Talk:Traction engine/Merge discussions

message: Here in the UK a 'Steam Tractor' is a type of traction engine used purely for road haulage, usally around the 4-7 ton area, whereas in the US it appears to be a more general term?
I doubt that steam tractor deserves its own article; There are not all that many of them preserved, and the industrial engines aren't all that different to the farm engines AFAIK. The highly-decorated carnival engines were a different animal certainly! 
The material now in steam tractor is not all encyclopedic, that which is could easily be merged into this article. Andrewa 17:16, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: By all means, merge them.  But I'd have a slight preference for putting them in the steam tractor article rather than here.  Do you think steam tractor is not encyclopedic because it has a North American slant rather than the British slant here?   That may also be relevant to the choice of name, and merging the two perspectives would be good. Wasn't the term traction engine also applied to some that were not operated by steam but rather by internal combustion engines?  BTW, several of the preserved steam tractors are run every year at the threshing show in my home town.  Gene Nygaard 19:08, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Merge what can be taken from steam tractor into this article which is more encyclopedic. Steam tractor starts ok but hen disappears into an text that belongs under threshing machine. If you took that out there would be little left. I also note in passing that steam tractor is the younger article and the initiator shoujld have checked for existing content first. GraemeLeggett 19:35, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Setting aside the encyclopic issue, isn't "steam tractor" the American term for what the British call a "traction engine"?  If this is the case, they should be merged, but some way of finding the content with either "traction engine" or "steam tractor" as the search phrase should exist.  Otherwise, the subject could be balkanized into one article for American engines and the other for British.  As to how many are preserved, I take issue the the statement that there aren't many  preserved.  I've seen at least 15 personally and up close.  Finally, I can provide a good quality GNU/public domain image of one if anyone would like to add it to the article. Grumpyoldgeek 06:18, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There must be hundreds preserved all over the world - there are even a few in Finland. I too have photos I could upload, e.g. of a Peerless. --Janke | Talk 08:43, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

text: There are certainly hundreds if not thousands of these preserved. Here in the midwest USA we have festivals and exhibitions on a regular basis. I guess I have no problem with merging the pages if there is still a pointer from steam tractor (which is what we call them in the USA) and an explanation of the distinct geographic terms in the article. BenFranske 07:54, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I support the merger.  'steam tractor' in the US is more or less synonymous with 'traction engine' in the UK, and the machines even look a lot alike.  The markets were effectively separated at the time, of course. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 01:21, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Another thought - it seems from some others' comments that perhaps in the UK "Steam tractor" means a specific type of traction engine, thus the comment about 'few preserved'. Am I right? —Matthew Brown (T:C) 02:50, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the Steam-up website "steam tractor" is a sub-grouping. GraemeLeggett 09:25, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Early Discussions

message: Keep:  I was just thinking about merging some of the information of steam tricycle.--CylePat 14:43, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: mind you, the article on steam tractor is prety anemic.  --CylePat 15:18, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Keep what? I am less sure about merging the steam tricycle. I have seen what must be classified as a steam tricycle driving down the road. Essentially a three wheel open car, small steam engine, two back wheels and tiller control to steer single front wheel. Open top. This might not fit well with the traction engines as it was a very different construction.  But then again, if there is not much material, it might become a separate section. I would suggest merging the three traction engine articles first and then see what we have got. Sandpiper 11:23, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

text: steam tricycle is essentially a threewheeler steam powered car, and therefore if anything realates to automobiles not commercial vehicles such as traction engines. GraemeLeggett 12:16, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: well, I wouldn't have said so. the distinction I see, and I think the general reader would see, is that they are powered by steam instead of internal combustion. There is a lesser distinction that traction engines are big and chunky, whereas the steam cars are much smaller. steam tricycles and steam rollers are both subsets of steam vehicles. Sandpiper 21:42, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NO Merger please. 

message: Just came across these articles and had a look at them. I would favour merging Traction engine and steam tractor, but I would also favour merging Steam roller. There is already a completely separate article road roller for modern road rolling machines. I think the specifically steam powered ones are a variant of the traction engine and should be included under that heading, with sections as appropriate. The main difference is that it has large roller wheels instead of smaller road wheels. It might be that in the future an expert could write a long article on how these things work, but I don't see that separate articles are useful right now. Incidentally, I think i saw a report that there are around 2000 such machines still in existence in the UK. Sandpiper 11:04, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, road roller is the Americanism for steamroller. Steamrollers derived from traction engines, but even though they don't use steam power any more the road construction vehicles are still called steamrollers in the UK and the word is still very much in use in a variety of contexts. There is an argument for merging road roller into steamroller, but steamroller shouldn't be coming here. -- Solipsist 12:04, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Steam Rollers are both a subset of Road Rollers and (Steam) Traction Engines. Steam tractors are a subset of (agricultural) tractors and traction engines. Steam Rollers should appear in the Road Roller article as well as Traction Engines. Should the section on steam rollers in either ever get so large then the majority can be sent off to a new article of its own with a summary remaining  on the "parent" article (see "template:main" for examples etc). You will find the words Road Roller on your UK driving license, and the (UK) Road Roller Association refers to "Steam" and "motor" types.GraemeLeggett 12:12, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but steam steamrollers work in exactly the same way as traction engines, and indeed steam tractors. So the main description of such devices (presumably including something about how they work, which I have not seen yet!), should be together in one place. how they work is entirely different to how a modern road roller works. So the road roller article should have a paragraph about steam rollers (and a picture), but should refer readers here as the main article on the subject. Sandpiper 22:38, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge Steam Roller too

message: Having researched this rather more, I am now of the opinion that all three should remain as separate articles.  I have updated Steam tractor to highlight the differences between UK and US steam tractors, as I understand it.
I have been surprised how little Wikipedia coverage is given to the whole field (!) of farming with steam, and traction engines in particular.  Presumably this is due to the limited numbers who are interested in both traction engines and Wikipedia!!
I aim to put this right, as there is almost as much scope for traction engine articles as there is for railway engines...  Each type of Traction Engine should be given its own page in due couse, for now they will remain grouped on the one page.
With this in mind, I will remove the 'merge' tags at the weekend.
EdJogg 01:11, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: New information (NO MERGE!)

message: ====Traction engine vs Steam tractor====
Recent research has shown how these are very different machines.  The current, woefully inadequate, Wikipedia coverage of traction engines and the like needs addressing with more information in the articles concerned.  These articles have been expanded, and their future growth is also planned.  Hence they should remain separate, and the 'merge' banner has been removed.
See Talk:Steam tractor#Articles NOT to be Merged - Reasoning for the full explanation.
EdJogg 13:48, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles NOT to be Merged - Reasoning 

message: Recent research has shown how these are very different machines.  The current, woefully inadequate, Wikipedia coverage of traction engines and the like needs addressing with more information in the articles concerned.  These articles have been expanded, and their future growth is also planned.  Hence they should remain separate, and the 'merge' banner has been removed.
See Talk:Steam tractor#Articles NOT to be Merged - Reasoning for the full explanation.
EdJogg 13:48, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Traction engine]] vs [[Steam tractor]]

message: As outlined above, these are different machines, used for different purposes, even if they were generally constructed in the same way.  Also, the steamroller article needs information added about contemporary road-building that would not belong in traction engine, and, it is hoped that sufficient information will be gathered to allow ploughing engine, road locomotive and steam lorry to be also split off into separate articles before too many months have passed.
Since the merge was suggested, these articles have been expanded considerably, and their future growth is also planned.  Hence they should remain separate, and the 'merge' banner has been removed.
EdJogg 23:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Traction engine]] vs [[Steamroller|Steam roller]]