6 Comments Posted by sbfire4

Is it like 1920 or what?

Wow, that is freaking awesome. Just to stand in the room with that thing would be awesome, even made more awesome by the fact that someone hasn't been taking meticulous care of it for the last "who knows how many years." Again, awesome.

Definitely 19teens or after.

It escapes me what all these controls are for. I would love to know. These steam engines are so old and antiquated that they leave you wondering what features they actually had with all these controls. They are pretty awesome in their own right.

You can see in this picture that large rubber treads have been attached. Presumably, to drive it on concrete or blacktop. Normally, they would just have heavy steel wheels with giant steal lugs (also seen in the pictures) that would tear up any concrete or blacktop because of their massive weight.

You're absolutely correct. The flywheel is for large, wide belts that run other machinery such as pumps, and threshers. The more people used them, the more they built wooden cabs over where drivers were. The box that the seat seems to sit on (depending on model) is where they stored wood to fuel the fire box for the boiler. They were very much like small, ground treading steam locomotives. I used to go to a show in Lynden, Washington every year that featured these and other old-school gas powered tractors.