The Gearhead’s Guide to Tractor Traction Engines

We want to teach you all about little-known tractor traction engines.

And as a quick aside --- we are here to help you purchase a new tractor, parts, and implements

when the time is right.

Let’s get to the details.

Introduction to Tractor Traction Engines

The first powered farm implements in the early 19th century were portable engines.

These were steam engines on wheels that could be used to drive mechanical farm machinery by way of a flexible belt.

Richard Trevithick designed the first “semi-portable” stationary steam engine for agricultural use. It was known as a "barn engine" in 1812. This engine was used to drive a corn threshing machine. The truly portable engine was invented in 1893 by William Tuxford of Boston, Lincolnshire who started manufacture of an engine built around a locomotive-style boiler with horizontal smoke tubes.

A large flywheel was mounted on the crankshaft, and a stout leather belt was used to transfer the drive to the equipment being driven.

In the 1850s, John Fowler used a Clayton & Shuttleworth portable engine to drive apparatus in the first public demonstrations of the application of cable haulage to cultivation.

Self-propelled Engines

In parallel with the early portable engine development --- many engineers attempted to make them self-propelled – the forerunners of the traction engine.

In most cases this was achieved by fitting a sprocket on the end of the crankshaft and running a chain from this to a larger sprocket on the rear axle.

These experiments met with mixed success. The first proper traction engine, in the form recognizable today, was d