 and we have less than three hours available. He quickly arranges to 'borrow' some rice to mill, the rest of the staff are called in from their day off and the boiler is lit up. He even goes out of his way to tell us that the rice will arrive in a couple of bullock carts and which direction they will appear from! We now have serious photographic competition from Han and the driver, note that one of the wheels of this ex-portable is still in position as is the one on the other side. The other two larger wheels are also still here although the owner said that the complete portable had already been divided when his father bought it from a small sawmill in Meikthila some 25 years ago (for a more complete but stored Foster portable see our 2007 report).

The rice arrives just before 10.00:

By 10.30, everything is ready, the engine is started and for the next hour the video cameras hardly stop running, there is simply no time to record the mill on stills, this is the one and only shot I took earlier:

But most importantly, this is what the engine looks like working:

It's a fabulous operation and a great way to finish our Shwebo visit. We retire shortly after 11.30, refreshments are waiting for us and it would be very rude to turn them down. Just before 12.00 we jump in the car and head back down the dusty road for the last time to Shwebo. We expected to be on the 14.00 bus to Mandalay but today it is not a certain runner and we have just 15 minutes to pack and get to the bus station for the 13.00 departure. Fortunately we are not quite the last passengers and it leaves a couple of minutes late. Three hours and a bit later we are back in Mandalay where we started this section of our trip, we had hoped for a couple of easy days here but Han's social life requires us to head for the hills earlier than anticipated. But, as they say, that is another story.


The full list of 2009 trip pages is on:

These are the individual (stationary steam) pages from the 2009 trip:

Our earlier explorations are described in pages linked from:


Rob and Yuehong Dickinson

Email: webmaster@internationalsteam.co.uk