A lavishly illustrated celebration of traction engines. Featuring showman’s engines, heavy haulage engines, steam lorries, tractors and road rollers.
One of two Foden 5 Ton steam lorries which L&NWR used between Holywell Station on the Chester - Holyhead main-line and Holywell town
HDR experiment. I have no idea what I am doing. Got to start somewhere.
Walters Vehicles
Engines, just engines, surely not, those snorting, steaming leviathans must be alive. They certainly have character - huffing and puffing their way around Vintage Steam shows. They even smell alive with the steam, coal and grease. Today we see them immaculately preserved and maintained but in the latter half of the nineteenth century Traction Engines, grimy and muddy, were essential to farming and local industry throughout the UK. The Traction Engine came into being around 1850 with Ransomes of Ipswich being credited with producing the first self-moving agricultural engine and although there was development, the form of the machine did not change right up till their demise around 1930. There are other rival claimants to being first: Aveling and Porter for example. The 1850's and 1860's saw a rapid expansion in production which continued throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century with firmssuch as Burrell,Allchin, Clayton & Shuttleworth, Fowler, Garrett and Ruston being the major names we know today.
Sentinels could chugga-chug-chug their way up to 60 mph, but speed wasn't enough to overcome the inconvenience of steam power.
Walters Vehicles
This 1913 registered Foden 5 Ton overtype steam lorry was used by the Main Roads Department of Flintshire County Council. Despite the fact that Flintshire CC were issuing their own 'DM nnnn' vehicle registration series at that time, Fodens would register vehicles before they left their Sandbach works for delivery and thus the single 'M' Cheshire registration mark The photo was loaned to me by an old friend and perhaps not surprising considering its age. it was in quite a crumpled state, my thanks to my long time good friend and fellow flickerite Marty's White Suit for his sterling work in restoring the picture.
They were big and robust, but slow, with limited manoeuvrability. Nevertheless, they revolutionised agriculture. Perry Rice muses about traction engines. Traction engines were a part of everyday li…
Engines, just engines, surely not, those snorting, steaming leviathans must be alive. They certainly have character - huffing and puffing their way around Vintage Steam shows. They even smell alive with the steam, coal and grease. Today we see them immaculately preserved and maintained but in the latter half of the nineteenth century Traction Engines, grimy and muddy, were essential to farming and local industry throughout the UK. The Traction Engine came into being around 1850 with Ransomes of Ipswich being credited with producing the first self-moving agricultural engine and although there was development, the form of the machine did not change right up till their demise around 1930. There are other rival claimants to being first: Aveling and Porter for example. The 1850's and 1860's saw a rapid expansion in production which continued throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century with firmssuch as Burrell,Allchin, Clayton & Shuttleworth, Fowler, Garrett and Ruston being the major names we know today.
Alley & MacLellan of Polmadie built marine engines,air compressors and ship machinery,in 1905 they built their first steam wagon.They traded under the Sentinel brand so the wagon was called a Sentinel.This example is build No 183. Mr David Gibson its driver was the first on steam wagons with the Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society. photo by Alley & MacLellan.
