DELIVERING A STEAM TRACTOR OVERSEAS.
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A Journey to the Capital of Chile Provides , Plenty of Incident for a Foden Tractor and Trailer.
TBE steam wagon is essentially a British product, and there are few countries aniongst those which produce motor vehicles in which machines of this type are built. Even in America, the land of colossal production programmes, little thought is given to steam-propelled machines, and almost all heavy commercial transport tasks are undertaken by Petrol lorries of large capacity.
There is no occasion now for reviving the old controversy of steam versus petrol, but we hope that, without showing a leaning one way or the other, we can say the steam wagon possesses undoubted advantages for specific haulage work. In this country we are presented with evidence daily of the hard service performed by steam wagons—some of them many years old, and if any doubt as to the commercial utility of the type exists in the rpind of our readers, let them journey to the dock areas and busy industrial areas, where we are certain their misgivings will be quickly removed.
In many countries overseas, the steam wagon—the British built steam wagon—is solving difficult transport problems that might almost be considered beyond the power of any other type of vehicle to tackle successfully. In a measure, some idea of the arduous conditions under which many of these wagons operate can be obtained from a brief but interesting story dealing with the recent delivery of a Foden overtype tractor and trailer to Santiago, the capital of Chile.
After assembling the chassis at Valparaiso Docks, a short trial run was made in order to ascertain that the vehicle was in good working order. Its performance having proved satisfactory, it was decided to set off on the 150-mile journey which sub;sequently proved' to be of a rough and exacting nature. Setting out from Vina-Del-Mar, a gradient of 1. in 10 was encountered for a stretch of five miles. When Casa Blanca was reached, it was decided to alter the route originally decided upon and to take a short cut to Melipilla, a distance of 20 miles. This part of the journey involved the coastal range of hille and many steep gradients. It was only necessary to complete a few miles to know that much rough going would be experienced, for the road ultimately narrowed down to nothing but, an irregular bullock track with large boulders 'buried in tits sand, and this made steering of the tractor most difficult. The journey was made more precarious by the fact that the track was very narrow in some places and ran along the edge of a precipice with a sheer drop of 200 ft.-300 ft., thus making it impossible to entertain the idea of turning round and resuming the journey ,on the original route. In these circumstances it was found necessary to meet and overcome a number of difficult problems, At one place •a very rough, soft section of track was encountered and, upon inspection, this seemed to be well-nigh impassable. However, it was essential to make an endeavour to get through it somehow, and the result is clearly depicted in one of our pictures, from which it will be seen that the tractor quickly sank into the soft 'ground up to its axles.
In the hope of extricating the machine from this predicament, the trailer was unhooked and four horses were brought into use in an endeavour to pull it out, but they proved powerless to move it. As a result it was impossible to run the tractor back, and the only alternative was to couple up the trailer again and endeavour to get on to harder ground and thus secure better adhesion for the driving wheels. After working hard for two hours in clearing some of the loose soil the driver once again tried to get ahead, and this time he opened the starting lever to double high pressure (this in negotiation of a creases the power of the engine about 75 per cent., for both cylinders receive live steam from the boiler), and the machine gave a mighty heave and ploughed its way slowly but snrely to firmer ground. If the tractor had not been able to get out under its own power, it is difficult to• know what would have been done, for no steam vehicle of any kind had ever attempted this part of the journey before, and no tackle or machinery was available for helping in the work of extrication. At another part of the journey a gradient of 1 in 4 was negotiated for three-quarters of a mile, after whicli a run close on a mile down a similar gradient proved a very good test for the efficiency of the brakes. The road from Melipilla to Santiago was in very fair condition and good progress was made between these two places. When the latter place was reached, some surprise was expressed when the route taken was made known. The fuel used throughout the journey was black coal, coke and eucalyptus wood, there being abundant supplies of the lastnamed, which was gathered, as required, en route. Apart from the picture to which we have already referred we reproduce several others showing incidents in the course of the journey.