1952 Ferguson TO30

[Husker6.5]

These were the kind of steam engines dad and Jim were into, @MrMarty51! Like Union Pacific's #8444 (now renumbered #844). In fact, dad got to drive it on UP's mainline between Denver and Cheyenne for about 30 miles back in 1975. But that's a whole other story for another time.

 

[n8in8or]

Oh yes, I’ve definitely been wanting to check out the museum at Speedway for a while now. I’ll look you up if/when I get there!

 

[n8in8or]

HHHMMMmmm, BOY, do I ever have a passion for steam engine driven machinery.
I was born and raised with a miniature steam tractor that My dad built from scrap he pulled from the Pacific Hides, furs and steel recycling back in the early 40s.
I imagine there was so much more of that real old stuff passed through due to the war efforts, so pickins was probably plentyful. The old man loved the case tractors and He tried to style this one from what He could scrounge. I do know one old timer that had a blacksmith shop, told me dad had cast and machined they cylinder and valve train himself using the equipment at the blacksmith shop.
Yup, thats Me. About 1954.
View attachment 75928

This is SUPER cool! Is that engine still around?

 

[n8in8or]

Friday I had 5 yards of top soil delivered because I just didn’t think what I had was going to do.




Saturday morning I got started by moving that and my existing top soil around. I had it in pretty good shape mid-afternoon.




After lunch I assembled the landscape drag I bought and hooked it up behind the garden tractor. I ran it without extra weight for a while and it was doing ok, but there were some high and low spots that were being stubborn so I put a couple blocks on it. That was really working for a bit, but then I was having trouble getting up the slope, even with the diff locked, so I removed one of the blocks - this ended up working quite well.



Oh and I figured out why it’s called a landscape drag……it’s a drag picking up all of the rocks and sticks and junk that it unearths as you use it!! This is the pile of what I picked up after running it.



It was getting close to dinner time, but we were supposed to be getting rain overnight and Sunday so I wanted to get it all done….we pushed dinner later and I kept working. I got grass seed spread, fertilizer spread and drove over all of it to work it in a little. Final step was putting down the straw erosion blankets.



I still have work to do around the margins, but the main slope is done. And wouldn’t you know…..we got very little rain overnight and now the forecast isn’t as wet for today either. Oh well, at least I got it done, I guess today I’ll be figuring out my sprinkler situation.

 

[n8in8or]

These were the kind of steam engines dad and Jim were into, @MrMarty51! Like Union Pacific's #8444 (now renumbered #844). In fact, dad got to drive it on UP's mainline between Denver and Cheyenne for about 30 miles back in 1975. But that's a whole other story for another time.View attachment 75929

You say NOW 844? Is it still in service?

 

[Husker6.5]

You say NOW 844? Is it still in service?

Oh hell yeah it is! It was one of UP's fast passenger engines and it, along with its big brother, Big Boy 4-8-8-4 #4014 built in WWII to haul heavy freight for the war effort over the mainline passes in Wyoming, are kept in full operating condition. In fact, last fall #4014 went on a tour of UP's operational area and I was able to get some really cool photos while chasing it across southeastern Nebraska. Nothing quite like having 1,000,000 pounds of steam engine blasting past you at 60MPH just 15 feet away, @n8in8or!

 

[Husker6.5]

Oh yes, I’ve definitely been wanting to check out the museum at Speedway for a while now. I’ll look you up if/when I get there!

I did the tour a couple of months after my dad passed away, kinda as a tribute to him. It was fun when I got to the section with all the Sprint cars from the 60's and 70's, most donated by local/regional race teams, as the docent who accompanied me (and was about 15 years older than me, 70-something) was amazed at how much I knew about some of the cars/teams. I explained to him that I grew up in a racing family and I saw these cars race and knew the teams.

Funny story. In the late 1980's TNT Network rented the 30' platform boom truck from my dad's sign and lighting company to use as an aerial camera platform while they televised the World of Outlaws ⅓ Mile National Championship Sprint Car Races at Eagle Raceway. So, I spent the entire night with the truck parked up against the pit wall between Turns 1&2 about 20' up in the air and hanging 5' out over the track with the TNT cameraman, tripod and broadcast camera in the platform cage next to me on the Elliot lift.

After the race was over, I stowed the boom and drove the truck back into Lincoln and to dad's shop. Now, dad also owned the building across the parking lot from the sign shop building, which housed a coin-op laundry on one side and had his private office and behind the office his residence in the other side. Just to the south of the office/residence/laundry building he also owned a three-stall 'quarter carwash' that had bays tall enough and wide enough to easily put a semi-trailer truck in. The parking lot area between the sign shop, office and wash was huge. Anyway, I pull up to park the boom truck in the storage lot behind the shop close to 1am and notice three really nice semi-trailer rigs lined up each in front of a wash bay, with racing graphics and car numbers on them.

I go into dad's place and who's sitting on the couches in dad's livingroom drinking beer and shooting the shit with dad? None other than Doug Wolfgang, "Slammin" Sammy Swindell and his brother, Jeff Swindell - only the three best drivers in the World of Outlaws at the time! Doug Wolfgang drove Speedy Bill Smith's sprint car, 4x, for quite a few years in WoO before forming his own team, as did Jan Opperman drive sprints - a 427 BBC powered one - in the 1970's for Bill. Jan also drove the Speedway Motors Indy Car in the Indy 500 (Google: Indy Car drive with old bus engine) in the mid-70's.

 

[n8in8or]

I did the tour a couple of months after my dad passed away, kinda as a tribute to him. It was fun when I got to the section with all the Sprint cars from the 60's and 70's, most donated by local/regional race teams, as the docent who accompanied me (and was about 15 years older than me, 70-something, was amazed at how much I knew about some of the cars/teams. I explained to him that I grew up in a racing family and I saw these cars race and knew the teams.

Funny story. In the late 1980's TNT Network rented the 30' platform boom truck from my dad's sign and lighting company to use as an aerial camera platform while they televised the World of Outlaws ⅓ Mile National Championship Sprint Car Races at Eagle Raceway. So, I spent the entire night with the truck parked up against the pit wall between Turns 1&2 about 20' up in the air and hanging 5' out over the track with the TNT cameraman, tripod and broadcast camera in the platform cage next to me on the Elliot lift.

After the race was over, I stowed the boom and drove the truck back into Lincoln and to dad's shop. Now, dad also owned the building across the parking lot from the sign shop building, which housed a coin-op laundry on one side and had his private office and behind the office his residence in the other side. Just to the south of the office/residence/laundry building he also owned a three-stall 'quarter carwash' that had bays tall enough and wide enough to easily put a semi-trailer truck in. The parking lot area between the sign shop, office and wash was huge. Anyway, I pull up to park the boom truck in the storage lot behind the shop close to 1am and notice three really nice semi-trailer rigs lined up each in front of a wash bay, with racing graphics and car numbers on them.

I go into dad's place and who's sitting on the couches in dad's livingroom drinking beer and shooting the shit with dad? None other than Doug Wolfgang, "Slammin" Sammy Swindell and his brother, Jeff Swindell - only the three best drivers in the World of Outlaws at the time! Doug Wolfgang drove Speedy Bill Smith's sprint car, 4x, for quite a few years in WoO before forming his own team, as did Jan Opperman drive sprints - a 427 BBC powered one - in the 1970's for Bill. Jan also drove the Speedway Motors Indy Car in the Indy 500 (Google: Indy Car drive with old bus engine) in the mid-70's.

Super cool!! I recognize the Sammy Swindell name.

 

[Husker6.5]

Yeah, Sammy was/is the Richard Petty of Sprint Car racing. He and Jeff's boys continued the tradition, but Kevin was seriously injured in a bad wreck that left him paralyzed.

 

[n8in8or]

This is how much of the fill dirt I removed from the yard. Yes, I used the trucks for scale, but of course we all know that I just wanted to play in the dirt with them.



And this shows two things: 1. How well the Tahoe’s AC is working and 2. What the Michigan humidity is that I’ve been working in. This is with the truck idling for 5 minutes. So gross.

 

[Husker6.5]

Been just as humid here in Lincoln. Fun driving when you can't see in your driver's door rear mirror due to the condensation on the window. I actually had to turn on the rear defrost grid for the back window the other night while I had the AC on in the Camry because the condensation was so heavy it was obscuring the view out the back window in the rear view mirror.

 

[MrMarty51]

This is SUPER cool! Is that engine still around?

Sorely no. It is somewhere. Back in 1971 or early 1972 Dad did a trade to a guy over in Rapid City that had a museum. As soon as I seen it was gone I should have jumped in the car and went and retrieved it.
I have reached out to several of the steam tractor groups with no results. From what the old timer museum people could recollect it sold and went to Rollag Minnesota. I have plans to travel over to there come this fall and see if I can spot it, or, if anyone over there has seen it or might know where it possibly might have gone to.

 

[n8in8or]

Sorely no. It is somewhere. Back in 1971 or early 1972 Dad did a trade to a guy over in Rapid City that had a museum. As soon as I seen it was gone I should have jumped in the car and went and retrieved it.
I have reached out to several of the steam tractor groups with no results. From what the old timer museum people could recollect it sold and went to Rollag Minnesota. I have plans to travel over to there come this fall and see if I can spot it, or, if anyone over there has seen it or might know where it possibly might have gone to.

That's too bad. I hope you get lucky and find it.

 

[Husker6.5]

I wonder if Mike and Frank of Antique Archeology (American Pickers) have run across it in their travels, or if they could keep an eye out for it for you in their travels if you asked? They have found specific items for customers that are wanting them while picking on a couple of shows. Might want to contact them, couldn't hurt to have extra sets of eyes on the look out for it.

 

[MrMarty51]

I wonder if Mike and Frank of Antique Archeology (American Pickers) have run across it in their travels, or if they could keep an eye out for it for you in their travels if you asked? They have found specific items for customers that are wanting them while picking on a couple of shows. Might want to contact them, couldn't hurt to have extra sets of eyes on the look out for it.

I had been after My brother for years to get involved in helping me to seek this out.
He was here over the fourth and that was one thing He was talking about, getting the pickers involved.
Brother lives over in Ohio and He said that He would contact them and see of they would be interested in such an endeavor.
I would most likely break down and bawl like a child denied a lollypop if we found it.