page_title: Traction engine
section_title: Steamroller
hierarchical_section_title: Traction engine / Types and usage / Steamroller
caption_attribution_description: English: Steam roller build by Kemna, in front of the Kemna Office building in Pinneberg, SH, Germany
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 All types of traction engines have now been superseded in commercial use.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: Related to the steam traction engine, the steam roller was used for road building and flattening ground. Typically designed with a single heavy roller (in practice, usually a pair of adjacent rollers) replacing the front wheels and axle, and smooth rear wheels without strakes.
  Some traction engines were designed to be convertible: the same basic machine could be fitted with either standard ('treaded' or tyred) road wheels, or else smooth rolls – the changeover between the two being achieved in less than half a day.
caption: A early Kemna steamroller
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