Operating Costs of a Traction Engine

By Marcus Leonard
Published on May 1, 1962
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This is the last engine I had, an Advance 21hp.

Salina, Kansas

(‘J. B. Duryea’ is substituted for subject’s name in
this sketch.)

Mr. Duryea, who lived in Leaven-worth Co., Kansas, near Kansas
City, went to the Kansas City Branch House of Advance Thresher Co.
in 1904, and bought an Advance rebuilt 18hp compound engine and a
new Advance 36-60 fully equipped separator, with a geared wind
stacker attached. The machinery was shipped to Rooks Co., Kansas.
The south half of Rooks Co. was my territory. Advance Thresher
wrote me, ‘to see that Mr. Duryea received proper
attention.’

An Advance Separator was fast, heavy in the belt, on the
drawbar, and a heavy load for a 22hp engine. Mr. Duryea was sold or
bought too small an engine, but at that time Advance Thresher
Company and other threshing machine companies had been selling
36-60 separators fully equipped to 15 and 16hp engines. All were
heavily loaded. There was a difference operating a 16hp engine
doing a 22hp load and a 25hp doing a 20hp load. Firebox and all
other troubles developed more quickly, especially in hard water, in
an engine, with insufficient power, and with an overloaded engine
there can be no ‘hook-up’ without a sacrifice of power.

A 16 was considered a large engine, as late as 1903. Copies of
Chattel Mortgage Records, covering two 16hp Advance engines are
submitted as evidence Advance 16hp engines were sold to 36 – 60
separators, fully equipped in 1900.

A copy of a Chattel Mortgage Record, covering Advance 16hp
engine 5328 was recorded in Lincoln County, Kansas, June 21,
1900.

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