Weekend Steam

This ad reproduction from the March-April 1964 edition of the Iron Men Album provides plenty of food for thought about the 'Good Old Days'. There are eight people working in this picture, and there also has to be a water boy to haul water to the engine; all to harvest maybe twenty acres of wheat or oats. The winter wheat harvest is nearly done in Southern Illinois right now, and there are usually only two or three people required to perform the work; one to run the combine, and one or two to haul the grain away to the bins.

The thresher is not far removed from horse-powered models, and the engine is a true primitive. It is a portable engine moved with horses, it has no lagging (insulation) on the cylinder, the safety valve is a pre-pop valve type, and water for the engine is supplied only by one feed pump. After the invention of the injector, engines were always built with two systems to supply water to the boiler; either two injectors, or a pump and an injector.