Steam Traction on the Road

Steam power found a real purpose in agriculture, where the traction engine was used for a variety of tasks from towing and working threshing machines to ploughing. Once the value of the traction engine had been established, it soon found a use in many parts of the world for heavy haulage work and appeared in an exotic guise as the showman’s engine. This is the story of how, for more than a hundred years, steam power played a vital role in the development of road transport. PB, 200pp.