Weekend Steam

This Aultman-Taylor traction engine is an unusual design that stands out in the crowd if you know your steam engines. Most traction engines have a clutch with wooden shoes which grip the inside surface of the flywheel. This century old beauty uses a sliding pinion gear on the crankshaft to drive a bevel gear which transmits motion via a drive shaft to another pinion, which turns the differential.

Click the photos to enlarge them for a better view of the system. This drive system uses fewer parts than the typical engine of its day, and I am sure that there was much less clanking going on when starting and stopping.

You can see the back side of the crankshaft drive pinion in this photo. Aultman-Taylor engines used the Woolf reverse gear that you will also see on Case steam engines.

Photos by True Blue Team Member Engineering Johnson