Tank Boneyard

Location: Murrayville, Victoria

I found these stripped and dismantled tanks on the side of the road in Murrayville, Victoria.  Tank treads and parts lay everywhere as well as old cars, heavy machinery, and even some wooden horse-drawn wagons.  The last picture is of the wooden body of an old bus.







The Russians called this tank "coffin for seven brothers" due to its unfortunate tendency to spall its rivets when hit.

Visit it!

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Backyard Boiler

Location: Berkeley, CA

There's only one cure-all for your anus... Anusol!

Improvised Rail of Negros Occidental

Location: Negros Occidental, Philippines

When a railway company ceases to run trains on a line, oftentimes some local will make money off of the tracks by making their own train. The finest of these are made of buses, and the most humble stretch the limits of the word "train". From Railroads and Ships of the Philippines come these pictures of various modes of improvised public transit:

You can almost see the 60's vision of the future hidden somewhere in these trolley cars.


The remains of a bus-to-rail conversion.



Horse drawn service in Victorias:





Pasay.

Panay Island... is this one powered Flinstones-style?

This guy's got endless locomotive graveyard pictures. The site is entirely in Japanese but it's very pithy!





Negros Occidental even has an Iron Dinosaurs tour of rotting locomotives.

Visit it!


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Galloping Geese!

As rail lines become less profitable, the railroad company must pull service on otherwise functional rail. Sometimes, an interim service is established using a short train or trolley, and a road vehicle is modified to serve that purpose. They delivered mail, carried passengers, were used by inspection crews, or served as the payroll vehicle.

The most famous example is probably the Rio Grande Southern Railway's "Galloping Goose":

6-06-1913 RGS Motor #1 derails and rolls into the Dolores River. Superintendent W.D. Lee and his wife jumped before it hit the water, but Roadmaster Gilland didn't and was seriously hurt. Mrs. Lee refused to ride in the car after this mishap, saying it "bounced too much".


The second Goose #1 was built in 1931, based on a Buick Master Six sedan, converted to rail operation and fitted with an open platform on the rear to carry mail.

Professor Fzz writes:

What wonderful hackery!

Back in the early 90's, I traveled around Ecuador (amongst other places).  These Geese remind me of the "trains" I rode there, on the line from Ibarra down to the northern coast at San Lorenzo.  What really amused me was seeing the driver sitting at the steering wheel, and steering furiously every time we came to a bend.  It took me a while to realize that the old bus steering wheel had been reconnected to activate the brakes.  Truly ingenious. 

These are not quite as steampunk as the Geese, but pretty wacky nonetheless.




Doesn't look like the highest quality engineering, considering the line climbs over 10,000 feet, but it seemed to do the job.

Inspector Car, Jamestown CA

An inspection car on display at Jamestown, Ca. I also spotted this bobbed caboose:

I found this beautiful example in the Adelaide Rail Museum.  Check out the safari windows and bush-rail luggage racks on the fenders:



Underneath you can see its built-in turntable:


There was a picture of a nice Dodge one:


And here you can see the turntable in operation:


Ten Steampunk points to whoever can tell me why they didn't just drive the thing home backwards.

Dark Roasted Blend has a wonderful collection of road-rail vehicles:

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2007/10/cool-road-rail-vehicles.html

Including these rather delectable examples:











This family takes trips around Canada in this 1957 Chieftan.  The views are nice.

I encourage you to visit these two fine sites on rail cars:

The RGS Galloping Geese

Railcars on the Little River RR

1949 Ford F-6 Steam Conversion

Location: Mordo, South Dakota

I found this via Kinetic Steamworks. It's a 1949 Ford converted to steam. What's interesting about it is the elegance with which it's done- basically replacing the pistons in the V8 with steam pistons, but preserving the crankshaft so you can still use the original gearbox. The Neverwas Haul guys were working on converting an old Mercedes to steam for the Escape From Berkeley alternative-fuels race, and may just buy this one. It's up for auction on ebay as of the time of this posting, however, I've reposted the pictures here because they'll be gone once the auction's over!



Here's the text from the auction:

This 1949 Ford F-6 2 ton truck that has been converted to steam power by some as of now unknown steam enthusiast many years ago.

As a mechanical engineer, I was quite surprised and fascinated with this conversion the first time I saw it several years ago. This truck is basically a complete and original Ford F-6 with an original type of Ford flat head V8 engine that someone removed the hood and radiator from. They also removed the V8 engine cylinder heads, pistons, connecting rods, camshaft, valve lifters and valves and left the original Ford crankshaft in place. They then bolted an adapter plate to the top of each cylinder bank. To each adapter plate is bolted a medium sized vertical single cylinder double acting steam engine. These engines appear to be identical and were made by the E. H. Wachs Company of Chicago, Illinois most likely about eighty to a hundred years ago. Each steam engine has a large roller chain sprocket on the crankshaft with a chain running down to a corresponding sprocket on the front of the Ford V8 engine.

The original Ford V8 engine basically acts as a mount for the 2 steam engines and a means of adapting the power from the 2 steam engines to the stock Ford clutch, 4 speed transmission and the rest of the drive train of the truck. The man who did this conversion evidently realized that a fire tube boiler anywhere large enough to supply both engines would be quite heavy and bulky and I suspect that is likely why he started with a truck that was large enough to haul the pair of engines, the boiler, the boiler feed water pump, the water tanks, the fuel tank and all of the rest of the plumbing, hardware and controls necessary to make this beast run and move. I saw a Model T Ford that someone made a very feeble attempt to convert to steam power several years ago and this truck is light years ahead of that Model T in terms of engineering and design.

The vertical fire tube boiler mounted near the center of the truck bed was built by the Eclipse Fuel Engineering Company wherever they were located about 80 to 100 years ago. I am not an expert when it comes to steam power so I don't have much more to say about this boiler. I have no idea as to what condition it is in and when it was last inspected by any state boiler inspector. It appears that the original grates have been removed and replaced with a steel plate with a pair of burners installed in the plate. There is a removable smoke stack about 10" in diameter by about 4' long laying on the back of the truck to the right of the boiler.

I am not sure what this truck used for fuel but am guessing that it may have been propane judging from the look of the pair of burners. There is no obviously visible propane tank that I noticed. Perhaps one is hidden inside one of the three 55 gallon barrels that is located near the front of the bed. There is no conventional truck bed on this truck. It is more like a frame work made of steel I-beams to hold the boiler, feed water pump and three 55 gallon barrels.

There is a pair of steel tube coils mounted between the pair of burners at the bottom of the boiler that may have been used as feed water heaters but I am not sure. Perhaps two of the three 55 gallon barrels hold water to supply the boiler. A relatively huge (for this application) steam powered boiler feed water pump is mounted to the left side of the bed. The inside of the cab appears to be quite stock with the exception of a steam pressure gauge and what appears to be some kind of hand operated pump on the right side of the floor of the cab. If this is not a feed water pump of some kind, perhaps it is for injecting steam cylinder oil into the steam going to the engines.

My friend that owns this truck has never had it running or ever seen it run. The pair of double acting engines are geared about 1 to 1 with the Ford V8 crankshaft and would produce 4 power pulses per revolution of the Ford V8 crankshaft. This would be the same number of power pulses per revolution of the typical gasoline powered V8 engine so I suspect this truck would run very smoothly. I don't know what it would weight but am guessing it's dry weight might be around 12,000 pounds or so.






This vehicle is in the South Dakota Auto Museum- visit it!


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Here's a link to the auction.

Steam Flight

Here are a few selections from the wonderful book Victorian Inventions:

Dr W.O. Ayers of New Haven in the United States of America has designed a new flying machine so Utopian in conception that serious doubts may well be entertained with regard to its feasibility. Be that as it may, the fact that such a serious publication as the Scientific American has devoted space to this machine in its columns is reason enough for our decision not to deprive our readers of a short discussion of this project.

The propulsive power is derived from compressed air transported in two cylindrical vessels; this air also fills the hollow tubes in the framework of the machine. Compressed to a pressure of 200 atmospheres, the quantity of air conveyed is adequate to drive the machine for several hours.

The Scientific American gives further details: 'It is possible that the propellors may require to be made larger, but providing the principle is maintained, we consider that a machine such as this can do successfully what is expected of it. In order to afford support for two systems of propellers, one horizontal and one vertical, a table-like frame is required. The dimensions of this are 3 feet by 4 feet while it is supported by four legs 4 feet in height. Quarter-inch-thick steel gives the tubing all the strength needed. The rider, or aeronaut, sits upon a saddle like that of a bicycle, suspended from the top of the frame by steel wires.

The four horizontal propellors serve to give the craft sufficient lifting-power. They are driven not only by the compressed air but also by the lower limbs of the rider thrusting on pedals of the type employed in bicycles. Attached to each cylinder of compressed air is a driving engine in which a paddle-wheel is brought into rotating motion by the flow of air. With his left hand the rider regulates the valve for the air-supply, while with his right arm he drives the vertically revolving propellor which thrusts the machine forward.

Hmm, an air-air-hog. I won't be signing up for a test ride.

From the same page, an airship with a very smoky traditional-looking steam engine:

Steampunk Vehicles

I found this beast in the National Museum of Australia:



This is a 4x4 modified to catch buffalo.  Buffalo were introduced into Australia in the 1820s but by the 1960s had become a pesky invasive species that also spread bovine diseases to the livestock.  So they began to offer a bounty, and some tough ole blokes made this truck to catch them live.  In order to do so, they had to make the truck buffalo-proof as well.  This picture is from here:

http://www.nma.gov.au/collections/slideshow_2_2.html#slideTop

...and if you have quicktime you can see a movie of it in action here:

http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/now_showing/old_new_land/encountering_australia/

Visit it!


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A modified M62 on the grounds of VNIKTI (Institute for diesel locomotives) in Kolomna, Moscow:



From the Much Marcle steam rally... check out the vehicle in the background!






Runways need to be cleared of ice, and so jet engines need to be mounted on trucks...