By
ebinmaine
The following quotes and paragraphs are from a cousin of mine - Lew - and his friend - Steve - .
His friend found a few pics of old tractor/ dozer things and thought he might be interested...
So I asked if it was OK to share them here with you all machinery nuts.
Lew, to me, others:
These are some old photos from an MG friend, Steve, of his grandad's machinery.
I thought you might appreciate his description of them even more.
Interesting: gasoline only used to warm up the engine so it would use kerosene.
Water injection in the 20s & 30s? Any of you remember that?
Good Ol' Days.
Steve, to Lew:
These would be my Grandad Olson's grading outfit.
Not sure where or when they were taken but probably late 1920s-early 1930s.
Could be Booneville, Missouri or Canton, Illinois or most any small community.
Tractor with the big roof is a 60 Cat or possibly a Holt that was bought by Cat.
One with the smaller roof could be a 30 Cat but looks more like something else.
Could be a Cleatrack or a Rumley Oil Pull. Whatever it is it is pulling an elevating grader.
That scraped up dirt onto its conveyor belt and spilled it off into a wagon being pulled along side.
Same device being pulled by 60 Cat in first photo.
Big fuel tank held kerosene.
There was a small one for gasoline used only to start the engine and warm it up till the kerosene would vaporize.
There was also a water injection for added power under hard pull.
Idle RPM was 300 and red line was a whopping 600.
Lots of torque but just 60 horse power at the power takeoff and a few less at the draw bar.
Huge exposed flywheel had holes along the rim to insert a pry bar. That is how you cranked it to start.
Had to be a Manly Man to do that. These tractors were state of the art and biggest made at the time.
They could do a lot of work but were not fast. Mules and side-dump wagons did all the hauling.
Later, big bottom-dump Cat wagons with tracks took over that job.
Even those held less than a small dump truck does today.
Steve's words to me (now US) :
Maybe someone in your group (That would be US ) will recognize where the photos were taken. I would think about 1928 or 29. This was Olson Brothers Grading and they enjoyed the highway building boom. In later years I played on some of these old Cats and even rode on one. Maybe someone will know the make of the smaller tractor. I think the two men standing on the elevating grader are my Grandpa and great uncle Harry and Arthur Olson but may be someone else entirely. I would love to find out more about the photos and everyone in my family that might know is now gone. Share if you like and let me know what you learn.
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By ebinmaine