winding engine

plural winding engines

1. A stationary engine used to control a cable, for example to power a mining hoist at a pit head.

   1 more example

   Now its only duty is to let down the coal required by the pumping plant at the bottom and to draw up the empties, which it does by means of a wire rope attached to a large drum driven by the original winding engine, but originally the engine pulled up the incline the coal from the pit at the bottom, [...].

   1939 July, Charles E. Lee, “Swannington: One-Time Railway Centre”, in Railway Magazine, page 3