Old Glory Collectors Series Magazine Steam Wagons Part 1 Zurück Ausgabe

Following our six-part series on Steam Traction Engines ‘As they worked, rusted away, and found their way into preservation’, we moved on to our five-part series on steam rollers, not forgetting our Showman’s Engines P1. Now, we have moved on to a three-part series on steam wagons, and thanks to Bob Moorman, the late W S Love and editor Peter Love, we have come up with many not previously seen gems.
In fact, the restoration story of Bob Moorman’s ex-W. King wagon The Leader is featured in the bookazine, as is the story of steam wagon pioneer John C. Butler’s Foden wagon No. 13848. This was the second Foden steam wagon that the editor ever sat in and was very much part of life as he grew up in south Tonbridge, Kent during the 1950s-60s.
It’s amazing to note that in the UK and Republic of Ireland some 60 Foden steam wagons have survived, including the replicas, and most are featured in the 100 pages, besides many working period black and white pictures of those that sadly didn’t survive.
Through success with its compound traction engine and the let-up in legislation from 1896 which allowed vehicles under three tons to travel at 12mph, the Foden team worked night and day to perfect a steam wagon design that would be reliable. They were just about ready in December 1901 for the War Office self-propelled lorry trials in Hampshire and that wagon is featured in these pages.

The success of a Foden overtype steam wagon has to be its lightweight compound cylinder block, which Foden developed over many years. The company understood the ‘stumpy’ boiler design and used welding in the manufacture of the later wagons where it could, long before others employed such techniques, and even used its own style of ‘pointed’ boiler rivets, which American steam traction engine manufacturers also used.