Traction Engines (and the like...)

[Giles]

Some of the finest road transport......

 

[alastairq]

Thanks for that, Giles.

It would be an interesting ride of they were going the other way, methinks?

Just a bit down the coast from St Agnes Head, I see?
More to the point, that's where the Blue Hills Mine area lies.....
The 'path' and track up the cliffs from Blue Hills is the famous[in certain circles] old trials section, ''Blue Hill's [1 & 2]...''....which is owned outright by the Motorcycling Club [MCC]..Britain's oldest [or maybe, second oldest, there is some ''dispute'' as to whether the MAC [Midlands Automobile Club] started up a few weeks earlier?]...motor sporting club..[dated 1901!!]
A hill my old Skoda never failed to conquer....non-stop!

 

[Osgood]

The green E&N Ritchie Foden 5th wheel tractor unit is most unusual.
And how many Taskers 4 wheel army trailers did you spot?

 

[Dave F.]

My god that takes me right back to my teens, second man on an Aveling 12 ton roller and crew on a Ruston & Hornsby traction engine and threshing outfit. The old fella who had that could take the whole outfit of the mill, baler and living van through a farm gate by just putting a wiggle in the train and it would all follow through, I wish we had mobile phone cameras then to record it. Did do some sound recordings of other engines I was involved in working hard up the hills. Every year we ran a big Fowler from Ardrossan to Blantyre for the rally season around Central Scotland, about 40 miles iirc.
I must go and find the photos I have of those long ago days, late 60s early 70s

Dave Frk.
Hooray I found one, a young me on the engine at Hamilton rally near Glasgow.

 

[John Palmer]

My connection with steam on the road started around 1972 as steersman on a Wallis and Steevens 10 ton 'Advance' roller. Subsequently I was regular crew on McLaren 547 "The Mac"; also helping out on occcasion with a 14 ton Aveling roller. Roaded 'The Mac' from Somerset to Tarrant Hinton on a couple of occasions: a run of around 70 miles requiring a mid-course overnight break, and plenty of other experience of longish road runs. Shots of the 'The Mac' to be seen at Pictures of McLaren General Purpose Engine, 547 "The Mac", BD 5448 - Steam Scenes, including one of us ascending Engine Hill in 2005 with me at my usual place at the wheel.

I guess the days I've spent taking steam engines along country roads must be the happiest of my life.

 

[Tim Watson]

Thanks for that Giles. We were actually down at Stithians for the WESES rally this year with my SRL(S), but did not do the Engine Hill run as Frederick is not yet run in from his engine rebuild this year. I have done the hill twice before, with my 4” scale engines, so that box has been ticked. You were actually standing close to a friend of mine.




Finally, Frederick on the 120 mile road run to the GDSF in 2018.

Tim

 

[PhilH]

I turned up at Gilfach Ddu, Llanberis, as usual on a Sunday to drive the loco on the Llanberis Lake Railway and on that particular day there was a Fete or Gala in the car park with various attractions and stalls, lots of people about and also a steam roller. I was asked would I like to drive the steam roller instead of the loco, obviously the answer was yes. With that the owner gave me a bit of instruction, then left me to it and disappeared on the train !
I was giving kids rides and driving it through a fairly busy area all afternoon but fortunately I didn't manage to roll over anybody. During a quiet moment I took it down the access road to the quarry entrance and briefly considered taking it down to the main road and through Llanberis, but thought better of it.

​

(Photo by V.J.Bradley)

 

[simond]

Phil,

Am I right in thinking that there’s no rocking bearing for the front roller?

I can’t say I’ve really studied road roller design, but that must put some significant loads on the headstock bearing. I guess it’s built for it!

Is that typical?
Simon

 

[John Palmer]

Phil,

Am I right in thinking that there’s no rocking bearing for the front roller?

I can’t say I’ve really studied road roller design, but that must put some significant loads on the headstock bearing. I guess it’s built for it!

Is that typical?
Simon

The front rolls and fork assembly needs to be able take up a different angle to the rest of the engine, so, one way or the other, the design must allow for such a rocking movement. The nature of the arrangement varies: where you have a cast steering quadrant (as on the Wallis 'Advance' design) the forks are mounted on a longitudinal pivot at their midpoint. On the pictured Aveling, the chain-driven steering permits a different arrangement in which both the forks and the pintle rock.

Incidentally, you can see that on RK8041 the offside end of the steering chain has ridden up to sit on top of its guide quadrant. That needs to be attended to, as otherwise the chain will be working against the edge of the roll. When the engine is reversed, the chain may tend to be drawn into the gap between the edge of the roll and the quadrant.

 

[simond]

Thanks John, that makes sense. if I’ve understood correctly, the pintle bearing “headstock” allows roll & yaw but not pitch of the fork and roller assembly. Looking again at the picture, there appears to be a slight negative camber where the casting sits on top of the forks. I imagine the hole at the bottom of the casting is slightly elongated, and somewhat more so at the top to form a slot.

I had noted the chain had ridden up, and assumed it would drop back,onto its “shelf” next time the engine was turned to the right.

thanks again
Simon

 

[daifly]

Which begs the question from this non-engineer - why isn't the anchor at the rear of the horizontal guide?
Dave

 

[simond]

Because it would limit the angle through which the front “bogie” could turn.

Having circular guides keeps the chain tension pretty constant for any angle of turn, and attaching the chain at the front means that the bogie turns more before the shorter chain ceases to be tangential to the guides.

 

[daifly]

I thought there must be an answer - thanks Simon!

Dave

 

[PhilH]

I've just scanned some slides which I took 50 years ago, and probably not looked at since ! I think they're relevant to this topic and may be of interest.

In the 1970s several steam rallies were held at the former RAF/USAF Air Base at Burtonwood near Warrington, and the photos were taken there in 1974.

nearest row right to left - Burrell 8hp No.3698 of 1915; Aveling & Porter 10 ton roller No.5199 of 1903 and Fowler 12 ton roller No.7446 of 1895




Clayton & Shuttleworth 7hp single cylinder No.46059 of 1913




Burrell 8hp compound No.3093 of 1909




Burrell 8hp compound No.3444 of 1913




Fowler 18hp Class BB1 compound ploughing engine No.15148 of 1918




Ransomes, Simms & Jeffries 6hp compound No.35247 of 1920 and Sentinel S4 No.8942 of 1934​

tbc

 

[PhilH]

Burrell 5hp compound No.4037 of 1926




Burrell 5hp compound No.3398 of 1912




Marshall 8 ton compound roller No.77201 of 1924




Fowler 12 ton single cylinder roller No.7446 of 1895




Foden 6 ton wagon No.11892 of 1925
​

tbc

 

[PhilH]

Ruston Proctor 5hp single cylinder No.46596 of 1913




Garrett 5 ton 4hp compound No.30959 of 1912




Garrett 8 ton 4hp compound roller No.33636 of 1919




Leyland Cub lorry 1936

​

 

[Giles]

The Sentinal, half a page up, is nice - I once fired one London to Brighton and back, which was fun! It went well! Very good acceleration, not quite matched with the brakes. The owner/driver caught up with another lorry too far by a couple of inches and put a ding in the front sheet....

 

[Dave F.]

Found a picture of us ready for the off with the big Fowler heading back to Ardrossan, two crews for the 40+ mile trip and about eight hours with stops for lunch etc.
L-R, Dr David Young - owner of a Marshall roller, Me, Fowler owner Tom Donaldson, Harry Winder- owner of the Aveling I usually crewed, Robert Kirkpatrick - owner of a 10T Fowler roller and young son with Dog.
A rolling restoration was in progress and you could still see the original chocolate paintwork on the bunker. The following year the engine had a traditional roof made by us. The owner was an engineer with ICI and the Fowler was in near perfect mechanical condition.

My god that takes me right back to my teens, second man on an Aveling 12 ton roller and crew on a Ruston & Hornsby traction engine and threshing outfit. The old fella who had that could take the whole outfit of the mill, baler and living van through a farm gate by just putting a wiggle in the train and it would all follow through, I wish we had mobile phone cameras then to record it. Did do some sound recordings of other engines I was involved in working hard up the hills. Every year we ran a big Fowler from Ardrossan to Blantyre for the rally season around Central Scotland, about 40 miles iirc.
I must go and find the photos I have of those long ago days, late 60s early 70s

Dave Frk.
Hooray I found one, a young me on the engine at Hamilton rally near Glasgow.
View attachment 246272

 

[RichardG]

I wonder, is there a "beginners guide to traction engines" to be had? I am thinking of a book rather than a web site. There are all these beautiful photographs but I want to understand what I am looking at.

For example, why are engines a mix of left- and right-hand drive? If an engine had room to carry only one person, could they manage the engine alone or did a mate travel separately? How small could an engine be (a working engine not a model)? Why were some flywheels spoked and some solid?

I don't want to bombard WT with questions but I want to know more and I wonder where to start looking.


I have just bought this 1:50 Corgi Garrett with a view to reworking it to look more realistic. I want to visit The Long Shop in Leiston soon and, well, I'd like to go along feeling prepared.

 

[simond]

I don’t know if you need to subscribe but back numbers of Model Engineer would give some insights - they usually provide some history info with each project.