Many thanks for this vid. I’ve had many a happy hour riding in a trailer behind a steam engine as a young child, it bought back some lovely memories ‘roading’ them to rallies. It’s good to see an engine working hard up & down hills as they were built to do, instead of tootling around a rally ring.
That was some skillfull driving with the double trailers on that hill. Going downhill would scare me, when you think these traction engines have only counter pressure braking on the driven axle and a parking brake existing of a wooden block on the flywheel, there are no means to actuate any brakes on the trailers, and being dolly trailers they could easily scissor or the whole combination getting out of control. Now these trailers were probably empty, but in days when those were used to travel the fairs each trailer would be around 10-12 tons. Also steering is very indirect and lacks any feel to it which makes driving difficult, it can be seen in the video, some drivers end up either almost in the wall or in the public on the inside of the corner.
I have heard that a 2008 Jeep Wrangler JKU was fitted with a steam engine and it ran up to 70 miles per hour. There is very little of it on RU-vid. Most of the time it is sitting still with the engine idling or moving about slowly. I wish I could see more on the Steam JKU. There simply is not very much material on it. the last I have heard the steam Jeep had the steam engine removed from it and the Jeep is being sold without it.
Search for videos by Jay Leno. He owns tens of antique cars. The fastest steam cars from 100 years ago could actually go about 100 km/h. And not only that but the technology had been engineered to the point where the engine could be started with in a few minutes, even if the water was all cold.
This particular run doesn't happen anymore, as the organisers of the event have had enough of the stress of putting it on and making sure it is safe, plus the local council are very anti-steam and dont like them causing traffic jams etc... in the harbour. However, as steam vehicles are road worthy and can legally go on the public highway it is still very common to see them down in the harbour on the saturday evening of the event. They just dont go up the hairpin hill anymore.
They are a smaller version of a full size but serve no purpose other than fun. Usually they are made from scaled plans from existing drawings. There usually two types of people, those that love to make them - the engineering, and those that just want the pleasure of steam without the huge expense of a full size.
Very good to see health and safety is taken seriously????? With the chap stood on the drawbar of the double trailer set up.one slip and it’s all over for him.
Up to 500 on the most powerful ones, but they run extra slowly thanks to their extra slow transmission, so that's like the equivalent of a million. They never run out of power. Eventually they'd just slowly spin their wheels. The disadvantage is that they can't go fast and need LOTS of fuel. And there's no need to put the word tractor into quotes here. The word tractor is as old as these machines. It's short for "traction engine".
nicolas demannoury Ignore the 500 HP suggestion. They generate nowhere near that, more likely less than 100. However they do have enormous torque, which is what you need to haul huge loads. And being steam they generate maximum torque from a standstill.
@@SmartassX1 The average traction engine/steam tractor is around 15hp for the smaller (full size) ones up to maybe 150hp for the largest. This explains the slow speed, as hp is needed to make speed with a heavy load. The advantage of steam is a large and instant torque from standstill. This explains why even one of the models which probably makes only between 2 and 5hp can haul 3 man up that steep hill, where a moped which has around the same hp figures would be unable to do.
