Can anyone point me to a source of pictures of the Yuba tractor? I have seen some patents and found a US army evaluation but as yet no pictures. Steam Power magazine promised a booklet on the subject, was it ever printed?

Thanks Brian

I did a Google search and I came up with many hits for the Yuba Tractor from about 1916. From this wealth of information you should be able to find pictures. In example the Hendrick's Ag museum in Woodland, California has one in their collection. Attached below is a photo from our family photo album taken in Canada in about 1920 at a spruce lumber logging camp. It is a Shay locomotive and is the first steam poweded snow mobile. Enjoy

Richard Robets writes:
Dear Pat
The proper name for that machine is ," Lombard Log Hauler, or Phoenix Centipede", Oliver Lombard inventor,held the patent, and produced these from almost 1900 until World war two, it pulled several sleigh's loaded with logs, a unique thing about it was the steering at the front, and to turn left the wheel was turned to the right or clockwise, going right the wheel is turned counter clockwise. These engines were also built under license as "Centipede" , by the Phoenix Manufacturing Company in Wisconsin . The Phoenix have two vertical cylinders per side 6¼" X 8", and weighed 19 tons, with a 90-100 hp rating. In actual fact the picture you sent is a "Phoenix Centipede", as it has the four cylinders where all true Lombard's were two cylinders 9" X 10" horizontally mounted. This engine was set up for long hauls as it has the large auxiliary water tank (saddle tank) on the boiler. These were also used in Finland.
As to hauling spruce, the interior was dominant spruce and would have the snow that these engines worked best in, hope this is some help. Richard

Hi,,The track is a Lombard design,,,that inner track has rollers that make it smooth as silk,,if you can believe that,,,SOUNDS more like a v12 Packard than a tractor,,,the pads dont go bang,,bang,,bang,,, A,O Lombard built these in Waterville Maine ,, beasts they were , The trails were water'd at nite,,to freeze to make an ice trail ,,Murray Clarke at Clarks Trading Post has a runner,,Gets mail at Woodstock NH I think,,,Owls Head Transportation Museum Maine ,has a runner too,, but runs on occasion,,The last one built was 1936,,a diesel,w/ pneumatic tyres on front,,, Don Johnson ,also has a gas job,,[see Clark],Some of these were shipped to Russia also,,,Quite a rig it was,,, OH YES,,,Mr LOMBARD was a friend of GEO WHITNEY and Sylvester Roper!!!! Richard Fraser has ?? inches of photos of the Lombards,,a few select pics in his book,, MAINE BUILT AUTOS ,, From the looks of things,,our boys could use a coupe of these in Afgannastan' Cheers Ben

Sorry folks, I should have specified Yuba Consolidated Industries of San Francisco, not Yuba Manufacturing Company of Marysville.
They seem to have built a four wheel drive, four engine steam tractor during the 1950's. There has been mention of it on this and SACA's forum but no pics.

Interesting about the Phoenix Centipede. I work on timber harvesters and travel to Finland from time to time, need to get the spies out and find if there is any survivors.

Brian

Searching patents and the net I find that Yuba Manufacturing becomes Yuba Consolidated around 1957.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/2006 10:44PM by Brian McMorran.

Richard Roberts reports: Phoenix paid A.O. Lombard $1000 per unit when they built there version, using the patented Lombard track system.
A tug-of-war occured at Harbor Springs, Wisconsin between a Phoenix log hauler and a Shay locomotive. The tracklaying log hauler looked like a sure winner until the locomotive engineer sanded the rails for increased traction and pulled the log hauler backwards.
Lombard introduced gasoline-powered tractors in 1916 or 1917 and Diesel units during the 1930s, the diesel units could handle 250 tons in sleds on ice roads.
Is this information overload? Steamsearly RW

Check out the attachment below

Couple of patent drawings of the tractor I'm looking for.

Brian