Ashton marble or slate tablets. An attractive way to display multiple gages on the wall of a boiler room. One of these was on ebay a few years ago. It weighed almost 500 pounds, being a large slab of 1" thick slate, and you had to pick it up. Here's a description from the 1914 catalog. " These tablets, like those on the following pages, are some of the most attractive designs for gages, both as to neatness of appearance and economy of space. They can be furnished in any style of marble or slate desired, and the prices include the necessary acorn nuts and gage screws. Name plates and wall bolts are always extra."
A great story from an old Ashton Valve employee, Fred Casey, who worked the railroads before becoming an employee.
In 1892 Ashton Valve purchased the Boston Steam Gauge company and entered the gauge production market. Here's a bit of information about the gauges Boston Steam Gauge produced.
Hinkley Locomotive Works was a Boston based locomotive manufacturing enterprise that goes back to 1831. Here's an interesting file about the company. Henry Ashton, the founder of Ashton Valve, found his first job there in 1869. https://railroadforums.com/forum/index.php?attachments/hinkley-locomotive-works-pdf.92019/
Interesting gauge and testing equipment article from the 1908 Handbook for the care and operation of Naval Machinery
An interesting sales letter from 1897. It looks like a form letter with the address of the company being approached typed in at a later date
In the 1922 book, "The 20th century guide for Diesel operators", there are a couple of articles involving Ashton Valve products. The link to the entire book is below too. Part 1 https://redirect.viglink.com/?forma...ools, libraries and those interested in Diese
Some day I would like to watch someone actually go through the process of rebuilding a "relief" (safety?) valve. Then testing and adjusting it. Would be rather interesting.
Here's a company that does that type of work. https://sviindustrial.com/safety-valve-repair/ And here's a video of a repair on a relief valve.
We'd maintain ours during week-long maintenance outages at the plants I worked at, with manufacturer's technicians doing the exacting work. These were used on huge multi-story vertical water tube boilers. Upon testing, you'd feel a heavy thump, followed by a deafening roar of escaping steam. With my office nearby, I was glad to know that the valves were properly adjusted!
I guess you would! Must be an incredible amount of power in those boilers. I recently picked up an old Ashton gage, unused and in it's original packaging.
"Proceedings of the Air Brake Assoc". I wonder if there is still any monitoring group such as this one? I am certain if so it was long ago folded into something else.
Here's what I found online. It appears the group is still functioning. http://www.airbrakeassociation.org/