Steam Car Blog

The latest owner of the 1899 Locomobile Serial 002 would like to know more about it's history prior to the late Peter Lumsden's ownership, in particular any information on the car's restorer Bruno Galiano, and any photos or articles taken during the car's restoration. Please contact us if you know anything!

 Roel Rasker writes:
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Today my almost new build 1915 Mountain Wagon became Road Legal. After locking myself up in the workshop for 5 months it is almost ready for the upcoming season.

Today, we carried our founder, mentor and friend on his final "road trip" -- and it's only fitting that we did so in the 1915 Stanley Mountain Wagon (video clip is from the test run prior to today's memorial). The era of Tom Marshall has ended, but thanks to his foresight and generosity, the era of operating steam cars and open lands in Yorklyn endures -- with more memories to be made for countless generations. Godspeed, Tom!

The Marshall Steam Team and Friends of Auburn Heights

Thomas C. Marshall Jr.
(Feb. 20, 1924 - Feb. 12, 2019)
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It is with deep sadness that we share news that our founder, mentor and dear friend Thomas C. Marshall Jr. (age 94) died February 12, 2019, after a long illness. It is notable that today is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, one of his American heroes, and we cannot help but believe that Tom chose this historic date for his passing.
The son of the late T. Clarence and Esther Shallcross Marshall, he is survived by Ruth Pierson Marshall, his wife of 34½ years. In addition to being well known in Delaware as a philanthropist, historian and community leader, he was widely respected among antique car collectors all over North America as one of the world’s foremost authorities on Stanley Steamers.
Tom spent his first 84 years living in Yorklyn, Delaware, at Auburn Heights, the grand Victorian-era home built by his grandparents in 1897. He moved from Auburn Heights in 2008, when he and his wife, Ruth, donated it to the state of Delaware to become the centerpiece of Auburn Valley State Park. The approximately 360-acre park consists of open space donated by Tom and his cousin, Eleanor Marshall Reynolds, as well as adjacent properties of the former NVF Company purchased by the state after NVF went out of business.
Although he no longer lived at Auburn Heights after 2008, Tom remained active in his role as Founding Director of the Friends of Auburn Heights Preserve, and he could be found working in the museum and workshops at Auburn Heights on a daily basis well into his 90s.
After graduating from Wilmington Friends School in 1941, Tom attended Mercersburg Academy for a year before going on to M.I.T. in 1942-43. He served in the U.S. Army from 1942-46 as a weather forecaster in New Mexico and then as an aerial weather observer on a B-24 flight crew in the Western Pacific. It was while in this capacity that he had the privilege of flying low over the USS Missouri in Tokyo Harbor on the day after the surrender ceremony on that ship brought an official end to World War II.
Tom’s business career focused on tourism and travel in northern Delaware. He founded and operated a travel agency from 1949-63, Marshall & Burton Travel Associates (later to become Marshall & Greenplate). He opened the first of his two Holiday Inns in Wilmington in 1961 and operated them for 36 years.
Tom’s greatest impact on the Wilmington community came from his non-profit and philanthropic activities. He was long active in historic preservation and public recreation efforts in the area. Perhaps his signal achievement was the founding of the Wilmington & Western (hereafter W&W) Railroad, the historic rail line whose steam trains have carried visitors through Tom’s beloved Red Clay Valley since the summer of 1966.
He served as the W&W’s first President and General Manager from 1960 through 1971, and he remained active as a volunteer and Board member for many years thereafter. Whether it was negotiating with the B&O Railroad for rights to operate over their branch line, restoring and operating a 1910 steam locomotive, or cleaning the public restrooms at the Greenbank Station, Tom did it all with dedication, hard work and good cheer.
Tom and his father, Clarence, shared a lifelong interest in steam technology, whether on the rails, in the family’s manufacturing plants, or on the road. Clarence served as the sales agent for the Stanley Motor Carriage Co. – “Stanley Steamers” – from 1910 to 1920, and he began collecting, restoring and operating them in 1940, a hobby that would last throughout his life and which Tom would embrace enthusiastically.
The Marshalls’ assemblage of Stanley steam cars would come to be recognized as the world’s definitive collection. Tom worked tirelessly to restore and maintain the cars, and he loved to drive them on trips both long and short. He steamed his 1912 30-horsepower Stanley touring car on four transcontinental tours, the longest of which was an 8,328-mile trip from Yorklyn to Montreal, Canada, and Tijuana, Mexico, and return in 1972 – very likely the longest single trip ever made in a Stanley Steamer.
In the late 1990s, Tom was looking for a way to share his love of antique cars and steam trains with a new generation, so he presented a series of talks and workshops on steam car technology at Auburn Heights. The group attending these gatherings became known as the “Marshall Steam Team” and evolved into the non-profit Friends of Auburn Heights Preserve in 2004. Tom donated his collection of antique cars, trains and other collectibles to the Friends, whose 80+ volunteers still maintain and operate the cars and miniature steam railroad for the public to enjoy at Auburn Heights.
Trapshooting was also a great interest during Tom’s early years. He won nine Delaware State Trapshooting championships between 1939 and 1950 and was runner-up in the Amateur Trapshooting Championship of America at the New York Athletic Club in1948. He also served in several posts with regional and national trapshooting organizations during these years.
Tom was active with local Quaker organizations, serving in several positions with the Hockessin Friends Meeting and the Friends Home in Kennett Square for more than 50 years, 1953-2004. He also served on the boards of many other philanthropic and non-profit groups, including Mercersburg Academy, Historic Red Clay Valley, the Friends of Old Drawyers and the Red Clay Valley Association.
Details on services and memorial donations will be shared here as information is available: http://test.auburnheights.org/in-memorium-thomas-c-marshal…/

Marshall Steam Museum and Friends of Auburn Heights

Photos of a 1924 Stanley 750 Roadster at an RACV Event in Melbourne, Australia courtesy of Jim Hatton.

Courtesy of Prewarcar.com

We came across this fantastic article about the first American woman who got her driving license in 1900 and never had a dent. Anne Rainsford French Bush was the first official woman licensed to drive an automobile in America. On March 22, 1900, she received a Steam Engineers's License (Locomobile Class) issued by the City of Washington, D.C. Her unofficial title was, how can it not be, Miss. Locomobile of 1900! The article is full with anecdotes from her and also gives a good idea of the issues and way of thinking in the early days.
The interview is a delight to read. Originally published in Life Magazine, on September 8,1952 and written by Milton Lehman. Enjoy!
 
 'Next to the mother-in-law and the farmer's daughter, the lady driver has long been the weariest butt of male American humor, which assumes that women always make left-turn signals when they plan to turn right, wigwag to pass when they plan to back up, and will crunch 85% of the fenders damaged in the U.S. in any given year. This libel, however, definitely could not be applied to Mrs. Walter M. Bush, who was the first licensed woman driver in the U.S. She has never made an improper signal; she has never dented a fender; she has never exceeded the speed limit; she has never been scolded by a cop. Mrs. Bush, however, does not provide a complete answer to anti-feminists on the road. She stopped driving in 1903. 
 
Recently I bucked the swarming 1952 traffic from Washington, D.C. to South Brooksville, Maine, to visit her at her daughter's summer home. While we talked, her grandson Lincoln Smith worked in the backyard, hip deep in the random parts of his 1949 Ford convertible, which he had just bought with the proceeds from raking blueberries. Sitting on the front terrace overlooking the blue waters of Bucks Harbor, Mrs. Bush was delighted to recall the days when she was Anne Rainsford French, a belle of Capitol Hill, a licensed steam engineer and Miss Locomobile of 1900. 
This month the vigorous Mrs. Bush will return to Washington in person to help the American Automobile Association celebrate its Golden Jubilee as the motorist's best friend. At that time, the District of Columbia Fire Department had promised, she will be able to indulge her whim to ride in a red fire engine down Pennsylvania Avenue. The Department will thus repay a long-standing debt. More than 50 years ago Anne French and her father conditioned the city's fire horses for the horseless age.
This takes a little explaining: Mrs. Bush's father, William Bates French, was one of Washington's most noted doctors, and among his duties was being physician to the District Fire Department. Dr. French decided on a drastic treatment. He and his daughter would drive their hissing steamer to the firehouse and sit there, while the horses snorted and reared, until the Locomobile noisily blew its safety valve. After several such treatments the horses calmed down and Dr. French was able to pronounce them cured of their automotive phobia.
While Mrs. Bush rejoices in her pioneer role, her experiences have never made much of an impression on her grandchildren. When she told Lincoln, a high-school pitcher and hotrod pilot, that the District speed limit was nine miles an hour and htat her father was once fined for going 12 miles an hour, Lincoln advised her that when he tried to get his convertible down to 12 miles an hour, the motor stalled. Her collegiate granddaughter, Rachael, was more aroused by grandma's driving costume than by her mechanical skill "If the car broke down," Rachael asked, "couldn't you get a boy friend to fix it?" "Certainly not," said Mrs. Bush "I knew more about the engine than they did!"
"Just try to get across the young folks how we felt!"she said, settling back in a canvas deck chair. "We don't seem to speak the same language. It's not that I'm a slowspoke." Mrs. Bush added.
 "About 15 years ago, my younger brother drove me down to Washington in his heavy Chrysler, and our cruising speed was 90 miles an hour. I loved it and I didn't do any back-scat driving. When I got to Washington my sister took me up in a sightseeing plane over the city. I had a fine time and I'd do it again. But the old Locomobile was much more exciting than that."

Brett Ventura Writes:
The coils are rotted from the inside, Visited Tom Kimmel last month, (what a collection!) he is currently winding new coils and I am making a new coil shell & combustion chamber.
The I disassembled the differential yesterday, I think the guy welded the original Packard axle tube onto the Stanley. All the bearings need replaced, the threads on the end of the one shaft are stripped, and the taper was not cut right for the drums & required a shim (the axle with the shim had the stripped threads, would have lost a wheel). He also made a wheel spacer to widen the stance. I have decided to do away with all of this, and go to a modern drum setup from a Chevy truck. I would have to cut the old tubes off, and start over fresh. Does anyone know if the axle & housing are cast iron or cast steel? I can do the drill or spark test but figured I would ask here first. Open to any other ideas.
Also, the center of the spider/spur gear has some wear, just make a bushing I’m guessing?
What did the Stanley axle have originally to hold the wheel on? Was it a taper or just a key? I have not seen one apart.

Chris Wedgewood recently visited Australia, catching up firstly with Trevor Gaut and his immaculate 1925 Stanley and 1908 White Model L Project, before moving onto Sydney to see a Model F Serpollet being restored.

Spring City Steam Works writes:
​"These coils are dizzying. But should be fun to get working on soon. There are 2 coils down below this I'll be replacing once I get the old ones out. I've had fun starting to figure out my plan.... More to come!".

Check out this original film footage from 1906 of a trip down Market Street, San Francisco before the Fire. Note a number of White Steam Cars in the video.

Gunnar Modig's Locomobile Locosurrey has just arrived in his workshop. We look forward to hearing his progress with this car in Gunnar's Blog!

Herb de la Porte writes: "The Stanley is, once again, becoming this winter's primary project. It really has been a very reliable car for the last few years but there is a page full of problems that needs to be looked after".

Spring City Steam Works' recently purchased Mason Steam Car, in steam for the first time in their ownership. A leak was found in the steam generator,18" deep in the combustion chamber and repairs are now in hand.

George Hounslow writes:
Through Steam Car Network, I was contacted by Jamie and Charley Allen, as they were having a few problems with their newly acquired 1899 Locomobile, and had yet to try their 1925 Stanley which they had acquired at the same time, the latter joint owned by Charley's brother, Adam Brown. So a day was spent going through a few things on both cars, and by the end of the day they were able to be steamed successfully, the Locomobile in particular running very well. It proved to be a very enjoyable day for all, and I am glad I could help in some way.

All four Whites entered in the 2018 London to Brighton Veteran Car Run completed the run. Photos courtesy of Chris Wedgewood.

Photos taken prior to the run courtesy of Stefan Majoram Photography.

Chris Wedgewood photographed these White Steam cars on display at the Regent Street Motor Show prior to the 2018 London to Brighton Veteran Car Run.

It is with great sadness that I have to report the passing of Steve Baldock on the 1st November 2018. Steve was very well known within the steam world, both for his superb miniature traction engines, and, latterly, for the rebuilding of two Beautiful 1909 Stanley Model R's. He was someone who was always willing to give help and assistance wherever he could, and will be sorely missed. Our condolences go out to his family and friends. 

Check out these photos of Ron Balfour's 1909 Stanley Model Z Mountain Wagon.