The 2012 SACA Steam Tour was based out of the Oregon Gardens Resort in Sliverton Oregon and had an attendance of eight steamers. Two whites and Six Stanleys. It was a four day tour covering approximately 200 miles.
Day One- August 1 - 38 Miles
Man they start these things early! Ken and
I were up at 6am and started getting the Stanley ready for that days tour by
7:30am. It was all standard issue maintenance, refueling etc. The tour was
booked to leave at 9:30 and I think one car did but rest of us filtered
out a lot closer to the 10am mark. Being only a 38 mile drive it should
have been a breeze. I've toured over 70 miles in a day without issue. Boy was I
wrong this time...
We made it the 12 miles to the first water stop at the country store and the
Stanley was performing fine. As I pulled into the parking lot the main burner
cycled off and lit off what I assumed was my branch forks. Not a big deal. Ken
hopped out to take a look and I promptly made the decision to just drive
off the fire by going up and down the road a couple of hundred meters. Well, by
the time I got back to the water stop and got out to take a look, the front of
the burner pan was on fire as well as the front axle, branch forks etc. I opened
the bonnet only to get about a foot of flame off the top of the boiler. Not
good. As I frantically tried to blow out the fire on the axle and burner I saw
Ken had found the fire extinguisher, pulled the pin and was aiming it at the
car. I told him to cool it, it's only a "controlled burner
fire" (not exactly the truth but it sort of calmed him down). After
about 40 minutes the fire burnt itself out and we were back on the road. No
damage at all!
The next stop was lunch at the very
scenic Silver Falls State Park . The car ran okay but after the
fire, which we didn't know the cause of, our nerves were running high. We
thought we had seriously flooded the pilot and saturated the burner pan. Would
it happen again?
After leaving the falls there was a long climb right out of the gate. We had good steam pressure and no one in front of us, so it was of little problem. As always after a good climb up, there is a good down hill after. This was definitely the case this time. Getting used to not having the engine as a bit of a brake is quite an experience. The pilot went out a few times on the road to the next water stop, which was at Silver Falls Winery. When we arrived we met up with Pat Farrell in his 1916 Stanley Mountain Wagon full of people and we waited for the rest of the cars. Only one more vehicle, Rob William’s 1910 White, showed up after an hour and a half. We decided then to continue on the route back to the hotel. We found out later that one of the 735's had serious boiler problems and needed the trailer.
Once back at the hotel we had a much needed swim before we got in the truck and went to Alex Beamer’s house in Salem for a fantastic dinner. Thanks go to Alex and his wife for opening up their home and providing such an excellent spread. As well we got a chance to see Alex’s 1911 Model 63 Stanley project. It’s looking very nice. Maybe the next tour Alex??
All in all it was one of the most difficult 38 miles I have ever driven in an antique car and it took the better part of eight hours! Touring a steam car, I’m finding out, is completely different than touring a gas antique vehicle.
