beam engine

English

Noun

beam engine (plural beam engines)

1. A kind of steam engine where a pivoted overhead beam is used to apply the force from a vertical piston to a vertical connecting rod.
   • 1951 July, W. R. Watson, “An Edge Hill Beam Engine”, in Railway Magazine, page 489:

     The locomotives of the day had insufficient power to work the trains up the gradient, and it was decided to install beam type steam engines on the platform at Edge Hill Station, to haul them on an endless hempen rope through the tunnel, 2,230 yd. long. The beam engines were placed in service in 1836, and the working of the incline by ropes continued until 1870.