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July 07, 2005
Steam power anyone?
An annual event in my neck of the woods is the Model Steam Traction Engine Rally, held on the Rugby Club field quite near my domus. Being something of a fan of steam propusion - especially in ships and in traction engines - I ventured a visit and took some pictures.
A quarter-sized model of a Foden Steam Lorry in all its splendour.
The models are all hand built from castings and original drawings - some are available as "kits", and each one is finished in an original operators livery. Although all these models are smaller than the original, most generate proportionate amounts of power, in fact some are as powerful as the real one, because of the nature of steam power itself. It is said of steam engines that they are the only form of engine which gives you 100% of its power torque at 0 revolutions!
The little Foden showing its paces in the show ring with driver and crew aboard.
These lorries were once the juggernauts of the rural highways and our cities carrying deliveries of manufactured goods to all corners of the country at the magnificent speed of 12 miles per hour! The single boiler is fed from a water tank on board and stoked through an opening in the floor of the cab. It is an "open feed" system as used on steam locomotives - in other words the steam goes to waste from the cylinder. On ships it is usually a "closed feed" system with the steam being recondensed and fed back to the boiler. This open feed system meant that these lorries and their traction engined counterparts needed to draw water at regular intervals to refill their tanks, one drawback which was never completely overcome.
A larger model Foden lorry - this is a one-third size!
Technology and the "infernal combustion" engine as Sir Winston Churchill once famously called it brought the use of these magnificent machines to an end. By the 1950's only a small number of road rollers and the fabulous "Showman's Engines" remained in service.
Posted by The Gray Monk at July 7, 2005 10:19 AM