The Traction Engines that made pretty good Steam Trains - Aveling & Porter Locomotives
2024 ж. 25 Сәу.
35 211 Рет қаралды
In today's video, we take a look at the locomotives built by Aveling & Porter that were actually just traction engines with train wheels
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📷 Ben Brooksbank
It's a tractor, and a train? A tractrain? A trainctor?
When your train gets stuck in snow
Chimicherry? Cherrychanga? Or chimicherrychanga?
Does not compute. Does not compute.
What happen to yee?
IT IS A FERGUS
What train experts see: Blue Circle What I and Thomas fans see: Fergus
i used to like thomas when i was a 6-12 years old, Good times
le Fergus :D
"A bit smoother when buffering up to those trucks. DO IT RIGHT!!!"
yeah... i've been caught...
Sounds about right
Do It Right! From Morning Till Night!
Beg pardon, but that's not, the great western way!
Keep your funnel out of our quarry!
Don’t interfere!
"If he says do it right? We'll do it wrong!"
Theyres only one way of doing things the great western way or the wrong way 😑
“Do it right!”
*DON'T INTERFERE!!!*
Nice Fergus Reference.
Stop telling me what to do You are a very bossy engine
So glad to hear that some have survived. It always breaks my heart to hear about historically significant locomotives being scrapped to the last of their number.
It is so hilarious to see traction engines of nowadays having a great race on public roads making a pile of traffic behind them. Btw, Fergus should have returned in the CGI series in Thomas.
The only reason why he didn’t in the model was because they damaged his fly wheel with the rocks that fell on him
@@ryancampbell4119 They couldn't make another model?
@@concept5631they probably didn't think it was worth it. And given how the CGI series started, it's probably best they didn't bring him back
@@dragonblaster-vu8wz it was for the best
Imagine doing this in Los Angeles traffic 🤣
As a farm kid, traction engines have always been the absolute peak of my interest in steam powered machinery. Obviously I love locomotives, but I adore traction engines.
Australia has a traction engine locomotive named Snorting Lizzie, which actually was a locomotive modified from a road running traction engine. She had a long chain that connected the wheels together to improve traction. She is very unusual, but it also made her unique
gearz, are you thinking of big lizzie, which is on display in the mallee somewhere? its a hit-and-miss engine, not steam.
@@vsvnrg3263 Oh yeah I do know about Big Lizzie, but there is another called Snorting Lizzie. Definitely seems to not be very well known. If KZhead supported image posting I would've provided one to show what Snorting Lizzie looks like
@@Gearz-365 , i just found out there one short video on youtube. its under a tin roof in manjimup. i never knew! its got a steam engine axle on it. it probably worked on light timber-getting tramways.
@@vsvnrg3263 Yeah I haven't found much information other than Snorting Lizzie was originally a traction engine that was converted for rail use. Good thing an unusual gem like her is also preserved!
She was built on 1905 by Ransomes Sims and Jeffriess of Ipswich (England - about 45 miles from me) as their works number 18047. She was supplied new to the Western Australia Land Settlement Board and was used mainly for land clearance (winching out old trees etc). in 1915 she was sold to Mr. B. W. Shepherdson who owned the Adelaide Timber Company, and was installed to power a saw mill at Wilga, where she worked along side a 16 NHP Marshall and two 14 NHP Robey portable engines. In 1929 the mill was upgraded and a Babcock & Wilcox water tube boiler supplying steam to a 52 Ihp horizontal mill engine replaced the portables. In 1920 the A.T.Co replaced its wooden wagon way with a 3' 6" railway for moving timber. Horse power was not sufficient, and after the locomotive that was purchased was found not to be suitable, the companies engineers converted 18047 to a locomotive in 1921, using a pair of 5' driving wheels off a Western Australian Government Railways R class loco(Built in the 1890s) and a pair of 3 foot wagon wheels on the front. in order to get the narrow gauge needed, the engineers had to discard the winding drum and differential (not required on a railway loco) and place the flywheel side rear driver INSIDE the flywheel between it and the hornplates. They also fabricated and fitted sand boxes and a brake. in 1922 chain and sprockets were fitted to the water pump side wheels converting the engine from a 220TE to a 040TE. in 1922 Bertie Shepherdson purchased the tender from Western Australia's pioneer locomotive, "Ballaarat", and brought it from Lockeville to Wilga to carry water for 18047. Because of her traction engine gearing (and smaller back wheels than designed) she could only do about 5 to 6 MPH, she could haul 4 or 5 fully loaded timber wagons the full 10 miles of the line. She was joined in 1922 by a converted petrol (or diesel) lorry, which was used for PW work, and in 1928 by a Hunslet No 305, a 440 tender loco of 1883. 18047 was withdrawn around 1936 and stored in the mill yard at Wilga until the 1980's. The Adelaide Timber Company's line was closed and torn up in 1942 (so we should be very pleased the old engine didn't get cut up in the scrap drive of WW2), Hunslet 305 was abandoned but was unfortunately cut for scrap in 1964, but the cab and tanks remained on the site until the early 1980s. Snorting Liz is also regarded as having the largest diameter driving wheels of any 3 ft 6 locomotive in Australia. There is several interesting photos of "Liz", including before, during and after conversion, on the railheritagewa org au website. There's quite a bit of info on this unique engine if you dig deep enough. At nearby Collie, there is a similar conversion called Polly, in this case based on a Aveling Porter traction engine of around 1880/90. Many traction engines were so converted in Australia and New Zealand for the lightly laid timber lines.
On that closing note: I've seen people outfit an old VW Golf with flanged wheels before. They even added a rig to the front in order to adhere to the German signal code for headlights (one at the top, two at the bottom). They did all that to ride some decomissioned branch lines, even with permission from DB. Just stop near a crossing, do a "tire change" and off you go!
VW bus 'draisines' were also used for rail inspection cars.
It's a pretty common method of making rail inspection vehicles. The original US Military Jeep came with both tired and flanged wheels so it could go on roads or rails, and most railroads in the US have commercial trucks or busses fitted with flanged wheels for inspection duty, some of them replace their standard wheels completely, others mount on an external rig so the vehicle can quickly transition on and off track.
@@drewzero1the Long Island Railroad had one or two of those, complete with turntable jacks, although I believe their examples retained their tires and had retractable flanged wheels added, the same as any other hi-rail pickup.
"Do it right" ~ Fergus
Autistic icon
“That’s right” ~ Ferdinand
@@Trainfan123 "The wrong way, or the great Western way"
Gotta wonder, maybe Fergus was built in 1926 as well shortly after his sibling Blue Circle and arrived to work at the Cement Works the same year, he was never said to be new in Season 7 (it has been implied he's older and has been around on Sodor longer where the portrait of him in Fergus Breaks The Rules looks pretty old) making him the last Aveling and Porter Railway Traction Engine in the TV Series universe for Thomas instead.
5:52 Well the next time they ever tell us what to do... *WE'LL DO IT WRONG*
Don’t interfere!
DO IT RIGHT
Regular cars with their wheels swapped with railway wheels were used as inspection vehicles in Eastern Europe.
Very common on railways all over the world.
Winston (from sodor)
Sarapite is preserved at the Long Shop Museum where she worked (2nd hand) for Garretts, before becoming part of Bill McAlpine collection in the 1960's. Her first owner was going to name her after his two daughters, until someone realised the combination spelled Parasite, so they swapped the S and P around. After being taken over by Garretts she lost her Aveling "Invicta" rampant horse, and gained a Garrett Panther. One of the reasons she was picked over a normal small saddle tank was the lines that connected the workshops of Richard Garrett and son, and the Leiston Goods yard were laid for horse traction, so full of sharp bends and with minimal clearance with steep gradients, so a rail mounted traction engine was much more suitable that a conventional locomotive. Many normal traction engines were converted to run on rails by lumber mills in Australia and New Zealand. Some companies actually offered conversion kits with their traction engines. Several of the "Steam Sappers" supplied to the War Department in the late 1800's were supplied with both road and rail wheels. As a boy I remember reading a bit where Blue Circle and another (I think it was Sir Vincent) were used to pull a train on the Bluebell railway which took many many hours. I have only had the privilege to see 2 of these engines. Sarapite lives about 40 miles away, and when we took our Burrell engine to a rally at the Battlefield railway, they had Blue Circle on the line at the time, and for the weekend was giving shuttle rides at Market Bosworth. In a reversal of this idea, a friend of mine used to own a steam lorry that was built using a ERF A Series chinese 6 wheels chassis and transmission. The builder took the boiler and engine out of a scrapped Sentinel 100 HP (that worked at 300psi!) shunting locomotive (similar to he LNER Y1) and fitted them into this chassis, and he also converted the boiler into a double chimney. Because of the amount of tea the builders consumed building it, it was called "Typhoo". Because the engine worked a 4:1 step up gear box, which in turn drove a conventional ERF gearbox, mounted to a Eaton Twin speed rear axle, Typho could motor along at up to 60mph, but cruising speed was around 40, with long burst of 50mph if required. The Irony was that ERF formed when the Foden Brothers fell out before WW2 regarding the future of steam powered HGV's. with lead to the formation of ERF that produced petrol and diesel Lorry while Foden carried on making Steam lorries well into the 1930's. There is also several old Fordson Tractors, they have been mounted on goods wagon chassis to serve the same purpose. I believe there used to be one on the Colne Valley Railway. There was also a Sentinel steam tractor that had buffers fitted so it could shunt railway wagons, but it retained its road wheels. Near me, after WW1 a local farmer, so annoyed with the state of the roads and a lack of access to a railway, purchased lots of redundant narrow gauge railway track and some wagons from the war office, and made a railway to take sugar beet from the various fields he farmed in Langley and Claxton, to a Jetty on the River Yare, so a sailing werry could take the sugar beet across the river to the Cantley Sugar beet factory. The locomotive was converted from a old Model T ford, modified into a 2 4 0 wheel arrangement. by the mid 1930's the roads and lorries had improved enough that his son decided to take the sugar beet the long way round (via Norwich) and the railway line was ripped up (all except for a short length inside one of the barns which is still there) and the track and wagons were sold to the Fenland Drainage Board, but the little loco was scrapped.
At low speed, the mass of the machine is more important than pure hp when it comes to delivering tractive effort - those solid wheels would be the secret sauce \m/
Blue Circle. Pride of the cement works
“Right on time!” Congratulated Fergus/Blue Circle
They were, indeed, very useful engines.
I'm quite surprised to learn that Aveling & Porter traction engines worked until the 1960s along side the rest of BR steam. That is impressive. I don't usually throw in Thomas and Friends connections for my comments on this channel (mainly because many others have already taken care of that to the point it almost makes me roll my eyes), but hearing about the history of traction engines has made me realize more how characters such as Fergus and mainly Trevor are important characters as they complement the main cast of steam engines on Sodor from the history of their basis.
Sarapite was built in 1906 for the Mountfield Gypsum mine, and was later acquired in 1929 by Richard Garretts (who along with A&P and Burrell's were part if the Agricultural and General Engineers conglomerate and after 1932 Garretts were part of the Beyer Peacock) for use on their works railway, replacing horsepower. She worked until 1962 when she was replaced by 2 battery electric locomotives, but Sarapite was kept as a standby until 1968 when she was sold to Bill Macalpine, who at the time had a comprehensive collection of traction engines (so she has a connection to Flying Scotsman) Blue Circle was built in 1926, and was kept as shunting engine by Portland Cement until 1962, when she was withdrawn and stored out of use. She was saved by being gifted by the company to the Bluebell railway in 1964, who kept her until the late 1990s when they sold her. Sir Vincent was built in 1917 for Vickers Armstrong Ltd, but sold in 1932 to British Oil and Cake Mills. They kept it in service until 1966 when she was directly into preservation. Sydenham was built in 1895, she to ended up with the British Oil and Cake Mills, but was withdrawn around 1953, before being preserved in the 1960's The other one is works number 807 and was built in 1872, for the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad which later became the Brill branch of the Metropolitan Railway. Around 1894, she was sold to the Blisworth and Stowe Brick & Tile Co at Nether Heyford in Northamptonshire, who used her until around 1940, when she was put into storage. She was saved for preservation by the Industrial Locomotive Society in 1950. Of course, some of Aveling Porter steam rollers were kept on on road repairs until the late 1960's and some were still in council ownership in the early 1970's.
Go on lamborgini, make a tractor with steam, I dare you
Ive had the pleasure and honour to drive Sir Vincent and can testify, it is simple to understand....to drive can be quite easy too Is an interesting little loco to drive and fire It is also a compound
You did an amazing job with this one man 0:32
Huh, I never realised those engines were designed locally in Kent, Ruckinge is only a few miles from my old stomping ground, another thing to be proud to be Kentish about
Blue Circle is the Basis of Fergus from Thomas & Friends.
FERGUS
I expected a comment like this
FERGUS
Fergus: We'll do it right... Bill & Ben: Keep your funnel out of our quarry.
The fact theres 2 thomas characters in here :3
Fergus & George?
3
Ye
@@jaredhebert942no fergus and trevor
Can we squeeze Theo in there by technicality?
Trevor the Traction Engine: "I'm a traction engine. I run on roads instead of rails." Fergus the Railway Traction Engine: "Am I a joke to you?"
George the Steam Roller: RAILWAYS ARE NO GOOD TURN EM INTO ROADS
Mmmmm tractor:3
Yummy :3
❤That's you awesome wonderful workshop sharing posting traction engine vapore fantastic history locomotive congratulations 🎉thank you!
Huh, well this blew my mind. Hit entertainment did their research on Fergus from Thomas and Friends. Basis: Blue Circle of the Bluebell railway formerly a cement works locomotive. Fergus: small shunting and DOW based at Sodor Cement Works even being called "the pride of the cement works". Spot on unlike say Whiff a inspector engine turned waste plant shunter.
"Do it right!!!" -Fergus
The Steam Engines Are Awesome
My favorite Averling & Porter loco has to be Sirapite. It looks like it's given features of locomotives like the large cab and covering the flywheel but despite that it still retains the charm of the traction engine!
They still do this, actually. There are Unimog tractors that have been fitted up as shunting engines, and in the US some of the railroads use conventional heavy trucks equipped with steel guide wheels to haul a few cars around as maintenance crews.
I've seen old model T Ford busses with steel wheels and cow catchers. Use to haul worker to the mines.
I love your stories from the more eccentric byways of railway history.
So fergus really was really usefull
A railway traction engine is not a usual sight on a railway, despite how much they may look like steam locomotives.
Wow. It’s so cool that such a simple idea could work so well! These engines could really *do it right.*
What is the greatest comeback of a steam locomotive ever?
Those engines chould really do it right
I think traction engines are awesome 😁👍
Same
Quality content as always! If tractors on wheels is an interesting topic, there's a locomotive called the mercury shunting tractor down at Butterley. I found an article on it a few years back but sadly that's gone awol now
Great Scott!!!
FERGUS!
There once was an engine who ran away🎵🎵
Excellent shot. Like
Speaking of swapping the car wheels with a steel wheels, the US army has a Jeep Willys with a steel wheels for WW2 & some trucks has been converted into a shunting socomotives until nowadays.
Sydenham was resident in chatham dockyard in the 90s for a while
The last cat that I saw that was converted for rail actually had thin pneumatic tires on flanged wheels. I think it was a late 40's Plymouth.
The editor of Railway Express magazine - looking excited in that photo! 👍
I knew there was something missing on my model railway. Now I know what it is.
Top gear
Tonight on botom rail Mr beeching kills s railway Oliver bullied build the SR Q2 SIR NIGEL GRESLY CRASHES A LNER A3 PACIFIC
5:52 If you ask me, they need to work at the smelters.
thus, fergus was made
Should have been the basis for choo choo charles. 'I like children'.
One of the other five survivors is at the Amberley museum. I've no idea if it still runs. There is also a Ransomes Tramway Loco at Hollycombe, believed to be the oldest surviving Ransomes vehicle, although it's in a poor state sadly. I did think about volunteering there to work and preserve what is left.
Low horsepower but high torque is similar to logging locomotives such as the Shays and Willamettes, Climaxes, and Heislers.
This reminds me that somewhere on KZhead is a video of a hi-rail truck hauling a air number of freight cars on a standard US railroad -- probably a branch line, but meant for standard heavy rail equipment. It had 3 driving axles and 1 each of leading and trailing axles (with the steering wheels being held off the rails), so functionally a 2-6-2. And then you have things like the original Trackmobile, which had the pair of rail axles at 90 ` to the road wheel axles, so that it could drive across tracks, set itself down without having to turn, and then pick up some cars to shunt.
Shame Trevor never got to ride the rails 😁
Please do the Letourneaux overland train.
Contractor locomotives are such a cool thing. It's such a shame that kind of thing doesn't really exist now, at least the _custom build to requirements_ part doesn't.
Whenever I saw it was blue my little Thomas brain went IT’S FERGUS
If I ever needed to have a vehicle like this I would probably go for a road-rail Unimog! ...I do know, though, that there is a similar engine to these described on display at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre at Quainton Road. It was one of two that operated on the nearby tramline to Waddeston Manor.
The Blue Circle is at the Nene Valley Railway and is having a overhaul, due back in service later this year, see it running at the 2018 Great Dorset Steam Fair.
Fergus and Theo from Thomas are like these.
these things are literally just the British equivalent of the Shay. A geared locomotive with low theoretical power but insane gearing allowing them to move shit up grades steeper than the average locomotive and handle track that was poorly laid... Shays 🤝 Traction Engines
there once was an engine who ran away
Just up and went. He ran away, ran away.
Plz do a video on Neilson box tank engines
So Aveling & Porter built Trevor, George and Fergus
Are these the inspiration for Fergus in Thomas the Tank Engine?
"...Buuuuut, what can't we do? What can't we do?"
“What can’t we do? Anything! It’s true!”
Great video as always👍 One wish I have is that you could have compered the price of the traction engine to an ordinary shunting engine. /Chers🇸🇪
Choo
Thumbs up,really good vid.ps. I,ve never seen many portables especially considering how many were made.I,ll bet there s thousands in the 'nettles'ha ha. Thanks.
Blue circle rail tour up the lickey when?
Road rail vehicles are quite common for railway maintenance , so a van converted with aditional flanged wheels or an excavator with the same mod is not unusual. Iirc eurotunnel had a large 10 ton (or there abouts) mercedes truck for its rerailing team which also had additional flanged wheels for access to areas that had no road access. I realise it is not quite the same thing , but the road wheels are mainly retained for convenience of road acess now. Back in the 20s road transport was slower than rail so no good reason to retain road wheels back then.
Ok, I had no idea Fergus was based on an actual cement works engine
Can you make an video on this things that looks like an train but aren't?
so basically these are a traction engine version of a pacer (although much much older)
I do wonder how well a 1995 F-800 would do as a shunter though.
You sould do a video of the south african condensors
goober bois
Very friend shaped :>
"Oh yes. I like children." - Trevor
I clicked on this video because the thumbnail
We need a ship of thought
4:54 Fergray
Reminds me of "the egg that moves", the work of some Catalan rail workers that needed to supervise constructions around the line. They adapted a van, plus gave it an extra leg to turn it around to go back: kzhead.info/sun/o9BtlrtthqqcfKc/bejne.htmlsi=mnfZOB20CJZyK7oO
They did it right
three words, one sentence say it, and i’m yours (you know what it is, don’t lie)
Trevor!!!
So theoretically, how hard would it be to slap regular wheels on one of these locos and vice versa?
Wonder what would happen if a more modern road vehicle was put onto rails, even as just an experiment. Which would be successful? Who knows?
Do it right do it right do it all night!
How about the Unimog ???
I walked into a set of "Magical Buffers" and now the Machines are talking, PLZ SEND HELP!
What do you mean there’s a magic “lost engine” who powers the entire universe?
Would you look at that It’s Trevor, George, and Fergus
George be like: find your self scrapyard
Is it a bird, is it a plane?. No it's a traction engine, but it's a train... so a trainction engine, or a tractrain, or a traction train, or a trainco- duh, oh, t- FU- 18 Minutes...very nice