Hesston Steam Museum
1997-2010 - Newest photos are first; keep scrolling to go back to 1997.

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All photos © 2007-2010 by Robert E Pence

Hesston Steam Museum is located north and east of Laporte, Indiana.

Opening Weekend, 2010
May 30, 2010

Eighteen tons of sophisticated design and remarkable power, this two-footer was built in Germany in 1938 by Orenstein & Koppel, survived World War II, and continued to work in East Germany into the 1960s. Founded in 1875, Orenstein and Koppel today manufactures mining and excavating machinery.

I don't know anything about the provenance of this 2-foot gasoline-powered locomotive, but I did learn that it came to Hesston with a four-cylinder Jeep engine and was overhauled and equipped with a 6-cylinder, 300 cubic inch Ford truck engine for more power. It's very smooth and sweet souding.

The handsome green car was built on a German 2-foot-gauge flatcar for use mainly on Christmas trains, where its windows and good insulation keep it comfortably warm. It shows beautiful craftsmanship and historic style.

These 1/4, or Grand, Scale locomotives once operated at Kiddieland amusement park in Melrose Park, Illinois, just west of Chicago. They have been acquired on loan by Hesston and restored to operating condition. The lead locomotive is a Northern type built in 1950 and the second one is patterned after the New York Central's famed Hudson type. It was built in 1941

"Stet" and "Query" are proofreaders marks, so they were appropriate to a railroad built and operated for many years by someone in the printing business. Much of Hesston's large collection of 1/4 scale equipment came from the estate of Chicago Publisher Elliott Donnelly. Donnelly also was a major benefactor for the Hesston Steam Museum in many other ways.

1/8 Scale

Cars & Other Rolling Stock

Structures

An Aultman-Taylor steam traction engine prowled the grounds, and had to stop for a drink.

Opening Weekend, 2009
May 24, 2009

Steam Traction Engines
The first sight that greeted me as I walked through the gate was a Minneapolis steam traction engine working on a Baker Fan. Some folks call these "steam tractors," but that's not correct; there were steam tractors for a short time, more compact machines using steam automobile technology in an effort to compete with emerging internal-combustion tractors. None were successful, because internal-combustion tractors were less expensive to build and simpler to operate and maintain.
Steam power first appeared on some farms in the 1870s, as threshing machines grew larger and more complex and required more power than could be supplied by horses on treadmills or sweeps. At first, they were portable machines, an engine and boiler mounted on wheels and pulled from field to field with horses, along with the threshing machine. In the 1880s, builders began to add traction wheels and propulsion gears so that the steam engine could pull the threshing machine from work site to work site. Further improvements led to machines sufficiently rugged and powerful to pull plows in heavy prairie sod.

The Baker Manufacturing Company first designed the four-bladed paddlewheel fan to test and break in new steam engines. It took approximately 100 horsepower to spin a Baker Fan 600rpm. Although my shutter speed was too high and nearly stopped the motion, this fan was kicking up a pretty good breeze, and the engine didn't sound like it was working very hard to do it.

The tank on the front of the engine stores water for the boiler. An engine of this size doing a full day's work threshing wheat or sawing lumber might use 2,000 - 3,000 gallons of water. That provided steady work for a couple of boys with a horse-drawn water wagon, shuttling back and forth between the nearest well or pond and filling the wagon with a hand-operated transfer pump, transferring the water to holding tanks on the engine, and then going back to the well or pond for more.

A pretty Russell engine sitting with a Ford Model A pickup on one side and a Model AA flatbed truck on the other. Builders often used colorful paint schemes on their engines to enhance marketability. The trucks are from the late 1920s - early 1930s.

A handsome Aultman-Taylor engine gets a good spin on the Baker Fan. Steam traction engines, like coal-burning steam locomotives, only emit big clouds of smoke when fresh fuel is added to the firebox, as the oils and asphalt-like compounds quickly burn off. Good coal in the hands of a skilled fireman emits little smoke over the long run.

The cloud of steam around the rear wheel comes from the starting of an injector, the ingenious primary device for adding water to the boiler on most steam traction engines. Using steam from the boiler and no moving parts, it siphons cold water from the storage tank and injects it into the boiler. An injector can move lots of water very rapidly.

Beautiful antique cars and trucks

Light Plant

Stationary Steam
The two large mill engines came from a lumber mill, and turn at idle speed using steam from the same boiler that supplies the generating station. To run either one at full load and speed would require a much larger boiler that would keep a fireman very busy.

The smaller of the two stationary steam engines is a slide-valve engine. Its speed is regulated by a centrifugal governor that controls the flow of steam into the steam chest.

The larger engine, built by Allis-Chalmers, is a Corliss-valve engine. The valve system is named for George Corliss, its inventor. It is used on most very large industrial engines in power generation and water pumping, where maximum efficiency and precise speed regulation are important.

Instead of a single slide valve that opens and closes steam and exhaust ports at each end of the cylinder, a Corliss-valve engine has four rotary valves controlling individual inlet and exhaust ports at each end of the cylinder. Two eccentrics on the crankshaft control the motion of the valves. The exhaust valves, at bottom, open and close at fixed positions in the cranshaft rotation.
The opening of the inlet valves at top takes place at fixed crankshaft positions, but the closing, or cutoff, is controlled by the centrifugal governer in the blue housing at the right edge of the photo. If the engine speed begins to drop, indicating a need for more power, the duration of opening of the inlet valves is lengthened.
The two rods leading downward from the inlet valves lead to dashpots, blind-ended cylinders with pistons in them. Opening the valve pulls up on the rod and creates a vacuum in the dashpot, and as soon as the governor-controlled detent release the valve, the dashpot piston quickly pulls the valve closed.

Sawmill & Steam Crane
The sawmill, usually run by a large Skinner Unaflow steam engine, is using tractor power while the boiler has new flues installed and a new smokestack built.

The Browning Steam Crane handles logs going into the sawmill.

One-eighth scale Trains
Standard-gauge railroad tracks are placed 56 1/2 inches apart. Hesston operates trains in four different gauges; one-eighth scale, one-quarter scale, two-foot, and three-foot.
There are both steam and internal combustion locomotives in one-eighth scale, and the realism and power of these smaller locomotives are impressive. The steam locomotives can accelerate a heavy train up the hill leading from the station into the woods at a very rapid pace.

Service is brought to a halt by a giant swamp monster from the nearby marshy area.
Snapping turtles that reach this size are nasty beasts with few predators; they can't run away so they stand and fight, and they can strike quickly. They rise up on front legs and extend their neck, and can reach about a foot and a half farther than you'd expect, and they do it in a flash. Their bite is powerful enough to sever fingers; if you don't know what you're doing, don't mess with one. You could be seriously injured.

The engineer got this one to bite onto a stick and hang on long enough that he could roll it over and drag it away from the tracks.

One-quarter scale Trains
The quarter-scale trains cover a large variety of locomotive types. Most of this collection came from the estate of the owner of the Donnelly publishing empire.

Two-foot Gauge Trains
One of the prettiest two-foot steam locomotives in operation, #242 ran at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo from the 1930s until 1985 and then sat rusting in storage until 2002 when the Donnelly Family helped Hesston Steam Museum obtain it. This weekend's first public operation is the culmination of restoration and overhaul work that began in 2002.

At the Brookfield Zoo #242 operated on almost entirely flat track and pulled four cars. Hesston has grades up to 5.5 per cent (five and a half feet of rise per hundred feet of lateral run) in curves, and just one coach challenges the skills of engineer and fireman.

Three-foot Gauge trains
1929 Shay geared locomotive #7 is the most powerful locomotive at Hesston. The first Shay locomotive was designed by Michigan lumberman Ephraim Shay, and Shay locomotives were built by Lima Locomotive until 1944 and used in logging and mining throughout North America long after steam disappeared from mainline railroading.

The Shay gets its power from a three-cylinder, double-acting upright steam engine mounted on the right side of the boiler. The engine's power is transmitted to the axles via a driveshaft with universal joints and slip couplings.

Every axle, including the ones under the tender, is driven. The gear reduction provides great torque and the flexiblity provided by the pivoting trucks allows the engine to maintain adhesion (traction) on tight curves and uneven track typical of logging and mining operations where conventional diesel or rod-driven steam locomotives would perform poorly. At Cass Scenic Railroad in West Virginia, Shay locomotives perform well on grades in excess of nine percent. Two percent is considered a tough grade on a typical mainline road.

June, 2007

"Serious" railfans hold "daisy-pickers" in contempt. Go ahead and snicker and get it over with. By the way, I don't pick them; I take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints.

The guest of honor

The TV show didn't prepare David for just how big and noisy a real steam locomotive is, and his first ride was just a little scary. Next, he tried a smaller train:

The 3-foot-gauge Shay locomotive built in 1929 by Lima Locomotive Works, heavily damaged in a 1985 arson fire that destroyed the engine house, recently has been restored to operation.

The 7 1/2-inch-gauge trains turned out to be just right for him. One ride, and there was no such thing as "enough."

Ready to go again with his dad.

Summer storm moving in.

New station under construction; first-class construction throughout!

One more ride. The engineer put on some speed departing the station, hoping to make it back before the rain started.

They didn't make it back in time; they're still out there, and the rain is starting in earnest.

They finished the ride in a downpour. David was securely wrapped in a plastic poncho that kept him mostly dry, but his dad got soaked.

Steam rises from the hot metal on the locomotive. The rain continued like this for about 20 minutes, and let up around 3 p.m. We headed home soon after; it was a fun day.

1997 and 2001

The museum features steam locomotives in four different gauges, a steam sawmill, a 92-ton steam crane, steam traction engines, and other vintage machines. The museum is open weekends and holidays between Memorial Day and Labor Day, and from Labor Day through October trains run on Sundays.

The big event each year is Labor Day Weekend, when the sawmills, farm machinery and stationary engines operate and entertainers perform.

Allis-Chalmers Corliss-valve steam engine: Corliss-valve engines use rotary valves, one each for intake and for exhaust, at each end of the piston stroke. They are capable of very precise speed regulation and more efficient in use of steam than more-common slide-valve engines. They were most often installed in large electric power plants, city water pumping stations and oil or gas pipeline facilities where loads do not fluctuate sharply and where operating speeds are lower than 100rpm and are fairly constant.

Smith, Myers & Schnier slide-valve engine, manufactured in Cincinnati, Ohio: Slide-valve engines were less expensive to manufacture than Corliss-valve engines, and simpler to maintain and operate. They can be used in many different applications; an engine of this size and type might have been used in a fairly large sawmill.

1909 Western Electric 40KW direct current generator direct-coupled with a 50-horsepower Skinner steam engine built in Erie, Pennsylvania.

65 Horsepower Case steam traction engine

Browning steam crane

Skinner Unaflow steam engine powering sawmill

Small but mighty, the one-eighth-scale locomotives operate on 7-inch gauge track. To fully appreciate how much power these engines have, you have to see how fast they can ascend a significant grade with a heavy train.

The 7-inch replica Amtrak F40 locomotive has a Briggs v-twin prime mover, and sounds uncannily like a real F40 running in notch 8

The wonderfully diverse and large collection of 14-inch live steam locomotives at Hesston came from the estate of publishing magnate Elliott Donnelly.

This twelve-ton, two-foot-gauge locomotive was built in Czechoslovakia in 1940 and hidden by the builders under a straw stack to keep it from falling into German hands. It remained hidden throughout the war and for some time afterward, before being bought by a collector in California. When it came to Hesston in 1988, it had never had a fire in the firebox.

Eighteen tons of sophisticated design and remarkable power, this two-footer was built in Germany in 1938 by Orenstein & Koppel, survived World War II, and continued to work in East Germany into the 1960s. Note the 2-foot/3-foot dual-gauge track.