Steam in the Field

Last month, the Somerset Steam and Gas Engine Association held its “Pasture Party,” an annual gathering of historic agricultural equipment, with emphasis on steam powered tractors. It’s a couple of days of coal smoke, billowing steam and steam whistles echoing across the fields.

While steam power served the railroads for 120 years, steam powered tractors where short lived, and had been almost completely replaced by gas powered tractors and machinery by 1920. For a little more information on the history of steam powered tractors, check out this Editor’s Notebook column from 2016.

I have been going to and photographing the Somerset show nearly every year since 2009, and it is a challenge not to take the same photographs year after year. Here are a few photos from this year’s show.