Wilbur Wright articulated locomotive

[Harlock]

Does anyone know where this extremely novel 1" scale gasoline-fired live steam locomotive is today?

Best,

-Mike

[PRR G5s]

Mike,

It belongs to another live steamer in Central Illinois. PM me, I'm not sure he wants his name broadcast. As a note, while he no longer owns the engine, Wil is still with us. He just celebrated his 103rd birthday. He's still going strong and is still active helping others with their steam related projects.

Eric L

[ALCOSTEAM]

Wilbur Wright will be 103 on July 6th. If anyone is interested I do have some pictures of Will and some of his (non train related) projects from the 1930's. If so I will dig them up and post a few.

[Dave_Johnson]

Old project photos are always interesting. The older the better.

[ALCOSTEAM]

Several years ago Wilbur's wife died and while he was resorting the house he ran across some pictures he had taken of some of his endeavors, or creations back in the 1930's and I scanned them. Some turned out ok some not so good but then we are talking 70+ year old photographs that were just in an envelope. There are 20-25 fairly ok pictures and I will start from the two oldest that i know of and work forward.
Maybe alittle insight as to Will's history first, the best I can recall of what he has told us over the years. Will was born in Calgary Canada in 1914 (one of three boys in the family and yes one of the brothers was named Orville) and his father had worked west on one of the transcontinental Canadian railroads and decided to put down roots in Calgary. In 1921 economic issues forced his father to head south into the US looking for work and Will at 7 years old went with him. They ended up in the Venice, California area and once settled his mother and two brothers came to the US. By the early to mid 1930's Will's family was living in the Culver city area. In the early to mid 1930's Will built a sailboat or two. These were taken on a lake not the ocean. Will is on the right in the first picture.

[ALCOSTEAM]

In 1934 Will turned his creative powers towards building a car, sort of. Thru collecting various parts from the aircraft salvage yards and removing the engine from a model A or T (I can't recall which they used) and a hand cut, carved, and shaped propeller Will came up with this mad max machine.

Of course the only reverse was hand powered or gravity but Will says it moved along quite well for being somewhat crude. They never were able to legally get it titled and plated so it was dismantled. It would not have lasted long anyway as the old auto engine was not designed to have so much thrust put on the crankshaft and in the short time they drove and experimented with the car the endplay on the crankshaft had become excessive. I will have to do some research on the location here, while you cannot see the house they were living at in 1934 the white house in the background was still in existence a few years ago, iirc correctly its somewhere near the intersection of Cattaraugus ave and Canfield ave directly across from Hamilton high school.

[ALCOSTEAM]

more to come as I get pictures resized

[ALCOSTEAM]

By 1937-1938 Will's family was living in Culver City. Will could remember the street name they lived on but not the exact address. Over time I went up and down the street on google maps Will thought they lived on at the time but no luck in spotting the house. It was not until Will told us they lived quite close to the Selznick studio lot, so close that they got to watch scenes being filmed for Gone With the Wind like the burning of Atlanta. So I got back on google maps and found the house at 3592 Helms Ave Culver City, CA.
Anyway Will set about building another car, this time starting out with a 1932 Ford truck chassis which was the first year of the V8 flathead engine. At the time Will was working at a place that built large copper cooking equipment so he learned the skills of shaping and forming sheet metal. The result is a car that would of rivaled many of the roadsters of the day.

[ALCOSTEAM]

more of the roadster pictures. The industry above the car in picture "K" was a kitchen stove factory,, but I can't recall the name of it.

[ALCOSTEAM]

Pictures of the roadster at the home of the owner of the business Will worked for at the time.

[ALCOSTEAM]

another low rear shot of the car.

last picture, Will does not know these kids they just wanted to get in the picture. Will shortly after finishing the car sold it to his brother who turned around and sold it to a friend of his. Will used the money from the sale of the car to help fund his college education at Monmouth college in Monmouth Illinois.

Will ended up meeting the gal he would marry in a little town north of Peoria IL and has stayed in Illinois since.

[Harlock]

Wow, thank you all for the wonderful photos. Very much reminds me of Burt Munro, of The World's Fastest Indian fame. Entirely self-directed tinkering. The article mentions that he had no contact with anyone in the hobby until the very end of the project, so he had no preconceptions about what to do. The results were marvelous.

Eric I will PM you with a question I have about the engine, something I could not ascertain from the article.

Best,

-Mike