The Jack Rabbitt

 If you ask a search engine they will tell you that this engine does not exist. I tried Google, Bing and Duck, Duck, Go and got zero results every time. No matter how I phrased it, I drew a blank. 

The same for a search for a manufacturing company called Thompson Brothers. The closest result was about an early car dealership in Salisbury. That was a possibility. It’s not inconceivable that a car dealership would also sell general purpose engines, but that will have to remain speculation until something emerges to back it up. 

Thompson Brothers certainly could have been some kind of retail merchant. It was not unusual for manufacturers to put the retailer's brand name on one of their products. All that was required was an order that was big enough  for the extra work to be worthwhile. 

The thing that interested me the most about it was the fact that it says made by Thompson Brothers, cast onto the water hopper. Salisbury, NC. isn’t exactly famous as an industrial or manufacturing center. True, Southern Railroad’s  maintenance facility was a few miles away at Spencer, but most of the industrial activity was mills that processed cotton into cloth. 

So that’s the story about the Jack Rabbitt. Maybe someone out there can fill in the blanks, If so, please leave a comment. Until then, at least some pictures are now online. A little bit is better than nothing. 

I photographed this engine at the Foothills Antique Show at Hickory, NC. No information about it was provided. 

Indian Board Track Racer

 You won’t see many motorcycles here, mainly because I haven’t come across many that I thought were very interesting. I believe that this one that Walter O’Neal brought to the 2020 Foothills Antique Power Association Show is an exception. 

The show card that is displayed with the bike says it’s a 1919 Board Track Racer but I wonder if it’s not an earlier model. Most of the photos I have found online show two cylinder machines and they appear to be substantially heavier than this one. 

If you were to ask who was the first American motorcycle company, most people would probably say Harley Davidson, but Indian opened a factory in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1901, almost two years before Harley Davidson was formed. The motorcycle company was involved in racing from the beginning. The first single cylinder Indians, designed by engineer Oscar Herdstrom, were intended to be used to pace bicycle races, but the story actually begins several years earlier. 

George Hendee was an industrialist who raced bicycles as a hobby. Apparently he was very good at it and managed to become well known as a successful racer. Being a smart businessman, he realized the value of his celebrity status and decided to cash in on it. In 1897 he began making his own line of bicycles under the name, Hendee Manufacturing Company.  This was the age when tinkerers were finding ways to power everything so a motorized Hendee bike followed a few years later. 

Hendee sold his first motorcycle in 1902 and an Indian won its first race, an intercity road race from Boston to New York City the same year. In 1903 Oscar Herdstrom set a world speed record of 56 mph on an Indian.  In 1906 two Indian dealers set a record by riding from New York to San Francisco in 31 days. By 1914 the nation's roads had improved to the point that Erwin ``Cannonball” Baker was able to cut the trans continental time down to eleven and a half days, riding an Indian from San Diego to the east coast. 

While these road races provided plenty of entertainment for the participants, they weren’t very exciting for spectators to watch and worst of all, promoters couldn’t charge admission. Early on, some races were held on horse racing tracks and even a few on the bicycle racing tracks that were called velodromes. It was the latter that inspired what was soon to come. The velodromes were constructed entirely of wood with steeply banked turns that permitted much higher speeds than a flat track. 

If they worked for regular bikes, why not motorized ones? Or so the reasoning went,  Labor and lumber were cheap and plentiful at the time and tracks could be constructed  quickly. The surface of the track was made of 2 by 4 and 2 by 2 inch boards and the spectator gallery was usually perched along the top edge of the steeply banked track, separated only by a low wooden wall that allowed fans to lean out and gawk at the action on the track. Some of these structures were quite large. One located in Beverly Hills was a one and one quarter mile track. If at this point you're thinking that all this sounds like a really bad idea you’re absolutely right.  

Those two bys quickly worked loose under the pounding of machines traveling in packs at speeds over 100 mph. They Became deadly obstructions, sending bikes and riders flying into other riders and spectators. The carnage was so bad that some wags in the press started referring to these motordromes as murderdromes. The mayhem at these events only served to increase their popularity and motordromes began popping up in cities across the nation.    

Race fans continued to pack these events throughout the roaring twenties. It wasn’t until the stock market crashed and the world was plunged into the Great Depression, that board track racing began to fade from the landscape. During the 30’s most people spent their time wondering where the next meal was coming from, not what they were going to do for entertainment. By this point most of the motordromes were so dilapidated that they were unusable anyway. All that remained was for the owners to arrange for suspicious fires and try to collect whatever insurance they could.   

Sources:

There are several websites where you can watch newsreel clips of board track races. One of the best that I found was at www.rockymountainatvmc.com/rm-rider-exchange/motorcycle-board-track-racing-forgotten…  this site has links to video clips and a good history of early motorcycles. 

www.smithsonianmag.com The early deadly days of motorcycle racing 

https://brainbucket.rumbleon.com/history-of-indian-motorcycles 

https://www.indianmotorcycle.com/en-us/history          

Another Huber Maintainer Surfaces

 I think it's important to preserve as many examples of antique machinery as possible and private collectors are about the only ones who are doing it. When Troy Rountree sent me some photos of his maintainer and said he was considering selling it, I didn’t hesitate to suggest doing a post on it. 

From what I see on Google Stats when I check my Blogger dashboard there is considerable interest out there in antique graders and construction equipment. ( Yes, Google tracks and records everything you do and sells the data they collect to anyone who wants it.) If you are one of those people, here is your chance to add a Huber Maintainer to your collection. 

I can’t provide much information about this machine. When you look at these photos, you know pretty much what I do about it. If you would like to find out more, send Troy an email:  troy@builderservicesnc.com .

Huber never produced the volume that some of the major players like Deere and International Harvester built, so you won’t be able to open your Steiner Catalog and order whatever parts you need. My way out of date copy doesn’t even have a mention of Huber parts. I doubt that the current one is much different. 

That shouldn’t stop a dedicated collector however. Where there’s a will, there is a workaround. If you know what you’re doing, a challenge just makes it more fun. 

I found a series of photos at www.tradeequip.com of a Huber motor grader undergoing what antique car buffs would call a frame off restoration. Anyone considering doing one should find it interesting. The model number and year were not listed, but the name of the company doing the work was Eastern Surplus & Equipment located in Philadelphia, PA. The asking price on this one was $9950. 

Just type in Huber Maintainer in a search bar and you will get several listings of various models for sale. I found a 1975 M700 for $13,500, a 1977 M600 asking $2500 and a 1987 M850 A that was going on auction May 1 2021. There was even a condition: new 2020 M850 E for $125,000 . 

Maintainers are still being built today, apparently in Valley City, North Dakota. You can visit their website at: https://hubermaintainer.com but you won’t learn much there, just the contact information for the company and a few distributors, scattered around the country. I also found a listing for Huber Construction Equipment located in Iberia, Ohio that could be reached by email at huberparts@yahoo.com .

All the photos shown in this post were submitted by Troy Rountree. 

You can read more about the history of the Huber Maintainer on the Oct 1, 2016 Ironmule post. Just type Huber Maintainer in the site search box. 

25 HP Superior Engine

 Patrick J. Shouvlin learned his trade working as an apprentice in a railroad maintenance shop in his hometown of Springfield, Ohio. After completing his apprenticeship he worked as a master mechanic for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad and eventually wound up on the west coast. When he learned of the oil boom that was underway, he decided to return to Ohio and go into business for himself. 

Back in Springfield he opened his machine shop in 1889 mainly doing repair work for the equipment used in the nearby oil fields. It wasn’t long however, before he began working on a design for an improved oil field engine that would run on the abundant well head gas that was a by- product of the oil being extracted. 

Engines used for pumping in the oil fields were subjected to unusually harsh operating conditions. Many of the brands competing for a share of this market just weren’t up to the challenge. PJ set out to build engines specifically  for the oil fields, His engines would be simpler, sturdier and designed for long hours of continuous operation with little maintenance. They would be Superior engines.  

In the early years the Superior Gas Engine Co. depended on nearby oil field operators for most of its revenue but in 1894 Shouvlin collaborated with several other firms to form the National Supply Co. that would be headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa. National Supply would be the distributor for the member companies. As the market expanded Superior’s product line grew to meet new demands. By 1914 they offered horsepower options from 20 to 100 and hopper and tank cooled engines with 2 ½ to 15 hp. ratings as both stationary and portable models. 

By the beginning of the twenties Superior was working on semi-diesel engine development. In 1923 they acquired the Otto Engine Works which gave Superior an intro to the full diesel market. 1926 saw the introduction of a Superior vertical diesel and a name change to Superior Engine Co. Diesel products would be a mainstay for Superior for years to come.  

During the war years, Superior produced diesel engines for Liberty Ships and Landing Ship Transports. After the war, diesels continued to dominate Superior’s production, In 1950 they bought out Atlas-Imperial Diesel Engine Co. Five years later it was Superior’s   

Turn to be acquired when White Motor Co. bought the Diesel Engine Division from National Supply.  

During the 1960’s  the Ohio oil fields enjoyed a brief comeback and Superior resumed production of gas engines to meet the demand that continued into the 70’s. During this period ownership changed again with Cooper Industries buying the White Superior Engine Division. Today , Cooper still provides parts and service on the later model Superior engines and compressors.    

Sources:

The engine shown in these photos is a semi-permanent display at the Foothills Antique Power Association of NC Annual Show at the Hickory, NC. American Legion Fairgrounds. 

www.gasenginemagazine.com  A History of Superior Gas Engine Co. by Russell Farmer, June 1 2004 

https://www.cooperservices.com 

www.smokstak.com  A Brief History of the Superior Gas Engine Co. by Mike Murphy, March 29, 2014 

Bolens Super Ride A Matic

 Ride-A-Matic! Ya got to love a name like that. What does it mean? I don’t have any idea but it sounds like progress. Of course the fact that it’s a Super makes it even better. If it makes you think of tail fins and drive in movies that’s because the Ride-A-Matic models were in production from 1955 until 1962. 

The Ride-A-Matic version was manufactured from 1955 through 1956. This one is a Type 21HD 01 with a serial number of 32251 which I understand, makes it a Super model equipped with a power upgrade to a Kohler K160 engine. 

The Super Ride-A-Matic was introduced in 1957 and manufactured until it was superseded by the Bolens Husky 600 in 1962. The Kohler engine was an air cooled, single cylinder with a bore of 2.875” and a stroke of 2.5” that produced 6.6 horsepower. 

All those horses were herded through a belt driven CVT variable drive pulley controlled by a six position lever for six forward speeds plus reverse. Forward speeds ranged from ½ mph to six and one half miles per hour. Reverse was ½ to two mph. 

Other vital statistics include: wheelbase 41 ½ “, height 37”, width 30 ½” , length 61 ½”, crop clearance 9”, rear tread 24 ½”, front 25 ½”, weight 460 pounds, turning radius 4 ½ feet, fuel tank capacity 1 gallon. 

Bolens supplied a generous selection of optional accessories. For the gardener: an 8 inch plow, a six tool cultivator, an 8 blade disc harrow. They also offered a general purpose tow cart. 

If you were a lawn ranger, you had even more toys to choose from. Bolens offered a 30” lawn aerator, and a 32” lawn roller. There were 3 gang reel mowers, a 30” front mount mower deck, a 44” sickle bar mower, a 30” reel mower and a 36” center mount mow deck. You could buy a 28” seeder / fertilizer, a 32” lawn sweeper, a 42” rotary brush and a 42” grader blade.  If you had the money, you could order your own 25” sno-caster. 

The Ride-A-Matic shown here was at the 2020 Foothills Antique Power Association of NC. Show in Newton, NC. I believe I know who the owners are, but since there was no information displayed, I’ll just leave it as unknown.

Sources:

www.wheelhorseforum.com 

https://gardentractortalk.com 

www.tractordata.com 

www.simplicityva.com/bolens/rideamatic1.html 

https://tractors.fandom.com/wiki/fmc_corporation 

John Deere Model A

 Visit any antique power show and you are sure to find row after row of pristine green and yellow tractors gleaming in sunlight. You might wonder if you had somehow wandered onto the lot of a John Deere dealership. While I can appreciate the desire of the owners to protect and preserve their new toy, the sense of history is gone, covered over by a thick coat of new paint. 

This is the way I like to find antique tractors, dripping nostalgia and chock full of restoration possibilities. Well, maybe not quite this chock full. 

The Model A was one of Deere’s all time greatest hits. In production from 1934 until 1953 more than 300,000 rolled off the assembly lines, It was offered as a row crop and standard tread tractor, as styled and unstyled. There were also industrial and orchard versions available. Serial numbers range from 410000 to 703384,

The model A unstyled was built from 1934 until 1938, the styled A from 1939 to 1952, A styled AOS model from 1937 until 1940. Models designated AO, AR and AI were available from 1936 to 1949 and a styled AR from 1949 until 1953. The A designated row crop, AR standard tread, AO orchard, and AI industrial.

Power was supplied by Deere’s trademark “JohnnyPopper” engine. A two cylinder, horizontal, water cooled, distillate burner. The big cylinders measured 5.5 inches across the bore with a 6.5 inch stroke to yield a displacement of 309 cubic inches.

Deere shipped a copy of the A to the University of Nebraska at Lincoln where it was evaluated in test number 222 from April 19 to 27 in 1934. It was rated at 16.22 drawbar horsepower and 23.52 hp on the belt. Speeds were listed as: 1st 2 ⅓ mph, 2nd 3 mph, 3rd 4 ¾ mph, 4th 6 ¼ mph and reverse as 3 ½ mph. 

The model A offered several innovative features that contributed to its popularity. The wheel tread was adjustable for row crop work. Hydraulic lift systems were offered as an option. Individual differential breaks gave enhanced performance. It was a general purpose tractor that the farmer could depend on for years of service. 

These photos were taken at the Richland Creek Antique Fall Festival at Saluda , South Carolina. For information about future events visit: www.richlandcreekantiques.com 

Sources: 

Encyclopedia of American Farm Tractors by C. H. Wendel 

Steiner 2017 Annual Catalog

www.tractordata.com

https://digitalcommons.unl.edu 

Pattin Brothers Oil Field Engine

 What did Mobey Dick, John D. Rockefeller and the Pattin brothers have in common? They all benefited from the Pennsylvania oil boom. 

The oil had been there, almost since time began. It was so close to the surface that in some places around Titusville it oozed out onto the ground. The Native Americans had collected it for centuries to use as an insect repellent and ointment. Beyond that it had little value. The early European settlers regarded it as a nuisance  because the soil it contaminated was no good for growing crops but the mid nineteenth century would see a drastic change.

In 1849 if you stayed up after sunset you lit a candle or a lamp that burned whale oil. The demand was huge and fleets of whaling ships roamed the seas. As many as 15,000 right whales were being turned into barrels of oil in a single year. Whale oil was the world’s illuminant of choice but it was also expensive. A Pennsylvania resident by the name of Samuel Kier began to experiment with ways to refine the crude oil that was so abundant in the area into a usable fuel. In 1850 he formed a company to market his improved lighting oil as “Carbon Oil.” Kier’s business met with success so he soon had many imitators. 

A group of New York investors formed a company they called the Pennsylvania  Rock Oil company and hired a man named Edwin Drake to prospect for oil in the region. You might think that he was a geologist but that was not the case. Drake was an unemployed railroad conductor with no previous experience in prospecting for oil. Consequently, he drilled a lot of dry holes before he finally struck oil in August of 1859. The Oil Creek Boom was off and running. Production that year was only 2000 barrels but by 1873 over ten million barrels were pumped from the ground. 

In the 70’s John D. Rockefeller’s company,  Standard Oil, began buying up land and oil wells in an effort to monopolize oil production, By 1882 he had largely succeeded. Pennsylvania oil peaked at 31 million barrels in 1891 and the region was soon passed by other states like Texas and Oklahoma as the center of the oil industry, but the region would continue to pump oil for decades to come. The abundance of petroleum resulted in falling prices. With petroleum selling for 7cents per gallon, few would pay $2.00 a gallon for whale oil. It wasn’t long before Mobey had a lot fewer Ahabs chasing him around the Seven Seas, and that, Greta, was how the petroleum industry saved the whales.  

In 1888 Winfield and Douglas Pattin formed a partnership with J.G. Hall to open a machine shop in the town of Marietta, Ohio. The oil boom was in full swing in the surrounding countryside so the new shop naturally catered to the needs of the petroleum industry. In 1895 Hall sold the brothers his interests in the company and the name changed to Pattin Brothers & Co. In the early years steam engines supplied the power for drilling wells so the new company added them to their product inventory but within a few years gas engines had largely replaced their steam engines.

Douglas Pattin was killed when a natural gas leak exploded and leveled a large part of the factory.  Winfield would run the firm until 1913 when he contracted pneumonia and died while on a business trip. A man named William Meister who had signed on as an apprentice in 1891 and worked his way up into management, took the helm and ran the company up to the mid 1940’s when Patin Brothers & Co. was purchased by the Acme Fishing Tool Co.    

The engine shown here was used to pump natural gas in a pipeline from the oilfields. It dates from the early 1900’s according to a sign posted above the display. It is part of the Foothills Antique Power Association of NC’s collection that is on permanent display at the Hickory American Legion Fairgrounds in Newton, NC.  

Sources:

www.coolspringpowermuseum.org  The flywheel Sept. 2014  Pattin Brothers : Ohio’s Oil Field engine by Paul Harvey 

enwikipedia.org/wiki/pennsylvania_oil_rush  

petroleumhistory.org/oilhistory/pages/whale/whale.html 

sjvgeology.org/history/whales.html      

Gainesville-Midland Number 209

 I was passing through Gainesville, Georgia on my way to the Steam Expo. when I spotted this engine. Steam locomotives are my favorite so it was time to take a stretch break. After walking all around the engine I realized that I hadn’t seen any signs or information displays. Maybe I had overlooked something so I walked around again looking for any signs I might have missed.  No doubt this time, there just weren’t any, I thought this was odd since the town had gone to considerable expense to create a nice display. It was the beginning of a pattern that would repeat itself. 

As if to make sure that the curious were denied all information, someone had removed the identification plates from both sides of the boiler. Was this the work of a souvenir hunter? Maybe, but I doubt it. Those plates are usually attached to the boiler with some fairly substantial rivets. At this point I had some photos but no info about what it was. 

Time passed. When I got around to researching this post I emailed the city of Gainesville to see what light they could shed on the history of No. 209. The contact person replied that she would ask around and get back to me. In the meantime I might want to contact the local historical society, I had planned on doing that anyway so that was my next move. I’m still waiting to hear from the city. I guess they’re content to use it as a holiday ornament and let it go at that. 

The people at the historical society replied by sending me a pdf of an article that had appeared in the local newspaper: “Uncovering the Past, Gainesville-Midland # 209” by David French. In it Mr. French refers to a book titled: The Gainesville-Midland and her Sister Short Lines by Douglas Van Veelen. In his book, Van Veelen asserts that # 209 was built by Baldwin in March of 1930. Mr French writes that no sources were referenced and that Van Veelen offered no explanation of how he came by this knowledge but he accepts it at face value. 

There are a number of reasons that I question Van Veelen’s assertion about  the origin of this machine. First and foremost is the fact that it looks like one of the Russian decapods designed and constructed in 1917 under the supervision of A.I. Lipetz, the head of the locomotive division of the Russian State Railway. You can compare this engine to one of the pictures a search for Russian Decapods will produce and judge for yourself. The boiler mounted high above the drivers and the location of the firebox on #209 are distinctly Russian. Baldwin did build 2-10-0’s for American railroads, but they looked similar to most other engines operated in this country.

The Decapod design filled a very narrow niche market because they did one thing very well, pulling heavy loads on steep grades at low speeds. The Pennsylvania Railroad was one of the few in the USA that operated a large fleet of decapods. All told they used 598 2-10-0’s on their Allegheny Mountain routes where the design excelled for slow drag service. The Gainesville Midland on the other hand, was a short line that ran from Gainesville to Athens Ga. an area that isn’t exactly mountain country. 

The Russians placed the largest orders for 2-10-0’s by far that American builders ever received. In 1917 the Czar’s government ordered 1057 of which 857 were shipped before the Bolsheviks stole the country. During World War ll another 2200 were built ( and no doubt paid for as part of lend lease, with American taxpayer dollars ) for our wonderful allies, the Soviets. With these two exceptions, orders were few and far between. American railroaders just preferred the 2-8-0 design. It’s those 200 that were left in country during the First World War that are of interest here.

When the United States entered the war, the nation’s railroads were effectively nationalized and the 200 decapods were drafted into the service of the United States Railroad Administration. Those 200 engines would be distributed to railroads across the country and most were put into service on short branch lines. Seaboard assigned it’s allotment to the Hamlet / Raleigh area where they served until the early 50’s when a group was transferred to the Gainesville Midland. It seems to me that this is the most probable explanation of how # 209 arrived at its present location.

Sources:

There are a number of variations on this story. Just do a search for Russian Decapods or 2-10-0’s. Here are some of the sites I visited.

www.steamlocomotive.com 

www.locomotivefandom.com 

www.enwikipedia.org/wiki/2-10-0 

www.trn.trains.com 

www.jstor.org  The Russian Decapods by William D. Edson 

https://books.google.com The Railway Engineer Vol. 43 Jan. 1922 Russian Decapod Locomotives by A. Lipetz