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Bryan steam tractor
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When a spectator at a recent thresher reunion discovered how much steam pressure the Bryan steam tractor produced per square inch, he ran away from it, says Peter Mandt of Wahpeton, N.D., who has restored a circa 1927 model of the unusual steam tractor.
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''I'm not going to stand next to that thing', he said,' Peter chuckles.
Perhaps with good reason: The Bryan operates at 600 lbs. per square inch (psi) while other steam traction engines ran at a maximum one-quarter to one-third of that pressure. For example, a 1906 Minneapolis return flue compound engine ran at 125 pounds maximum psi, a 1912 19-65 hp Port Huron steam traction engine ran at 185 pounds steam pressure psi, and a 1907 14 hp Russell compound steam traction engine was government tested to 225 pounds psi, according to Jack Norbeck in Encyclopedia of American Steam Traction Engines.
'The early ones had one row of rivets in the barrel of the boiler and carried from 80 to 100 lbs. pressure,' Norbeck writes. 'Around 1915, when most manufacturers diverted to double butt strap boilers, the pressure was increased to 150 lbs. Some carried 180. This increased the power tremendously.'
Nothing is written about why George A. Bryan built a steam tractor with such high psi pressure, but some reasons are obvious: More pressure meant more operating power (the Bryan was rated to pull optimistically - four 14-inch plows), and Bryan was thinking of using steam for more than tractors.
Bryan Brain Child
The Bryan Steam tractor was the brain child of George A. Bryan of New Mexico, who dreamed of building steam engines while growing up at the turn of the century. He started at the very bottom, literally and figuratively, wiping off railroad locomotives for the Santa Fe railroad. He moved up to fireman, engineer, locomotive inspector, and finally chief inspector.
'He became enthusiastic about the use of steam power,' says Bryan Steam from the Peru Public Library in Peru, Ind., 'and believed that the superheated system of steam locomotive engines could be condensed into a small, light weight power plant that would be suitable to operate light weight farm tractors, automobiles, and other motive power-type applications.'
To that end, he spent two years developing the concept, and in about 1913, installed a steam boiler in an automobile.
'After driving the car over the mountains and through the deserts of New Mexico - over 10,000 miles,' says Bryan Steam, 'he organized the Bryan Harvester Company in 1916, with his father, Oscar Bryan, as a partner.'
Despite having built a successful steam automobile, the Bryans felt their opportunity lay in building a steam tractor, so New Mexico was deemed not the best location for a Bryan plant.
'In 1918,' Bryan Steam says, 'facilities of approximately 27,000 square feet were purchased at Peru, Indiana, near the center of the agriculture business at that time, and accessible to the sources of major steel suppliers and skilled workmen.'
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