Searching for a combination Tractionengine /Locomotive

[dampfwilli]

Searching for a german friend Informations about a double duty vehicle for driving on road and rail. Are this type of vehicle existent in livesteam. With dieselengines are much to find, but not with steam!

[SZuiderveen]

Willi,

I remember seeing this in the museum in Angels Camp, California twenty years ago. It a steam tractor with flanged wheels added.

Steve Zuiderveen

[gwrdriver]

Willi,
Unfortunately I cannot lay hands on it at this moment but I have a small book, possibly a "Shire" album (UK), which is written and illustrated on nothing but classic British road locomotives & traction engines whose designs were adapted for rail use. There were scores of them.

[srrl5]

Willi,
Unfortunately I cannot lay hands on it at this moment but I have a small book, possibly a "Shire" album (UK), which is written and illustrated on nothing but classic British road locomotives & traction engines whose designs were adapted for rail use. There were scores of them.

gwrdriver,

That sounds interesting, I would like to here more if you find the book.

David

[Dick_Morris]

British road locomotives & traction engines whose designs were adapted for rail use

I've seen a photo of one of these, probably in a Model Engineer many years ago. I wasn't convertable, but was an adaptation of what we would call a traction engine, but I think Harry is right that the U.K. name is road locomotive.

[10 Wheeler Rob]

Traction engines were so slow, worse then letting a little old lady on the freeway. Ha Ha

I sure it was done somewhere, but don't make much since except a quary or some place remote.

[dampfwilli]

I have the Shire Books about teh Traction engines (and others). But its no solution in the books.
Thanks for the answheres.

[gwrdriver]

Dick,
Generally there were four types of British engines, traction engines, road locomotives, showman's engines, and ploughing (plowing) engines. The terms traction engine and road locomotive were generally interchangeable, with road locomotives often being the larger of traction engines, but ploughing engines and showman's engines were different animals in many details. The most recognizable details would be that a ploughing engine would have a long wheelbase and a gear-driven, belly mounted, cable drive unit, and the showman's engine would be large machines, because they doubled as road locomotives, and would be covered with a canopy and have a superstructure mounted electric generator set.

The railway engine/traction engine book is around here somewhere and I'll eventually find it and post pictures.

[Dick_Morris]

Generally there were four types of British engines, traction engines, road locomotives, showman's engines, and ploughing (plowing) engines.

Harry, thanks for the clarification. When in England from 1976 though 1979 I saw all four at the shows and museums. At one show they demonstrated a pair of ploughing engines operating on either side of a field, about a quarter mile apart, with the plow shuttling between them. Quite an operation! I'd forgotten the terminology.

[JimBaker]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the 'flanges' on the Engine in the Picture Postcard are not railroad flanges.
They are just bands for possibly keeping the lead wheels in line.
Also the gauge of the front and rear wheels are way...way different.

-- Jim Baker

[chameleonrob]

you may be right, ploughing engines often had a ring on the wheels for running on the road, it sank when on a field giving them the full tire width, although there do seem to be rails under the wheels.

rob

[smagovic]

I disgree with the tracks being way different. If you measure it, they are the same. Both the front and rear wheels are projecting at the same angle, and therefore the masurements with a ruler are fairly accurate. Also, the idea of having wide wheels on a tractor is to make the tractor float on top of the surface. By putting a ridge on the wheels (front and rear) the tractor would just tear up the road. When in the field, there is no need to put narrow flanges on the wheels for tracking, the tractor sinks more or less anyhow, many times more than one would wish. Why to try to make it worse. Also, those flanges would not last long after running over many stones in the road. To me they definitely look like a RR flanges. Also, if the flanges would be there for the purpose you state, why would they put them on the inside edge of the wheel rather than on the outside? Take care. Vic