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Title: |
1904 Article-Charles Burrell & Sons, Ltd., Steam Traction Engine |
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Source: |
The Thresherman's Review, Mar 1904, pg. 43 |
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Insert Date: |
7/16/2013 12:30:38 PM |
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The field for the employment of traction engines in South Africa is indeed wide, and we have every confidence that, as years go on, it will become more extensive. Readers of The Review well know the high opinion we entertain of the future of that country as a market for British mechanism, for our views on this subject have been frequently expressed in our editorial columns and other parts of the paper, and scarcely a month passes but what we are placed in possession from one firm or another of practical evidence as to the correctness of our opinions, for the receipt of South African orders for engines and machinery continues unabated. That benefits of the most valuable character can be rendered by steam power in our South African colonies, more especially at the present time, when the labor question is of vital difficulty ‘and when labor saving appliances of all kinds are therefore doubly acceptable, grows increasingly apparent. The material assistance, moreover, which traction engines were able to render during the late war, and the honorable manner in which they were “mentioned in dispatches for distinguished service,” so to speak, will be fresh within the recollection of our readers. English traction engines may indeed be said to have helped materially to win the new territory; and there cannot be a shadow of doubt that they will also help to retain and develop it. Capable of solving the South African labor difficulty in several of its aspects, and of greatly aiding in the agricultural, mining, and general commercial development of any locality wherever introduced, is the compound spring mounted traction engine which we now illustrate, and which has been built specially for South African service by Messrs. Charles Burrell & Sons, Ltd., of Thetford It is of 10 n. h. p., with a 7inch high pressure cylinder, an 111/2inch low pressure cylinder, and a 12inch stroke. The cylinders are steam jacketed. The engine is designed for a working pressure of 175 lbs. per square inch, and its extreme length over all is 19 feet. The driving wheels are 7 feet in diameter, and 2 feet wide, and the front wheels are 4 feet 8 inches in diameter by 9 inches wide. Wear and tear and vibration are greatly reduced by the freest use of Burrell’s special leaf springs. The engine is fitted also with a loose wind. ing drum which can pay out its steel wire rope when the engine is traveling forward, and 75 yards of this are carried; The tank capacity is 400 gallons, and two speeds are fitted of two and a. half and four miles per hour respectively, the engine’s total weight empty being about 15 tons. Not only were many of Messrs. Burrell’s engines used by the war department during the recent hostilities, but the firm have supplied large numbers of several kinds of their traction engines to South Africa at various times, a good many having recently been shipped of the size now illustrated, some of them having the additional advantage of being fitted with a crane in front to lift 5 tons and upwards. The firm have other engines in hand at the present time, and point out that whilst the engine now shown is specially serviceable for road haulage, they are also supplying engines to South Africa of large size for plowing by direct traction, and also for general work and occasional hauling. The service which such engines are able to render from an agricultural standpoint in regard to land settlement, by enabling tillage operations to be conducted upon a wholesale scale with wonderful celerity, has, we are glad to know, been fully recognized alike by the government and by private land owners. |
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1904 Charles Burrell & Sons, Ltd., Steam Traction Engine
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