Traction engine in St Neots

This not a sight you often see these days, a steam traction engine on the streets of St Neots. From the date on the front of the canopy, this one was built exactly 100 years ago.

A one hundred-year-old traction engine

Traction engines like this one were used for transport sometimes, towing a trailer like this one. But far more often they would have been put to work in the fields, this one on a vegetable grower's land in nearby Gamlingay.

They were used for pulling large, multi-furrow ploughs across a field. Two engines would take turns to pull the plough through the soil, winching it slowly but relentlessly back and forth.

This example was probably built locally, perhaps in Bedford, and would have worked the land until the 1930s or 40s when early tractors would have taken over. Although a tractor could not turn so many furrows at a single pass, they were more manoevrable and only one man was needed to do the work.

The day of the steam traction engine passed away and many of them would have rusted away and been scrapped. A few survived (including this one) and many of the survivors are now in the hands of enthusiasts who restore them and keep the polished and active.

This one was most likely on its way to a local vintage steam fair.

(If you liked this you might also like Journeys of heart and mind and Quote me on this.)