The Steamtug Blog

It’s been so long since I had a weekend at home, that: the lawn is taking over, my hops vine is dead and I’m 2 kegs of beer down on beer production! But making another batch of beer had to take second place when Tom insisted that he needed me as a fireman to drive his steam truck to “The Heyfield Vintage Machinery Rally”.

But firstly I have to sad how sad I am to hear the Ford motor company is stopping production here in Victoria. My Grandfather worked at the Ford plant in Geelong all his life, and I have always insisted on buying a car that was Australia made and didn’t have less than 6 cylinders. So 2 months ago, I brought my first ever 4 cylinder car, and made in Japan instead of Australia, and 2 months later Fords go bust! I can’t help feeling personally responsible for this. I was looking at another Ford Falcon but decided to go for a smaller car now that Mitch and Riley don’t go anywhere with me anymore.

But I still have the old Ford, and its been 3 years since coming back from living in Russia, and in that time I have ridden the trusty Triumph bike to work, rain, hale and shine. But now the weather has turned nasty (only 4 degrees this morning! How can people survive in such temperatures! I used to tell my Russian mates just how cold it was, and they just rolled their eyes in disbelief!) I have been grateful to drive a car with a heater to work of late.

So last weekend I loaded up the old Ford with beer and headed off for the 300km journey to central Gippsland, just up behind Taralgon, to Heyfield. I really didn’t know what to expect. In a town of 2000 people, miles from anything, I was imagining a couple of blokes standing around a fire tin in their “dry-aza-bones” arguing if that Nuffield tractor over there was an “N” model, or a “M”. But I got a big surprise! The rally was much bigger than I imagined, even bigger than Geelong’s pathetic little effort. There must have been 6 traction engines, and couple of rollers, and at least 4 portables. As well as a great vintage tractor pull event that practised on the Saturday, and had the finals that went all day Sunday. Amazing!

I didn’t leave until sunrise on Saturday m0rning, briefly suffered through the traffic of Melbourne before breaking through to the other side, with open green dairy paddocks of Gippsland. It’s always raining over there, not like our side of the state where we have not had good rain since November. Tom was already at the ground with his steam truck. When I arrived, he shoved me into the fireman’s seat on his steam truck (read previous posts about building this truck!) and we blasted out the rally main gate, down through the bustling town centre of Heyfield to the bakery in the main street. We grabbed a coffee and a pie before heading back.

Now the main street of Heyfield is a 40km/h zone, and we laughed that we could get busted for speeding in the main street, as the old truck has an incredable top speed faster than this! (around 45km/h). Heading back to the rally ground, Tom ripped the throttle wide open as we raced around the roundabout and the back end started to drift out on those solid rubber tyres. Hmmm now we are going to get arrested for hoon driving in a steam truck…. all too funny!!!

Sentinal Steam truck

Back at the rally ground, I saw my old mate PJ fluffing about. He had brought his 1924 Sentinal steam truck, but hadn’t driven it off his low loader yet. Still getting steam up and making breakfast in a disorganised fashion. When I came back later he had moved off the truck over onto the parking area on the rally ground next to Tom’s dad Kevin’s traction engine.

I went over and jumped into the drivers seat on the sentinal. PJ was sorting out bits of broken up wood to feed into the boiler, and encouraged me to use up some steam. So I pulled out onto the rally ground and did some laps driving the old Sentinal. She drives just like a normal truck except you open a valve instead of pushing a foot pedal, and manipulate the valve gear rather than change gears. It’s quite a modern style steam engine with cam shafts and poppet valves. I ended up driving this for most of the day as PJ was happy to just be my fireman. I even drove it in the grand parade!

Road run through town in the traction engine

That evening after the rally, Tom decided we were going home to his place, about  7 kms up the road. He sent his Dad and uncle off ahead of us in the steam truck, as his Dad needs more hours to understand it. Tom and I were going to drive the traction engine. I steered, and Tom drove the engine. We charged through the town with cars stopping to get out of our way, or to have a look at the strange vehicle taking over the intersections, not daring to get in our way.

We headed out of town and the long run ahead. This engine actually has a good turn of speed. It has a balanced crankshaft, huge driving wheels, and Tommy was giving it a flogging as we tried to keep up with the steam firing on the crappy wood from the rally ground that was so green, we had to shake the koalas out before putting in the fire, so they would not block up the tubes. We arrived about 30 minutes later, with the steam pressure so low, we had to go back to low gear to get up the little hill to park near the shed.

After a lovely steak dinner, a few of my beers and Tom’s dad Kevin telling us old stories of the sea. He is retired now, but was the chief engineer of various oil tankers. He told us the story of when he was third engineer, how the ship had a funny electrical panel, and often the engineroom would go completely dark, and he would always find the circuit breaker for the engineroom lights tripped. He could never figure out why it did this, as there was no overload, and the breaker always checked out ok when tested. Then when he finally got promoted to second engineer, the old chief told him “And occassionally when you pass the switchboard kick the breaker out for the lights. It keeps them down there on their toes!” So the mystery finally got solved!

Tom and his Dad left in the steam truck next morning and Tom’s uncle Graham was steering the traction engine, with me driving for the trip back. Now after running out of steam the evening before, I had the firebox “chockers!” I had the boiler almost full of water, so there would be no stopping us! Also just before leaving, I noticed a pallet of “Blare Athol” black coal. They were huge lumps! So I stole 3 huge lumps of the black gold. Back on the footplate and ready to go, I kicked one lump in as we left. The safety valve was already blowing as we steamed down to the gate at great speed. I added some more water into the already full boiler to try and calm it.

Down at the gate, we stopped before proceding onto the road. Here I filled the firebox up again, and kicked in the last 2 huge lumps of coal, and off we went. Well, I could barely see the road ahead for the safety valve blowing off so much! And there was hardly any room for more water to calm it. Added to this, the fact that the road back into town was slightly downhill all the way; a fact I had not noticed on our journey up. We soon passed the welcome to Heyfield sign, and the 60km speed limit zone, and still the safety valve blew.

On arrival at the rally ground, I dropped Graham off and did 5 laps of the arena with the firebox air damper shut, until the fire had burned down low enough for the pressure to come down and I could go and park the engine at last. Wow… it certainly steamed better than the night before.

I spent the rest of the day driving the Sentinal truck again. It was nice in the cab with the boiler working like an oversized heater. It was cold outside, and plenty of people wanted to come and sit inside with me to stay warm. It was a great little rally. I will definately be going back next year!