Rt 1, Box 1$ Steinauer, Nebraska 68441
When I got to page 5 of March 1990 GEM and saw the picture of
the 40×72 Case tractor it brought back memories of seeing the 40×72
that was shipped to the Lincoln, Nebraska tractor test facility at
the Agri College Campus.
They were checking it out and discussing what streets to travel
on, or to reload it on a flat car and get it closer to the facility
so that it would not have to be driven so far. At that time I
don’t recall many streets that were paved. The grousers were on
and skid rims were on the wheels. I never heard it run.
The next I heard was that a man stopped by and my father asked
how the test turned out. The man told him that so far the facility
had not tested a tractor with that much power and they had to send
off for a wider than 8′ belt to hold the power that the 40×72
put out.
The test was conducted and completed as test #90 and the records
are still available, I’m told.
In 1920 Nebraska enacted a law that every model of tractor that
was to be sold in Nebraska had to be tested. When looking into
tractor ratings made around 1920, I found records were changed and
many HP ratings were lowered.
Looking at the HP hours per gallon of fuel produced in the
1920’s to today the engineers have not improved the HP hours
per gallon of fuel very much.
