You see all sorts of things in this job, but this is one of the
most frightening things I have ever seen attached to a (large, 7 1/4 inch narrow
gauge) boiler.
A soft-soldered seat warmer - copper recovered from a
flattened-out hot water cylinder had been soft-soldered into a sandwich with a
grand total of six stays, covered in a bit of "leathercloth" type
material, plumbed into the fountain with three feet of copper pipe and stuck in
the back of the cab. When you turned the tap on there was 100psi on about 250
square inches (and yes, you're quite right, that's a tad over eleven tons just
waiting to crush you onto a hot backhead - bit like lying face down on the Aga
with an elephant sitting on you).
