Pioneer Gas Engine Reunion

Last weekend I had the pleasure of visiting the Pioneer Gas Engine Reunion. It was filled with fantastic hit or miss engines, fun tractor pulls, and some great people running it all. Consider it a warm up to the Pageant of Steam coming up shortly.

Before I even got into the show I saw this beauty in the parking lot. The commercial plates, an option when you register any truck here in NY, made me think of how cool she would look as a parts runner with a custom/machine shop logo on the side.

As we went straight into the grounds, the engine displays could be heard: chug chug chug, poof, chug chug chug, poof. These old “hit and miss” engines were a type of speed control created before throttling became popular. What was great was just standing in the middle of the displays and listening to all of the engines chuff along at varying rates, like polyrhythmic music coming in and out of cadence.

As Refined and I came out of the engine area we saw this wondrous creation motor by. By the looks of it, the best we could figure was this Cub Cadet was converted to a hit-and-miss engine, something we doubt was an option from the factory. Gave refined more ammunition for the creation of his – though he calls it my – H&M motorcycle. Hmm, maybe we have a new R-R project in the works.

Outside of the engine area sat this amazing piece of craftsmanship. She weighed in at 12 tons, and was kept warm for various expositions throughout the show. Though she wasn’t as pretty as some other creations I’ve come across, she definitely had that hard working no-nonsense feel about her. I especially liked the steering: worm wheel, to chain, to wagon steering. Something tells me high speed handling is not her forte.

After the majestic, but slightly impractical steam tractor, we came to the tractor pulls. Both full size and miniature. The kids had their choice of brand, and pulled what looked to be a miniaturized version of the full size tractor pulls. The bigger tractors pulled against a sled loaded down with 55 gal drums filled with cement, chains laid out in front of the sled took the place of complicated gear mechanisms seen in the professional tractor pulling arena.

Every time the sled got too easy to pull, they added another cement filled drum to it. Refined and I dubbed these the Farmer Bob unit of mass, one of the units that comprise the Farmer Bob measurement system. We very much liked the idea of this, so expect to be seeing it more in the future.