Barn finds make for great stories. Rescues have a slightly different flavor. Such is the rescue story of the only RD6 side-seat with Trailer Patrol known to exist.
The town of Fortescue, Missouri, had a Special Road District (SRD), as did many towns in Missouri. Most cover a specified area around a town to maintain the roads.
In 1935, the Fortescue SRD ordered a new Caterpillar and pull type grader. This pair, the RD6 and No.15 Trailer Patrol, arrived by train on a flat car. It was used by SRD for many years.
Once the SRD acquired a newer motor grader, the No.15 Trailer Patrol was parked and the RD6 was transformed into a snowplow. It was equipped with a V-Plow, the seat was remounted in forward position, and a makeshift wood cab was added. The V-plow was lifted with an in-cab hand-operated pump.
As motor graders became more powerful, they were equipped with their own V-plow. So, the RD6 just sat. The tin can covering the exhaust stack would blow off at times and in between getting put back on would take in some rain or snow. Also, sitting in the Missouri River Valley meant a lot of moisture forming on all inside areas.
There the pair stayed.
Bill Walter made an effort to procure the pair for HCEA Heartland Chapter/ACMOC Chapter 1, but the SRD board wasn’t interested in giving them up.
Bill made another attempt in 2009 and this time had more support from a former board member and relative of the board president. Help in acquiring the pair came from Bill Young, former board member and longtime acquaintance from when the two were teenagers. The other helper was Kirby Stone, son of the board president.
A group from the chapter went up to look over the pair. One member said, after looking at the RD6, “The town must have some pretty well-behaved boys since the dash gauges had not been broken.”
The late Fred Stitt and Stan Buckley used Mike Pursell’s lowboy and drove up from Kansas City to load up the RD6. With the aid of one of the board members, they got the RD6 loaded and moved to Pursell’s Construction Equipment yard.
In early fall of 2010, Stan and Bill started disassembly to see what was needed in order to get the RD6 in running order.
From the master clutch back to the final drive pinions, it needed the pinion shaft rear bearing. Overall, they needed to get rid of the accumulation of rust.
Bill took all those pieces to his workshop and cleaned the components.
Then came the diesel engine, which has a 3-cylinder 5-3/4 bore, half of the D8 engine. Same gear train and water pump as the 6-cylinder.
Bill found that rain had entered the #1 cylinder and pretty much adhered the piston to the cylinder. Heat, a bar, and a sledgehammer proved that the piston had to give up! Since Bill was also in the business of rebuilding old style injectors and pump calibration, as well as rebuilding fuel transfer pumps, these units got the works.
The RD6 was moved into Mike’s shop. Stan and Bill put the RD6 back together. It was a delight to hear it run again. Finally, Mike’s painter painted it for the club.
Then, in Spring of 2011, a few guys went up to Fortescue and freed the No. 15 Trailer Patrol from its growth of brush and a walnut tree. Chapter members Phil and Jody Serves took their lowboy and skid loader, went up and retrieved the trailer patrol, and took it to Fred’s place. There it got serviced and painted and matched back up with the RD6, with its seat returned to the sideways position.
After disassembly of the power control unit that controls each side of the blade, it was a relief to note that it was very similar to the Motor Grader’s power control units.
Many thanks to Bill Walter, of Gladstone, Missouri, one of the Heartland Chapter/Chapter 1 charter members, for sharing this interesting account of a Caterpillar rescue story.
This restored unit will be shown and operated at “The Bigger Dig” event in Concordia, Kansas, August 28-30, 2026.
Caterpillar RD6 production history
Production of the RD6 began on March 5, 1935 and ended on January 30, 1942. The RD6 replaced the Diesel Thirty-Five and Forty tractors. RD6 serial numbers begin with either a 5E or 2H. Only five 5E tractors were produced. Starting at approximately Serial Number 2H5100, the RD6 was re-designated as D6. By the end of production, nearly 9,000 tractors were made.
An RD6 weighs 15,210 pounds, has a drawbar horsepower of 45 and a belt/PTO horsepower of 51. The RD6 has three cylinders. The Nebraska test number for this machine is Test Number 243.
Two versions were produced, a wide and an orchard version.
