By Bill Kenney

2024 Steam Up – 10/05/2024

On Saturday October 5th my daughter-in-law had a birthday event planned for my son Bryan at 3:00 in the afternoon. That kind of limited the usual Saturday breakfast and destination ride that myself and a couple friends like to do.

I have been a sometimes member and frequent visitor to the New England Wireless and Steam Museum in East Greenwich, RI. If you have never been there you are missing out on one of our local treasures. https://newsm.org/ . Once or twice per year they have a “Steam Up” where they fire up the main boiler and are capable of running EVERYTHING from Corliss engines to model trains.

So after breakfast at Middle of Nowhere, Joey and I decided to drop in for the Steam Up that was taking place that weekend. I had my sidecar and Joey was on Valentina . When we arrived at the gate the elderly gentleman took a look at the sidecar and said I needed to park in the “display” area where visitors with interesting items become part of the event. Joey had never been or even heard of the place and he quickly became fascinated. The Corliss is the last surviving one that still runs on steam (the remaining ones run on compressed air), and I can watch it all day as it’s 16′ flywheel turns at 80 rpm. They also have the last Massie Wireless Station, 1907, that survived. It’s not only the collection of engineering marvels that keep me interested but talking with the members and feeling their passion for keeping this place operational.

The first time I went was to help do some clean up many years ago and I met an elderly gent who happened to be the general caretaker. This man lost his hearing and hearing aides were no use to the type of damage he had to his middle ear. So what is an engineer to do? He designed his own cochlear implant system and found a doctor that did the install which involved some drilling into the skull! The vast amount of knowledge in this group is beyond my capacity to imagine.

After a couple hours there we headed for Wright’s Chicken Farm to spend some time with family and friends celebrating Bryan’s 40th birthday. Life is good; breakfast, motorcycle riding, steam up and more food with friends and family! As usual I forgot to take photos but I know Joey had his camera going so I will leave the graphics up to him.