My life with steam

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Back in the late 1980’s, I had the pleasure of talking to Charles Nobel’s nephew, who was living in Regina. He told me that after Charles finished the steam plowing, he bought 12 Model E Oil Pulls to sow the grain and plow the stubble. They became too expensive to operate and he went back to a large scale horse operation, which was the cheapest way to farm at that time. Also, the nephew mentioned that one summer, they started steam plowing in mid-August and broke over 17,000 acres by freeze up.

My first attempt to build a steam engine as a young lad started with an old furnace lying down, attached wheels, a smokestack, fire door and some miscellaneous parts to make an engine. This contraption was from one of Dad’s junk piles on a trail leading out to an old cow pasture. One day, I was firing up, making lots of smoke, when my older sister was walking by to fetch the cows for milking. She asked what I was doing and I very emphatically replied, “Firing up my steam engine!” She retorted with “You will never have a steam engine” and I replied back with a bit of a temper saying, “I will have one if I have to build one.” From that one statement, the rest soon became history as in 1959, my dad, uncle and I started working on a 75 HP case.

In the mid-Sixties, I searched for Case parts and into the 1970’s, I began bringing home 80 and 110 HP Case parts. The 80 and 110 HP Case engines were built first and then Colin became old enough to help built the 80 buttstrap skid, Case 40, 45, 50, 20 and 65 HP engines. Most of the parts came from the four western provinces, while a sprinkling of parts came from nine states. Colin and I are the only people to build that many Case steam engines from parts since the factory workers at the Case plant in Racine, Wisc. We do not believe in paint brush restorations and all of our engines have to perform 100 percent mechanically. Colin backed the 80 HP Case out of the shop for the first run at 4-years-old. He’s the fifth generation on the family farm running steam engines, as the Beamish came to the prairies in 1879, and steam engines have remained here since the 1880’s.

Jack Beamish may be reached at (204) 764-2015; Murray Johanson can be reached at (204) 445-2183 
 

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