page_title: Traction engine
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Traction engine / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: americanaunivers15beac (find matches) Title: The Americana&#160;: a universal reference library, comprising the arts and sciences, literature, history, biograhy, geography, commerce, etc., of the world Year: 1903 (1900s) Authors: Beach, Frederick Converse, 1848-1918 Rines, George Edwin, 1860- Scientific American, inc Subjects: Encyclopedias and dictionaries Publisher: New York&#160;: Scientific American compiling dept. Contributing Library: University of California Libraries Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: constructed by Julius Griffiths, of Middlesex, England, in 1821. Be-tween 1833 and 1840 the problem \vas taken up in the United States, and resulted in the build-ing of a successful steam-carriage by J. K.Fisher, in the last-named year; while abroad,from 1840 to 1875, several firms had succeeded in developing a business of considerable extentin the construction of road locomotives forhauling heavy loads, and in building steam roadrollers. A general idea of the machines built about this time may be obtained from the fol-lowing description of a road locomotive builtby Messrs. Avcling and Porter, of London:Weight of engine complete, 5 tons, 4^ cwt.(11,648 pounds!; diameter of steam cylinder,734 inches; stroke of piston, 10 inches; revolu-tion of crank to one of the driving wheels, 17;diameter of driving wheels, 60 inches; breadthof tire, 10 inches; weight of tires, 450 poundseach&#160;; length of boiler shell, 30 inches; thicknessof shell, 7-16 of an inch; thickness of fire-box TRACITOX EXCxIXKS. Text Appearing After Image: 1. A 110 horse power Traction Engine hauling timber the Sierra Nevada Mountains. 2. Traction engine hauling war material for the Nicarauguan government. TRACTS FOR THE TIMES sheets outside, Vi inch: load on driving wheels,4 tons, 10 cut., or I0,ot)0 pounds. 1 he boiler was mounted ujion it, in a manner similar to that of any other portable engine. The driving pinion on the crank-shaft was made so that it could be slipped out of gear, and thus allow the engineto be kept running when the locomotive Was atrest. This enabled it to be used to pump water into the boiler, or to drive as a portable en-gine, by operating a belt on a pulley, 4, i feetin diameter and 5 inches face, which was fitted to act as a fly-wheel. When in use as a portable engine it was regulated by means of a tly ball governor conveniently attached. The enginevalve gear consisted of the standard arrang-ment of three-ported valve and Stephenson linkwith reversing lever so generally used on loco-motives, while the fe Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: A traction engine is a steam-powered tractor used to move heavy loads on roads, plough ground or to provide power at a chosen location. The name derives from the Latin tractus, meaning 'drawn', since the prime function of any traction engine is to draw a load behind it. They are sometimes called road locomotives to distinguish them from railway locomotives – that is, steam engines that run on rails.
  Traction engines tend to be large, robust and powerful, but also heavy, slow, and difficult to manoeuvre. Nevertheless, they revolutionized agriculture and road haulage at a time when the only alternative prime mover was the draught horse.
  They became popular in industrialised countries from around 1850, when the first self-propelled portable steam engines for agricultural use were developed. Production continued well into the early part of the 20th century, when competition from internal combustion engine-powered tractors saw them fall out of favour, although some continued in commercial use in the United Kingdom well into the 1950s and later. All types of traction engines have now been superseded in commercial use.
context_section_description: Limits of technical knowledge and manufacturing technology meant that practicable road vehicles, powered by steam, did not start to appear until the early years of the 19th century.
  The traction engine, in the form recognisable today, was developed from an experiment in 1859 when Thomas Aveling modified a Clayton & Shuttleworth portable engine, which had to be hauled from job to job by horses, into a self-propelled one. This alteration was made by fitting a long driving chain between the crankshaft and the rear axle. Thomas Aveling is regarded as "the father of the traction engine".
  
  Other influences were existing vehicles which were the first to be referred to as traction engines such as the Boydell engines manufactured by various companies and those developed for road haulage by Bray. The first half of the 1860s was a period of great experimentation but by the end of the decade the standard form of the traction engine had evolved and would change little over the next sixty years.
  Until the quality of roads improved there was little demand for faster vehicles and engines were geared accordingly to cope with their use on rough roads and farm tracks.
  Right through to the first decades of the twentieth century, manufacturers continued to seek a solution to realise the economic benefits of direct-pull ploughing and, particularly in North America, this led to the American development of the steam tractor. British companies such as Mann's and Garrett developed potentially viable direct ploughing engines, however market conditions were against them and they failed to gain widespread popularity. These market conditions arose in the wake of the First World War when there was a glut of surplus equipment available as a result of British Government policy. Large numbers of Fowler ploughing engines had been constructed in order to increase the land under tillage during the war and many new light Fordson F tractors had been imported from 1917 onwards.
caption: A 110 horse power Traction Engine hauling timber in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. 2. Traction engine hauling war material for the Nicarauguan government.
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