r/nextfuckinglevel • u/InsaneMocktail • 13h ago
110 HP steam tractor pull
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u/Big_Wave9732 13h ago
Ah yes, the part of the old days that folks have forgotten: The raining down of embers. Steam engines seem all old timey romantic and shit, but they caused a lot of fires everywhere they went. They'd set prairies on fire. The embers in tightly packed cities would land on tar roofs and set blocks ablaze.
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u/ComfortableWait9697 12h ago
Pushing a steam engine that hard is high risk itself. That steam engineer was likely VERY focused on those gauges. I wonder if they balance how much water they have onboard.
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u/thnku4shrng 12h ago
AKSHUALLY It’s pretty safe, pressure relief valves are extremely reliable these days as is welding tech. This tractor, if I recall correctly, is a modern reproduction that Case shared blueprints for and gave their official stamp of approval to along with a serial number. Boilers are everywhere still to this day, and explosions are extremely rare
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u/funkympc 11h ago
One of those tractors exploded at the Medina, OH County fair in the last 10 years. They weren't even pulling anything either.
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u/somethink 9h ago
That belonged to a group my machine shop teacher belonged too, pretty sure we CNCed them parts they couldn't get.
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u/LearningDumbThings 6h ago
An exploding boiler isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of parts quality.
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u/somethink 6h ago
It was 24 yrs ago and it was high school class ,so yeah you get what you pay for
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u/pacopac25 2h ago
We welded penises into the welding tables in our highschool, but none of those table dicks ever blew up.
Helped us with our stack of dimes beads, so don't even tell me what we did had no educational purpose.
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u/somethink 2h ago
I got a shout out in our school paper for taking a jpeg and putting it through cad/cam and then milling it onto a piece of aluminum since I was the first in the school to do that. It was a picture of meatwad
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u/Wiley_Jack 5h ago
CNC parts tend to lack the grain structure of extruded, rolled or forged shapes.
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u/Just_the_questions1 4h ago
Yeah but that was an old tractor that had been restored but had not been inspected properly. Excessive rust inside the boiler caused the failure IIRC.
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u/TheCanadianHat 9h ago
I'm sure it's fine but I think in this situation id be worried about running the boiler out of water. Causing a hot spot and weakening the boiler wall. I don't see a water tank.
Although I've not run mobile boilers before so I'm sure it's not an issue
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u/ttoksie2 6h ago
the danger is not the pressure, its running out of water/steam thats the danger.
Once the boiler runs dry it will very rapidly overheat and fail.
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12h ago
[deleted]
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u/Poncyhair87 12h ago
The two persons in the comments above you are discussing the likelihood of a catastrophic boiler explosion due to over pressurization.
Note the sentence where he mentions the gauges. Gauges on a steam locomotive are there to monitor the pressure within the various systems the train contains.
You believe they are still discussing the embers from the smokestack, which the discussion has moved on from.
None of this will be internalized by you now of course. I'd be surprised if you read it. But, one can hope that gentle encouragement is enough to bolster someone's reading comprehension on a given Monday.
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12h ago edited 12h ago
[deleted]
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u/xShooK 11h ago
Missing the added context of the pressure relief valves right after what you quoted. Meaning modern boilers aren't as prone to explosions, because running a boiler that hard means you're running it under higher pressures.
"Pushing a steam engine that hard is high risk itself. That steam engineer was likely VERY focused on those gauges. I wonder if they balance how much water they have onboard."
That comment is entirely centered around a boiler explosion, not the embers anymore.
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u/Safe_Chicken_6633 11h ago
He's making the point that the tractor is not in danger of a boiler explosion, which was the inference given by the previous commenter.
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u/thnku4shrng 12h ago
Allow me to illuminate: the gauges the person is referring to on a steam engine are related to pressure. It’s nothing to do with the firebox or embers.
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u/DazedConfuzed420 12h ago
Ya, I wasn’t even thinking about the embers starting fires. My focus was entirely on trying to figured out how big of a boom that thing is going to make if shit goes wrong.
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u/CalmAlarm 12h ago
They often put wood shavings in the firebox at these shows to exaggerate the effect.
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u/neilmac1210 12h ago
And they still do. The Harry Potter steam train in Scotland has been causing wildfires and the locals are calling for the engine to be replaced with a diesel.
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u/JK07 9h ago
The Jacobite steam train that goes between Fort William and Mallaig and famously over the Glenfinnan viaduct.
I've been on it and visited the viaduct as the train went over, pretty cool. And the beers and a prosecco on board were reasonably priced.
Setting fire to the local area isn't cool though•
u/Vecna_Is_My_Co-Pilot 4h ago
I was going to ask if trains caused the same problem. I guess so.
I wonder if they could put the innards of a diesel electric into the cycling shell of an old steam train.
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u/Q_S2 12h ago
I was wondering about that! I was thinking... wait... theres hot ash flying everywhere! I dont rememberseeing this mentioned berofe
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u/wjruth 7h ago
They add wood shavings to the firebox to make the torrent of ash look cool for these shows.
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u/Q_S2 7h ago
Ah ok I thought it looked abnormal. It wasnt sure
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u/joe-clark 6h ago
Also steam locomotives usually have spark arrestors to help stop that from happing. There's a coal mine in China where they run steam engines without spark arrestors and it looks crazy. I'm not sure if they still run steam these days but I know they were doing it as recently as 10 years ago.
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u/Taint__Paint 8h ago
The Durango Silverton railroad still runs their steam engines daily and have a small cart following behind the train to spot and put out embers.
They obviously don’t run their engines anywhere as hard as this, so the amount of embers it emits is substantially less. But not none.
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u/spacemansanjay 4h ago
What is causing the embers to exit the chimney with such speed?
I know the fire boils water which makes steam which pushes a piston. But all that pressure and force exists outside of the firebox. It's not like a car engine where the movement of the piston pushes the air out the exhaust after each combustion.
Is it simply a massive fire which creates it's own massive draught? That must be the answer but I'm struggling to reconcile that with the size of the machine.
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u/tardiusmaximus 13h ago
"Whoa man, how much torque does that thing have?"
"...it has all of the Torques"
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u/johnyordinary 12h ago
Teacher when i was at college had one , pulled up tree stumps with it ,big ones.
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u/Porsche928dude 2h ago
I would image to a machine like that. If the ground is dry a tree stump would be a mild inconvenience at best.
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u/_name_of_the_user_ 10h ago
My rough math trying to count chugas while timing it, I'm getting somewhere around 4600ftlbs.
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u/StTimmerIV 12h ago
Horsepower is how fast you'll hit the wall, torque is how far you'll push the wall.
This thing may only have 110hp, but the torque on this is... well, i don't know, but it's a fuckton of torque.
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u/Ubermidget2 47m ago
It's probably only running at a few hundred RPM, so if it didn't have torque, it'd have no power.
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u/badtoy1986 11h ago
FYI Steam Engines produce 100% of their torque at 0 speed. It's why they were used in trains and why they have been replaced by electric drive diesel generator locomotives.
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u/onefourk 12h ago
The sparks might be because it's burning wood rather than coal, I believe this was common in some parts of the US during the early railway years, because there was a lot of wood around.
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u/Reasonable_Archer_99 11h ago
A lot of times they'll throw coal dust in to put on a spart show at these types of events. Under normal loading with normal fuel, it wouldn't send up nearly as man sparks. If they're just cruising around, they hardly throw any.
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u/onefourk 50m ago
That would explain it, the amount of sparks did seem excessive. I can't see trains having regularly run around like this in the 19th century, the place would have completely burnt to the ground.
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u/Ducatirules 12h ago
Telling us the HP means nothing. Title might as well say “tractor with red wheels!” Torque is king
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u/Potatobender44 12h ago
Power definitely still means a lot. It’s the combination of power and torque that is meaningful.
A handheld impact driver can produce in excess of 1000 ft-lbs, but doesn’t have the power to sustain that in the kind of way needed to power a vehicle/tractor
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u/One-Reflection-4826 11h ago
try that with 1hp
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u/Chemieju 1h ago
Would totally work, just takes ages. Horsepower is torque x rpm, so you can trade in speed for more torque with gearing. Same principal as using a hand crank winch instead of just pulling on the rope.
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u/LeonidasVaarwater 12h ago
The power of a small sedan, the torque of a.... well..... all the torque really.
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u/SoggyBoysenberry7703 13h ago
Is it showering embers?? That’s like, bad right?
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u/Geth_ 13h ago
Bad for what? Starting prairie fires? Endangering lives? No. Pretty great for that.
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u/stone-d-fox42 11h ago
Not doubting the tractor, but there’s no weight on that sled…
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u/jd2cylman 2h ago
Exactly. This is all show. Load that sled down to the weight used for the winner in the 9300lb class and see it really work.
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u/AGrandNewAdventure 11h ago
For when you've absolutely, positively, got to set the surrounding landscape on fire while you work.
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u/groovyinutah 13h ago
I can only imagine that they purposely added something to the fuel they were burning to make all those sparks cuz that would seem counterproductive and dangerous in field of ripe grain...
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u/That-Makes-Sense 11h ago
Cool AF. But all sorts of danger here. Raining embers, fast spinning things, high pressure steam.
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u/Reasonable_Archer_99 11h ago
Where is this?
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u/Big_Lab_Jagr 9h ago
I can't speak to this particular video but the National Championships are held in Bowling Green, OH and it's annoying as fuck all over town.
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u/fuelofficer 6h ago
Is it pulling the same load those crazy thing that self destruct are pulling? Or just a "regular heavy load"
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u/Zestyclose_Space7134 6h ago
Same weight on same sled. The fast boys have all the horsepower, but this traction engine has all the torques and also HELLA good traction, which is all you need to pull a mountain across the continental divide. Might take you a while to get there, but by Thomas Savery it WILL reach the goal eventually, provided you have the fuel available.
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u/fuelofficer 6h ago
Thats cool. Tx i make model steam engine and people were clever as fuck a long time ago. They are peak humanity imho
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u/Big_Lab_Jagr 9h ago
The bane of my existence growing up in the home of the National Tractor Pulling Championships
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u/Max1234567890123 6h ago
Not to be a buzz kill, but I’d be concerned that the whole engine would turn into a grenade. The power of steam is not to be messed with
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u/Odd-Masterpiece7304 5h ago
Now let's put some weight on the sled and see what a stock Ford Ranger can do
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u/Seriously_you_again 4h ago
Also the huge size of it. The guys in the cab look really small compared to the tractor. I am guessing the rear wheels are at least 2m in diameter. (About 7ft in freedom units).
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u/shogunshim 3h ago
I could do the same thing with a 1/2 hp electric motor, with enough gear reduction and traction. I am of course excluding geartrain reduction losses from friction.
Still neat though.
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u/fleebleganger 12h ago
That isn’t a legit pull. The weight doesn’t move forward as travels down the track.
it’s just pulling a trailer and not that impressive (except the fact it looks bad ass while it’s doing nothing)
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u/LandscapePenguin 12h ago
I thought that too but after rewatching it it looks like the weight moved forward at the beginning and then stayed there for the rest of the video.
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u/therestruth 12h ago
It would be neat if they could somehow make those pulling competitions a bit less wasteful than pulling a powered trailer that digs into the ground. Maybe have a bunch of people that could ride passenger. Pull a rope that's attached to a generator wheel that produces some power, even if just to light up the event area. Disclaimer: I love racing, ride a motorcycle and drive a sports car. But to ensure these events continue on we gotta consider ways to make less less harmful on our environment- without having to electrify all the vehicles and take away the excitement of noisy internal combustion.
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u/Select-Sale2279 12h ago
why is everything these days NFL? Well its a tractor on steam does not mean its next fucking level.
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u/drollJester 12h ago
This is a tractor pull. That sled that it's pulling has a weight that slides forward and drops a pan to increase the resistance. At a certain point all the weight of the sled is put on the pan which digs into the soft soil. Just about any other conventional tractor is stopped by this, while this steam tractor just keeps slowly plodding along instead. That's what makes it next level- it keeps going where other modern tractors would be stopped dead in their tracks.
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u/ccmp1598 11h ago
I agree my brother…….steam powered tractors were like 163 levels ago……ancient history
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u/Distinct-Poet3032 13h ago
Torque is all that matters here