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A portable engine is an
engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ge ...
, either a
steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs Work (physics), mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a Cylinder (locomotive), cyl ...
or an
internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal comb ...
, that sits in one place while operating (providing power to machinery), but (unlike a stationary engine) is
portable Portable may refer to: General * Portable building, a manufactured structure that is built off site and moved in upon completion of site and utility work * Portable classroom, a temporary building installed on the grounds of a school to provide a ...
and thus can be easily moved from one work site to another. Mounted on wheels or skids, it is either towed to the work site or moves there via self-propulsion. Portable engines were in common use in industrialised countries from the early 19th through early 20th centuries, during an era when mechanical power transmission was widespread. Before that, most power generation and transmission were by
animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Biology, biological Kingdom (biology), kingdom Animalia (). With few exceptions, animals heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, ...
,
water Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known liv ...
,
wind Wind is the natural movement of atmosphere of Earth, air or other gases relative to a planetary surface, planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heatin ...
, or
human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing ...
; after that, a combination of
electrification Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. In the context of history of technology and economic development, electrification refe ...
(including
rural electrification Rural electrification is the process of bringing electrical power to rural and remote areas. Rural communities are suffering from colossal market failures as the national grids fall short of their demand for electricity. As of 2019, 770 million ...
) and modern vehicles and equipment (such as
tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a Trailer (vehicle), trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or constructio ...
s,
truck A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport freight, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame construct ...
s,
cars A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people rather than cargo. There are around one billio ...
, engine-generators, and machines with their engines built in) displaced most use of portable engines. In
developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a less-developed Secondary sector of the economy, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to developed countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. ...
today, portable engines still have some use (typically in the form of modern
small engine A small engine is the general term for a wide range of small-displacement, low-powered internal combustion engines used to power lawn mowers, generators, concrete mixers and many other machines that require independent power sources. These engin ...
s mounted on boards), although the technologies mentioned above increasingly limit their demand there as well. In industrialised countries they are no longer used for commercial purposes, but preserved examples can often be seen at steam fairs driving appropriate equipment for demonstration purposes. Portable engines during their
heyday Heyday may refer to: * ''Heyday'' (The Church album), 1986 * ''Heyday'' (Fairport Convention album), 1987 * Heyday (song), a 2000 song by Mic Christopher * ''Heyday'' (novel), a historical novel by Kurt Andersen * Heyday Books, an independent ...
were typically towed to their work sites by
draft horse A draft horse (US) or draught horse (UK), also known as dray horse, carthorse, work horse or heavy horse, is a large horse bred to be a working animal hauling freight and doing heavy agricultural tasks such as plowing. There are a number o ...
s or oxen, or, in the latter part of that era, motive power including self-propulsion or towing by
traction engine A traction engine is a steam engine, steam-powered tractor used to move heavy loads on roads, plough ground or to provide power at a chosen location. The name derives from the Latin ''tractus'', meaning 'drawn', since the prime function of any ...
s,
steam tractor A steam tractor is a tractor powered by a steam engine which is used for pulling. In North America, the term ''steam tractor'' usually refers to a type of agriculture, agricultural tractor powered by a steam engine, used extensively in the l ...
s, other
tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a Trailer (vehicle), trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or constructio ...
s, or trucks. They were used to drive
agricultural machinery Agricultural machinery relates to the machine (mechanical), mechanical structures and devices used in farming or other agriculture. There are list of agricultural machinery, many types of such equipment, from hand tools and power tools to tractor ...
(such as
threshing machine A threshing machine or a thresher is a piece of agricultural machinery, farm equipment that separates grain seed from the plant stem, stalks and husks. It does so by beating the plant to make the seeds fall out. Before such machines were developed ...
s), milling machinery (such as
gristmill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that h ...
s,
sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...
s, and ore mills), pumps and fans (such as in mines and
oil well An oil well is a drillhole boring in Earth that is designed to bring petroleum oil hydrocarbons to the surface. Usually some natural gas is released as associated petroleum gas along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce only gas m ...
s), and factory line shafts (for
machine tool A machine tool is a machine for handling or machining metal or other rigid materials, usually by cutting, Boring (manufacturing), boring, grinding (abrasive cutting), grinding, shearing, or other forms of deformations. Machine tools employ some s ...
s,
power hammer Power hammers are mechanical forging hammers that use an electrical power source or steam to raise the hammer preparatory to striking, and accelerate it onto the work being hammered. They are also called open die power forging hammers. They ha ...
s, presses, and other machines).


History

In common with many other areas of steam technology, the initial design and development of portable engines took place in
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
, with many other countries initially importing British-built equipment rather than developing their own. Early
steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs Work (physics), mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a Cylinder (locomotive), cyl ...
s were too large and expensive for use on the average farm; however, the first positive evidence of steam power being used to drive a
threshing machine A threshing machine or a thresher is a piece of agricultural machinery, farm equipment that separates grain seed from the plant stem, stalks and husks. It does so by beating the plant to make the seeds fall out. Before such machines were developed ...
was in 1799 in north
Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...
. The next recorded application was in 1812, when
Richard Trevithick Richard Trevithick (13 April 1771 – 22 April 1833) was a British inventor and mining engineer. The son of a mining captain, and born in the mining heartland of Cornwall, Trevithick was immersed in mining and engineering from an early age. He ...
designed the first 'semi-portable'
stationary steam engine Stationary steam engines are fixed steam engines used for pumping or driving mills and factories, and for power generation. They are distinct from locomotive engines used on railways, traction engines for heavy steam haulage on roads, steam car ...
for agricultural use, known as a "barn engine". This was a high-pressure, rotative engine with a Cornish boiler, for Sir Christopher Hawkins of
Probus, Cornwall Probus ('' Cornish: Lannbrobus'') is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, England, in the United Kingdom. It has the tallest church tower in Cornwall. The tower is high, and richly decorated with carvings. The place name originates from the c ...
. It was used to drive a corn threshing machine and was much cheaper to run than the horses it replaced. Indeed, it was so successful that it remained in use for nearly 70 years, and has been preserved by the
Science Museum A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, Industry (manufacturing), industry and Outline of industrial ...
in London. Although termed 'semi-portable', as they could be transported and installed without being dismantled, these engines were essentially stationary. They were used to drive such barn machinery as pumps and hammer mills, bone-crushers, chaff and turnip cutters, and fixed and mobile threshing drums. It was not until about 1839 that the truly portable engine appeared, allowing the application of steam power beyond the confines of the farmyard. William Tuxford of
Boston, Lincolnshire Boston is a market town and inland port in the borough of the same name in the county of Lincolnshire, England. It lies to the south-east of Lincoln, east of Nottingham and north-east of Peterborough. The town had a population of 45,339 at ...
started manufacture of an engine built around a locomotive-style boiler with horizontal smoke tubes. A single cylinder and the crankshaft were mounted on top of the boiler, and the whole assembly was mounted on four wheels: the front pair being steerable and fitted with shafts for horse-haulage between jobs. A large
flywheel A flywheel is a mechanical device that uses the conservation of angular momentum to store rotational energy, a form of kinetic energy proportional to the product of its moment of inertia and the square of its rotational speed. In particular, a ...
was mounted on the crankshaft, and a stout leather belt was used to transfer the drive to the equipment being driven. Ransomes built an early portable in 1841 and exhibited it at the Royal Agricultural Society show that year. The next year Ransomes converted the steam engine to self driving, thus making an intermediate step towards the
traction engine A traction engine is a steam engine, steam-powered tractor used to move heavy loads on roads, plough ground or to provide power at a chosen location. The name derives from the Latin ''tractus'', meaning 'drawn', since the prime function of any ...
. Several Tuxford engines were displayed at the Royal Agricultural Society's Show at Bristol in 1842, and other manufacturers soon joined in, using the basic design of the Tuxford engine as a pattern for the majority of portable engines produced thereafter. Early manufacturers in the UK included: * Alexander Dean of
Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...
* Ransomes of
Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Suffolk, England. It is the county town, and largest in Suffolk, followed by Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds, and the third-largest population centre in East Anglia, ...
* William Tuxford and Sons of Boston, Lincolnshire * Howden of Boston, Lincolnshire * Clayton & Shuttleworth of Lincoln This last manufacturer is particularly noteworthy here. The first Clayton & Shuttleworth portable was built in 1845, a two-cylinder engine. In 1852, the company won a gold medal for a portable engine at the Royal Agricultural Society's Gloucester show, and thereafter the business expanded rapidly: they established a second works, in
Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
in 1857, to target the European market, and by 1890 the company had manufactured over 26,000 portable engines, many being exported all over the world. In the 1850s, John Fowler used a Clayton & Shuttleworth portable engine to drive apparatus in the first public demonstrations of the application of cable haulage to cultivation. In parallel with the early portable engine development, many engineers attempted to make them self-propelled – the fore-runners of the
traction engine A traction engine is a steam engine, steam-powered tractor used to move heavy loads on roads, plough ground or to provide power at a chosen location. The name derives from the Latin ''tractus'', meaning 'drawn', since the prime function of any ...
. In most cases this was achieved by fitting a sprocket on the end of the crankshaft, and running a chain from this to a larger sprocket on the rear axle. These experiments met with mixed success. Thomas Aveling commented that it was absurd to use four horses to pull a steam engine job-to-job, when the engine possessed ten times the strength of the horses. It was therefore inevitable, once self-propelled traction engines had become sufficiently reliable, that they would take over the roles of many portable engines, and this indeed started to happen from the late 1860s. In the UK this development was perhaps somewhat delayed by various acts of parliament that limited the use of steam powered vehicles on roads. Portable engines, being horse drawn, faced far fewer restrictions. Other builders manufactured engines around the world. Small machine shops could assemble units with a small engine and vertical boiler and put it on wheels. In North America dozens of builders entered the market—Case, Sawyer Massey, and Gaar Scott for example. Native builders erected engines in France, Italy, Sweden and Germany. However, the portable engine was never completely replaced by the traction engine. Firstly, the portable, having no
gear A gear or gearwheel is a rotating machine part typically used to transmit rotational motion and/or torque by means of a series of teeth that engage with compatible teeth of another gear or other part. The teeth can be integral saliences or ...
ing, was markedly cheaper, and secondly, numerous applications benefitted from a simple steam engine that could be moved, but did not require the additional complexity of one that could move itself. Small numbers of portables continued to be built even after traction engine production ceased. Robey and Company of Lincoln were still offering portables for sale into the 1960s. The English builders produced in the order of 100,000 portable steam engines in the hundred year time period both for home use and export abroad. From about 1900 onward, the requirement for a small cheap source of power on farms was increasingly taken over by internal combustion engines, such as hit-and-miss engines and, later, stationary and portable industrial versions of car and truck engines, either for belt use or built into engine-generators.


Usage

Apart from threshing work, portable engines were used to drive corn-mills,
centrifugal pump Centrifugal pumps are used to transport fluids by the Energy transformation, conversion of rotational kinetic energy to the hydrodynamic energy of the fluid flow. The rotational energy typically comes from an engine or electric motor. They are ...
s, stone-crushers,
dynamo "Dynamo Electric Machine" (end view, partly section, ) A dynamo is an electrical generator that creates direct current using a commutator. Dynamos employed electromagnets for self-starting by using residual magnetic field left in the iron cores ...
s,
chaff Chaff (; ) is dry, scale-like plant material such as the protective seed casings of cereal grains, the scale-like parts of flowers, or finely chopped straw. Chaff cannot be digested by humans, but it may be fed to livestock, ploughed into soil ...
-cutters, hay-balers and saw benches. They were even used to generate electricity for floodlighting at
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
matches, the first instance being at
Bramall Lane Bramall Lane is a association football, football stadium in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, which is the home of Sheffield United F.C., Sheffield United. The stadium was originally a cricket ground, built on a road named after the Bramall ...
,
Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...
in 1878. In general, the portable engine is hauled to the work area, often a farmyard or field, and a long drive belt is fitted between the engine's flywheel and the driving wheel of the equipment to be powered. In a number of cases, rather than being towed from site-to-site, the portable engine was semi-permanently installed in a building as a
stationary steam engine Stationary steam engines are fixed steam engines used for pumping or driving mills and factories, and for power generation. They are distinct from locomotive engines used on railways, traction engines for heavy steam haulage on roads, steam car ...
, although the wheels were not necessarily removed. In this configuration, they are generally called Semi-portable engines. A more extreme use occurs where the engine is removed from the boiler and is re-used as a stationary engine. Often, the boiler is also re-used (without its wheels) to provide the steam. As of 2007, there are still examples of such dismantled portable engines working commercially in small rice mills in
Burma Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...
(and, no doubt, elsewhere too). Such examples are easy to identify due to the curved saddle, below the cylinder block, that was used to mount the engine to the boiler.


Construction


General layout

The most common arrangement follows the original Tuxford design. Although this closely resembles the common layout of a traction engine, the engine of a portable is usually reversed, with the
cylinders A cylinder () has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infinite ...
at the firebox end and the
crankshaft A crankshaft is a mechanical component used in a reciprocating engine, piston engine to convert the reciprocating motion into rotational motion. The crankshaft is a rotating Shaft (mechanical engineering), shaft containing one or more crankpins, ...
at the
smokebox A smokebox is one of the major basic parts of a steam locomotive exhaust system. Smoke and hot gases pass from the firebox through tubes where they pass heat to the surrounding water in the boiler. The smoke then enters the smokebox, and is ...
end. This layout was designed to position the regulator close to the firebox, making it easier for the engineman to maintain the fire and control the engine speed from the one location. An added bonus is that the
flywheel A flywheel is a mechanical device that uses the conservation of angular momentum to store rotational energy, a form of kinetic energy proportional to the product of its moment of inertia and the square of its rotational speed. In particular, a ...
is clear of the rear road wheels so the latter can be set on a narrower track, making the engine easier to manoeuvre through field gates. A few makers (e.g. Fowler) made their portable engines in the same style as traction engines, with the cylinder at the smokebox end. This was probably to reduce manufacturing costs, as there is no other obvious benefit of doing this. (Thomas Aveling realised that, for a traction engine, it would be better to position the flywheel within reach of the driver in case he carelessly allowed the crank to stop on top dead centre (where it could not self-start) and most other traction engine manufacturers followed this same idea.)


Boiler

This is usually a fire-tube boiler with a
locomotive A locomotive is a rail transport, rail vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. Traditionally, locomotives pulled trains from the front. However, Push–pull train, push–pull operation has become common, and in the pursuit for ...
-type firebox. However, some designs (e.g. the
Marshall Marshall may refer to: Places Australia *Marshall, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria ** Marshall railway station Canada * Marshall, Saskatchewan * The Marshall, a mountain in British Columbia Liberia * Marshall, Liberia Marshall Is ...
"Britannia" (pictured)) have circular, marine-type, fireboxes. This latter type were also known by British manufacturers as 'colonial' boilers, as they were mainly intended for export to 'the Colonies', and had a high ground clearance for travelling along rough tracks. Fuel is usually
coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...
but the engine may be designed to use
wood fuel Wood fuel (or fuelwood) is a fuel such as firewood, charcoal, Woodchips, chips, sheets, wood pellets, pellets, and sawdust. The particular form used depends upon factors such as source, quantity, quality and application. In many areas, wood is th ...
, straw or
bagasse Bagasse ( ) is the dry pulpy fibrous material that remains after crushing sugarcane or sorghum stalks to extract their juice. It is used as a biofuel for the production of heat, energy, and electricity, and in the manufacture of pulp and building ...
(sugar cane residue) instead. A longer, circular firebox is particularly suitable for burning logs rather than shorter wood billets. Machines designed for wood-burning may be fitted with
spark arrestor A spark arrester (sometimes spark arrestor) is any device which prevents the emission of flammable debris from combustion sources, such as internal combustion engines, fireplaces, and wood-burning stoves. Spark arresters play a critical role i ...
s.


Engine

Most portable engines are single-cylinder but two-cylinder engines were also built. The slide valve is usually driven by a single eccentric and no
reversing gear Reversing gear is a mechanism used to both control the direction of travel of a steam locomotive and adjust its engine's steam cutoff. Reversing lever The most common form of reversing gear uses a lever to engage (known as a ''Johnson bar'' in ...
is fitted. There is usually a belt-driven
governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...
to keep the engine running at constant speed, even if the load fluctuates. The engine may have one or two flywheels mounted on the same crankshaft. Where two are provided, they are mounted either side of the engine and may be of different diameters. A smaller flywheel provides a slower speed for farmyard work (e.g. chopping feedstuffs) than is required for driving a
threshing machine A threshing machine or a thresher is a piece of agricultural machinery, farm equipment that separates grain seed from the plant stem, stalks and husks. It does so by beating the plant to make the seeds fall out. Before such machines were developed ...
(for example).


Auxiliaries

The crankshaft drives a boiler feedwater pump which draws water from a barrel placed alongside the engine. Many engines have a simple, but effective,
feedwater heater A feedwater heater is a power plant component used to pre-heat water delivered to a steam generating boiler. Preheating the feedwater reduces the irreversibilities involved in steam generation and therefore improves the thermodynamic efficiency o ...
which works by blowing a small portion of the exhaust steam into the water barrel. The barrel also acts as an oil separator. Oil in the exhaust steam rises to the top of the barrel and can be skimmed off.


Chimney

A tall chimney is provided to ensure a good draught for the fire. To permit negotiation of overhead obstacles, the chimney is hinged at its base, and is folded down for transport and storage. A suitably shaped bracket is usually provided towards the firebox end to support the chimney when folded.


Wheels

Most designs are fitted with four wheels and no suspension of any kind. The first portables had
wood Wood is a structural tissue/material found as xylem in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulosic fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin t ...
en wheels, but as the engines became more powerful (and heavier), fabricated
steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...
wheels were fitted instead. The 'front' wheels are normally smaller than those at the back. This is because they are mounted on the swivelling ''fore-carriage'', under the smokebox, and large wheels would be liable to hit the boiler when the engine was turned around a corner. An added bonus is that a larger
diameter In geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the centre of the circle and whose endpoints lie on the circle. It can also be defined as the longest Chord (geometry), chord of the circle. Both definitions a ...
flywheel A flywheel is a mechanical device that uses the conservation of angular momentum to store rotational energy, a form of kinetic energy proportional to the product of its moment of inertia and the square of its rotational speed. In particular, a ...
may be fitted, providing a more steady power output.


Preservation

Many portable engines still survive, as they were built in large quantities and were shipped to many remote corners of the Earth. A substantial number of them have been preserved, with many restored to full working order: their relatively small size and simpler construction, compared to a
traction engine A traction engine is a steam engine, steam-powered tractor used to move heavy loads on roads, plough ground or to provide power at a chosen location. The name derives from the Latin ''tractus'', meaning 'drawn', since the prime function of any ...
, makes them a much more viable proposition for restoration by the average enthusiast. (That is, provided the boiler is in reasonable condition: boiler repairs can be very expensive; replacement boilers even more so.) It is usually possible to see portable engines working at traction engine rallies and steam festivals. At the Great Dorset Steam Fair, for example, portable engines may be found in the relevant demonstration areas driving saw benches, threshing machines, rock crushers and other contemporary equipment. Numerous agricultural and industrial museums include portable engines within their collections. What is thought to be the oldest surviving
Marshall Marshall may refer to: Places Australia *Marshall, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria ** Marshall railway station Canada * Marshall, Saskatchewan * The Marshall, a mountain in British Columbia Liberia * Marshall, Liberia Marshall Is ...
product, works no. 415, a 2.5 nhp portable from 1866, may be seen at the Turon Technology Museum (Museum of Power), in
New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...
. This engine is also the oldest ''documented'' portable in Australia.


See also

* Farm equipment * List of traction engine manufacturers – ''many traction engine manufacturers also built portable engines'' * Semi-portable engine


References


Further reading

* ''Portable Steam Engines'' (Shire Album 163) by Lyndon R. Shearman, published by Shire Publications Ltd, * ''The Portable Steam Engine: Its Construction and Management – A Practical Manual for Owners and Users of Steam Engines Generally'' by W. D. Wansbrough, 168 pages, published by TEE Publishing Ltd (1994),
(This is a modern reprint of a book originally published in 1887 or 1911, depending on which online bookseller you refer to!.)


External links

{{commons category, Portable engines
Steam Scenes – extensive searchable photo library
– ''preserved portable engines in the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand''



''with close-up pictures showing the components of a typical portable engine.''

– ''Employed some unusual solutions, including design of a new pressure vessel to fit ''inside'' the original, unrepairable, boiler shell.'' Stationary steam engines Steam engines Agricultural machinery