Hesston Steam Museum - Opening Weekend, 2009
May 24, 2009
Get your popcorn here, and enjoy the show. The grandfather of the fellow running this outfit recreated a Cretors popcorn wagon using an antique Cretors engine and popper. The steam engine drives the paddle that stirs the popcorn in the kettle.
The first sight that greeted me as I walked through the gate was a Minneapolis steam traction engine working on a Baker Fan. Some folks call these "steam tractors," but that's not exactly correct; there were steam tractors for a short time, more compact machines using steam automobile technology in an effort to compete with emerging internal-combustion tractors. None succeeded, as internal-combustion tractors could be made much less expensively and were simpler to maintain and operate.
Steam power first appeared on some farms in the 1870s, as threshing machines grew larger and more complex and required more power than could be supplied by horses on treadmills or sweeps. At first, they were portable machines, engine and boiler mounted on wheels and pulled from field to field with horses, along with the threshing machine. In the 1880s, builders began to add traction wheels and propulsion gear so that the steam engine could pull the threshing machine from work site to work site. Further improvements led to machines sufficiently durable and powerful to pull plows in heavy prairie sod.
The Baker Manufacturing Company first designed the four-bladed paddlewheel fan to test and break in new steam engine. Supposedly under normal atmospheric conditions, it took 100 horsepower to spin a Baker Fan 600rpm. Although my shutter speed was too high and nearly stopped the motion, this fan was kicking up a pretty good breeze, and the engine didn't sound like it was working very hard to do it.
The tank on the front of the engine stores water for the boiler. An engine of this size doing a full day's work threshing wheat or sawing lumber might use 2,000 - 3,000 gallons of water. That provided steady work for a couple of boys with a horse-drawn water wagon, shuttling back and forth between the nearest well or pond and filling the wagon with a hand-operated transfer pump, transferring the water to holding tanks on the engine, and then going back to the well or pond for more.
A pretty Russell engine sitting with a Ford Model A pickup on one side and a Model AA flatbed truck on the other. Builders often used colorful paint schemes on their engines to enhance marketability. The trucks are from the late 1920s - early 1930s.
A handsome Aultman-Taylor engine gets a good spin on the Baker Fan. Steam traction engines, like coal-burning steam locomotives, only emit big clouds of smoke when fresh fuel is added to the firebox, as the oils and asphalt-like compounds quickly burn off. Good coal in the hands of a skilled fireman emits little smoke over the long run.
The cloud of steam around the rear wheel comes from the starting of an injector, the ingenious primary device for adding water to the boiler on most steam traction engines. Using steam from the boiler and no moving parts, it siphons cold water from the storage tank and injects it into the boiler. An injector can move lots of water very rapidly.
Beautiful antique cars and trucks
Light Plant
Stationary Steam
The two large mill engines came from a lumber mill, and turn at idle speed using steam from the same boiler that supplies the generating station. To run either one at full load and speed would require a much larger boiler that would keep a fireman very busy.
The smaller of the two stationary steam engines is a slide-valve engine. Its speed is regulated by a centrifugal governor that controls the flow of steam into the steam chest.
The larger engine, built by Allis-Chalmers, is a Corliss-valve engine. The valve system is named for George Corliss, its inventor. It is used on most very large industrial engines in power generation and water pumping, where maximum efficiency and precise speed regulation are important.
Instead of a single slide valve that opens and closes steam and exhaust ports at each end of the cylinder, a Corliss-valve engine has four rotary valves, an inlet and an exhaust port at each end of the cylinder. Two eccentrics on the crankshaft, one for inlet and one for exhaust, control the motion of the valves. The exhaust valves, at bottom, open and close at fixed positions in the cranshaft rotation
The opening of the inlet valves at top takes place at a fixed crankshaft position, but the closing, or cutoff, is controlled by the centrifugal governer in the blue housing at the right edge of the photo. If the engine speed begins to drop, indicating a need for more power, the duration of opening of the inlet valves is increased.
The two rods leading downward from the inlet valves lead to dashpots, blind-ended cylinders with pistons in them. Opening the valve pulls up on the rod and creates a vacuum in the dashpot, and as soon as the governor-controlled detent release the valve, the dashpot piston quickly pulls the valve closed.
The sawmill, usually run by a large Skinner Unaflow steam engine, is using tractor power while the boiler has new flues installed and a new smokestack built.
The Browning Steam Crane handles logs going into the sawmill.
Eighth-scale Trains
Standard-gauge railroad tracks are placed 56 1/2 inches apart. Hesston operates trains in four different gauges; one-eighth scale, one-quarter scale, two-foot, and three-foot.
There are both steam and internal combustion locomotives in one-eighth scale, and the realism and power of these smaller locomotives are impressive. The steam locomotives can accelerate a heavy train up the hill leading from the station into the woods at a very rapid pace.
Service is brought to a halt by a giant swamp monster from the nearby marshy area.
Snapping turtles that reach this size are nasty beasts with few predators; they can't run away so they stand and fight, and they can move quickly. They rise up on front legs and extend the neck, and can reach about a foot and a half farther than you'd expect, and they do it in a flash. Their bite is powerful enough to sever fingers; if you don't know what you're doing, don't mess with one. You could be seriously injured.
The engineer got this one to bite onto a stick and hang on long enough that he could roll it over and drag it away from the tracks.
Quarter-scale Trains
The quarter-scale trains cover a large variety of locomotive types. Most of this collection came from the estate of the owner of the Donnelly publishing empire.
Two-foot Gauge Trains
One of the prettiest two-foot steam locomotives in operation, #242 ran at the Chicago's Brookfield Zoo from the 1930s until 1985 and then sat rusting in storage until 2002 when the Donnelly Family helped Hesston Steam Museum obtain it. This weekend's first public operation is the culmination of restoration and overhaul work that began in 2002.
At the Brookfield Zoo #242 operated on almost entirely flat track and pulled four cars. Hesston has grades up to 5.5 per cent (five and a half feet of rise per hundred feet of lateral run) in curves, and just one coach challenges the skills of engineer and fireman.
Three-foot Gauge trains
1929 Shay geared locomotive #7 is the most powerful locomotive at Hesston. The first Shay locomotive was designed by Michigan lumberman Ephraim Shay, and Shay locomotives were built by Lima Locomotive through 1944 and used in logging and mining throughout North America long after steam disappeared from mainline railroading.
The Shay gets its power from a three-cylinder, double-acting upright steam engine mounted on the right side of the boiler. The engine's power is transmitted to the axles via a driveshaft with universal joints and slip couplings.
Every axle, including the ones under the tender, is driven. The gear reduction provides great torque and the flexiblity provided by the pivoting trucks allows the engine to maintain adhesion (traction) on tight curves and uneven track typical of logging and mining operations where conventional diesel or rod-driven steam locomotives would perform poorly. At Cass Scenic Railroad in West Virginia, Shay locomotives perform well on grades in excess of nine percent. Two percent is considered a tough grade on a typical mainline road.
Linear Mode
