Talk:Traction engine

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[edit] Merge Articles? - Discussion

In October 2005, there was a suggestion that the articles Steam tractor and Traction engine should be merged, owing to the apparent similarity of the content. There was a further suggestion that Steam roller should be merged either with Traction engine or Road roller, for similar reasons.

This discussion may be found below.

(Note - Main heading and introductory paragraphs added by User:EdJogg on 29 Aug 2006, so that talk page could be more easily used for other topics in future.)

[edit] Early Discussions

Here in the UK a 'Steam Tractor' is a type of traction engine used purely for road haulage, usally around the 4-7 ton area, whereas in the US it appears to be a more general term?

I doubt that steam tractor deserves its own article; There are not all that many of them preserved, and the industrial engines aren't all that different to the farm engines AFAIK. The highly-decorated carnival engines were a different animal certainly!

The material now in steam tractor is not all encyclopedic, that which is could easily be merged into this article. Andrewa 17:16, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

By all means, merge them. But I'd have a slight preference for putting them in the steam tractor article rather than here. Do you think steam tractor is not encyclopedic because it has a North American slant rather than the British slant here? That may also be relevant to the choice of name, and merging the two perspectives would be good. Wasn't the term traction engine also applied to some that were not operated by steam but rather by internal combustion engines? BTW, several of the preserved steam tractors are run every year at the threshing show in my home town. Gene Nygaard 19:08, 6 October 2005 (UTC)


Merge what can be taken from steam tractor into this article which is more encyclopedic. Steam tractor starts ok but hen disappears into an text that belongs under threshing machine. If you took that out there would be little left. I also note in passing that steam tractor is the younger article and the initiator shoujld have checked for existing content first. GraemeLeggett 19:35, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
Setting aside the encyclopic issue, isn't "steam tractor" the American term for what the British call a "traction engine"? If this is the case, they should be merged, but some way of finding the content with either "traction engine" or "steam tractor" as the search phrase should exist. Otherwise, the subject could be balkanized into one article for American engines and the other for British. As to how many are preserved, I take issue the the statement that there aren't many preserved. I've seen at least 15 personally and up close. Finally, I can provide a good quality GNU/public domain image of one if anyone would like to add it to the article. Grumpyoldgeek 06:18, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
There must be hundreds preserved all over the world - there are even a few in Finland. I too have photos I could upload, e.g. of a Peerless. --Janke | Talk 08:43, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
There are certainly hundreds if not thousands of these preserved. Here in the midwest USA we have festivals and exhibitions on a regular basis. I guess I have no problem with merging the pages if there is still a pointer from steam tractor (which is what we call them in the USA) and an explanation of the distinct geographic terms in the article. BenFranske 07:54, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
I support the merger. 'steam tractor' in the US is more or less synonymous with 'traction engine' in the UK, and the machines even look a lot alike. The markets were effectively separated at the time, of course. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 01:21, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Another thought - it seems from some others' comments that perhaps in the UK "Steam tractor" means a specific type of traction engine, thus the comment about 'few preserved'. Am I right? —Matthew Brown (T:C) 02:50, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
According to the Steam-up website "steam tractor" is a sub-grouping. GraemeLeggett 09:25, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NO Merger please.

Keep: I was just thinking about merging some of the information of steam tricycle.--CylePat 14:43, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

mind you, the article on steam tractor is prety anemic. --CylePat 15:18, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Keep what? I am less sure about merging the steam tricycle. I have seen what must be classified as a steam tricycle driving down the road. Essentially a three wheel open car, small steam engine, two back wheels and tiller control to steer single front wheel. Open top. This might not fit well with the traction engines as it was a very different construction. But then again, if there is not much material, it might become a separate section. I would suggest merging the three traction engine articles first and then see what we have got. Sandpiper 11:23, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
steam tricycle is essentially a threewheeler steam powered car, and therefore if anything realates to automobiles not commercial vehicles such as traction engines. GraemeLeggett 12:16, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
well, I wouldn't have said so. the distinction I see, and I think the general reader would see, is that they are powered by steam instead of internal combustion. There is a lesser distinction that traction engines are big and chunky, whereas the steam cars are much smaller. steam tricycles and steam rollers are both subsets of steam vehicles. Sandpiper 21:42, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge Steam Roller too

Just came across these articles and had a look at them. I would favour merging Traction engine and steam tractor, but I would also favour merging Steam roller. There is already a completely separate article road roller for modern road rolling machines. I think the specifically steam powered ones are a variant of the traction engine and should be included under that heading, with sections as appropriate. The main difference is that it has large roller wheels instead of smaller road wheels. It might be that in the future an expert could write a long article on how these things work, but I don't see that separate articles are useful right now. Incidentally, I think i saw a report that there are around 2000 such machines still in existence in the UK. Sandpiper 11:04, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

No, road roller is the Americanism for steamroller. Steamrollers derived from traction engines, but even though they don't use steam power any more the road construction vehicles are still called steamrollers in the UK and the word is still very much in use in a variety of contexts. There is an argument for merging road roller into steamroller, but steamroller shouldn't be coming here. -- Solipsist 12:04, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Steam Rollers are both a subset of Road Rollers and (Steam) Traction Engines. Steam tractors are a subset of (agricultural) tractors and traction engines. Steam Rollers should appear in the Road Roller article as well as Traction Engines. Should the section on steam rollers in either ever get so large then the majority can be sent off to a new article of its own with a summary remaining on the "parent" article (see "template:main" for examples etc). You will find the words Road Roller on your UK driving license, and the (UK) Road Roller Association refers to "Steam" and "motor" types.GraemeLeggett 12:12, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but steam steamrollers work in exactly the same way as traction engines, and indeed steam tractors. So the main description of such devices (presumably including something about how they work, which I have not seen yet!), should be together in one place. how they work is entirely different to how a modern road roller works. So the road roller article should have a paragraph about steam rollers (and a picture), but should refer readers here as the main article on the subject. Sandpiper 22:38, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Im sorry, I have never heard the term "road roller" here is america. perhaps it was used long ago, and Im sure some people use the term but the majorty of people here call them steam rollers, no matter if they are powered by steam or not, as do most books. I don't think steam roller should be combined with traction engine because theya re different vehicles. You don't list the station wagon with the pick up truck. However in the bottom related links section of tracion engines you could include the steam roller link or you could mention a list in there of other steam driven vehicles. (though that may be quite long as I've seen drilling machines, to rock crushers and everything inbetween) Either way I think traction engine and steam tractors into one page, the arriation in british terms could easily be mentioned in a paragraph on the page (like many other articles on here do) instead of having 2 seperate pages.

[edit] Merge Discussion - Conclusion Please?

This merger debate has now been running for nearly a year. I think it is probably time that it should be brought to a swift conclusion. Few changes (apart from my recent ones) have been made to the pages in the duration, and this 'debate' may be stifling development.

[edit] Summary

This is a summary of the situation as I see it.

[edit] Traction engine

The concensus is that Traction engine should remain as an article. This is because:

  • it is the elder article (ie started first)
  • covers a wider scope of machine types
  • is a more general search term (eg 'steam tractor' is little-used in the UK)
  • already has more detail
  • has the potential to be the parent page for others to be spun off - eg Ploughing Engine, Portable Engine, Steam Roller, etc - should the article size warrant it in the future.

The article Traction engine should only cover steam-powered vehicles that are constructed around the boiler/firebox assembly (the unique feature of a traction engine). This will therefore exclude coverage of steam cars, steam tricycles, steam bicycles, steam unicycles (!?) and even most steam lorries, which were generally built on a separate chassis. However, portable engines (understood in the UK as essentially a traction engine without a drive to the wheels) would be covered. As would any Diesel conversions of appropriate steam vehicles. Rail-guided steam locomotives are, of course, well covered elsewhere!

[edit] Steam tractor

There seems to be dispute about the terminology. UK use is for a light weight (less than 7 ton) road-going traction engine, mostly for road haulage use; US use appears to be for a steam-powered version of an agricultural tractor. I think this discrepancy could be catered for fairly easily.

The existing steam tractor article seems to cover steam-powered portable engines, agricultural engines from a US perspective, and threshing. This information could be easily merged into Traction engine without losing any content, as there is minimal overlap.

[edit] Road roller

This contains little information at present, but what is there does not overlap steamroller. Nor does most of it apply to steamroller - the modern uses for a roller (including pavements and on landfill sites) would not apply to a steam-powered roller.

[edit] Steamroller

Most traction engines are used for pulling things, or driving machinery with their flywheels. Steam rollers have a distinctly different purpose.

Also, steam rollers were used in a number of ways that modern rollers would not be, usually because more appropriate equipment is now available. So there are differences between the methods of using them. While this information is not there at present, it should be. (Give me time....)

[edit] Detail coverage

I am visiting Great Dorset Steam Fair next week, so I will be gathering photos and information for inclusion in Wikipedia!!


[edit] Conclusion

There are essentially two discussions going on here. The following concludes what action I believe should be taken:

[edit] Traction engine vs Steam tractor

Text should be merged into Traction engine, threshing machine and Portable engine, as appropriate.

Steam tractor to remain as a redirect as per Wiki guidelines.

[edit] Traction engine vs Steamroller vs Road roller

The problem here is that steam rollers are a sub-set of BOTH other subjects.

We would not be discussing whether 'fire engines' (fire appliances) should be merged with lorries (trucks) or with 'equipment for putting out fires', but that would be an equivalent (if extreme) argument.

My view is that these three pages should remain unmerged, with appropriate links being provided between them. (For example, Traction engine could cover the operation of the actual steam engine, and road roller could describe what happens when a roller passes over (soft) ground, while steam roller can link across to both of them.) Besides which, Wikipedia is large enough to handle including all three pages without causing anyone any angst.


So, at what point can we say that this discussion has reached a conclusion?

EdJogg 16:03, 25 August 2006 (UTC)


The Steam Era festival is held in Milton Ontario next weekend (labour day) and if someone would like to attend and discuss with the organizers what their thoughts are on this, it would be useful. I never thought there would be such vigorous debate when I started this article. I grew up with the term steam tractor in Milton, Ontario, Canada and we could be in the minority. If a steam tractor is the same thing as a traction engine then the articles should be merged. Blacknail 22:35, 25 August 2006 (UTC)


My apologies for getting my terminology wrong - I confused stationary engines (small, usually internal combustion, engines) with portable engines, which are, as I wrote above, essentially a traction engine without the means to drive the road wheels. I have now corrected the above text for the benefit of later readers.
I have also revised the section above for 'steam tractor'. This term is used in the UK, primarilly for a very small traction engine - less than 7 tons in weight. I think that a vital part of the merge exercise will be to make this distinction clear. It is also clear to me that we need a definitive description of the North American understanding of the term 'steam tractor', and that any differences should be noted in the article. Comparison to the introductory paragraphs of tractor (which have a distinctly anti-steam bias!) seem to confirm this, it being written from a US viewpoint.
EdJogg 00:33, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
(Above heading levels revised - EdJogg 18:51, 29 August 2006 (UTC))

Ploughing engine

[edit] New information (NO MERGE!)

Having researched this rather more, I am now of the opinion that all three should remain as separate articles. I have updated Steam tractor to highlight the differences between UK and US steam tractors, as I understand it.

I have been surprised how little Wikipedia coverage is given to the whole field (!) of farming with steam, and traction engines in particular. Presumably this is due to the limited numbers who are interested in both traction engines and Wikipedia!!

I aim to put this right, as there is almost as much scope for traction engine articles as there is for railway engines... Each type of Traction Engine should be given its own page in due couse, for now they will remain grouped on the one page.

With this in mind, I will remove the 'merge' tags at the weekend.

EdJogg 01:11, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Articles NOT to be Merged - Reasoning

[edit] Traction engine vs Steam tractor

Recent research has shown how these are very different machines. The current, woefully inadequate, Wikipedia coverage of traction engines and the like needs addressing with more information in the articles concerned. These articles have been expanded, and their future growth is also planned. Hence they should remain separate, and the 'merge' banner has been removed.

See Talk:Steam tractor#Articles NOT to be Merged - Reasoning for the full explanation.

EdJogg 13:48, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Traction engine vs Steam roller

As outlined above, these are different machines, used for different purposes, even if they were generally constructed in the same way. Also, the steamroller article needs information added about contemporary road-building that would not belong in traction engine, and, it is hoped that sufficient information will be gathered to allow ploughing engine, road locomotive and steam lorry to be also split off into separate articles before too many months have passed.

Since the merge was suggested, these articles have been expanded considerably, and their future growth is also planned. Hence they should remain separate, and the 'merge' banner has been removed.

EdJogg 23:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

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