The 50 HP Steam Engine

Four months later, another process finally reached its end.

Inside Hollen's forge, the fifty-horsepower steam engine stood completed.

The machine dominated the workshop like a sleeping beast.

Its boiler stretched across the rear section of the forge, huge and dark, riveted from thick iron plates. The firebox beneath it looked large enough for a man to crawl inside. Heavy pipes ran from the boiler to the cylinder assembly, each joint tightened and sealed with care.

The cylinder itself sat on a reinforced iron frame.

It was the most precise object Hollen's forge had ever produced.

Beside it stood the flywheel.

That massive wheel alone had taken weeks to cast, shape, balance, and mount. It stood taller than two grown men stacked together, its rim thick and heavy enough to store tremendous momentum once moving.

Several workers stood around the machine in silence.