Traction-Talk - The steam engine that stole the show

THE STEAM ENGINE THAT STOLE THE SHOW I AUSTRALIAN RURAL & REGIONAL
NEWShttps://www.tractiontalkforum.com/pi...ictureid=71869 https://www.tractiontalkforum.com/pi...ictureid=71868

IAN RILEY, _Tarrangower Times_

Now that the dust has settled and the amazing Maldon Easter weekend is
behind us, I am thinking back to one of the larger vehicles that you
may have noticed in the parade.

If you have any toddlers in your life, you probably have a full-time
job picking up Lego blocks, toys, or dolls everywhere in and around
the house.

Brendan Baker’s family didn’t have that problem because he was
very keen on this machine right back when he was four and pretty much
ever since.

So he is a mine of information and can tell you anything you need to
know without drawing breath.

Traction engines were hired to farmers as a power source back before
diesel engines or electricity were commonly used.

So, if you were a farmer who needed some crop threshing, sheep
shearing, water pumping, the tractor contractor would come around and
they would connect the big belt drive to the tractor flywheel at one
end and your shearing shed or hay bailer or pump or whatever at the
other end and away you go.

What seems like an antiquated device would have been a very welcome
sight if the alternative was very hard manual labour.

As we saw at Easter, the traction engine travels under its own steam,
literally, and gets along at about six kilometres per hour.

At that pace, Brendan has taken it right up to Echuca, to the Lake
Goldsmith Rally near Beaufort and all around Victoria.

It was working commercially right into the seventies, clearing scrub
around Orbost.

Seeing it running, it’s easy to see how it would have made a
lifelong impression on a four-year-old.

This article appeared in _Tarrangower Times_, 9 May 2025.