The Steampunk World

Being the continued explorations of a living steampunk.

The steampunk world is all around us, lying just out of sight, in a continuous thread of steampunk builders and culture that extends from the Victorian era to the present. You'll find no science fiction here: This is real life steampunk.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Homebuilt Traction engine


Location: Cullman, AL


It's pretty clear what's happened here: An enterprising farmer, sometime around 1930-1950, has gotten ahold of a working boiler from a stationary or portable engine, and built his own chassis and cab for it. Unfortunately the drivetrain was removed so I couldn't document how it was motivated. The steering linkage was intact enough that I believe this was a functioning tractor. However the small rear wheels lead me to believe that the drivetrain was underbuilt (possibly using truck parts and not steam engine parts) and thus it was only used to pull small loads or to move the flatbelt power to where it was needed.

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