By David Ellery

Like many of his peers Donald Wright, a Trundle farmer whose family has been in agribusiness in the Central West of NSW for the best part of a century, rarely throws anything away.
A trained mechanic, he inherited a love of vintage farm equipment from his grandfather and father and is an expert in breathing the relics of a bygone era back to life.
His passion – hobby is hardly the word – is not without its risks however. When he was interviewed for this story Donald’s arm was in a plaster cast. He had broken it while firing up an ancient Ford truck with a crank handle a few days before.
Donald is one of the team of Trundle enthusiasts who came up with the idea of holding a tractor pull and vintage machinery day at the town’s showground almost 30 years ago.
While the event has had its ups and downs over the years – it, like the Town’s Abba Festival and Bush Tucker Day, was suspended during Covid – last year’s event attracted about 1000 people from around the country.
That was a phenomenal turn-out given that because it was an alternate year it was principally a static display augmented by a sheaf toss, live music and other attractions.
This year’s event is expected to draw much larger crowds over the weekend of March 15 and 16 as enthusiasts flock to Trundle to test their machines against specially designed sleds to determine which is the most powerful.
With substantial prize money on offer thanks to sponsorship from Hutcheon and Pearce, machinery dealers of Forbes and Condobolin the competition is expected to get very serious.
This year’s event, which has been branded “Show Us Your Tracks”, will showcase some very rare tracked vehicles from the interwar and post-war eras. There will also be traction engines and possibly a vintage steam roller.
It also marks the centenary of John Deere and one of the sleds to be featured in the competition has been repainted in JD’s famous green and yellow for the occasion
John Deere’s famous Model D, which was in production for 30 years, was the first machine to wear that livery. At least 160,000 were made.
Donald is planning to take three of his machines – just a fraction of his collection – to the event this year.
These include an Oliver 90 manufactured in the 1940s, a late model Lanz Bulldog and a very rare 1917 Moline Universal which could well have been one of the first internal combustion powered tractors ever to make it west of the great divide.
While the Oliver is a fairly conventional design, the Lanz Bulldog and the Moline are quite unique.
The Lanz is powered by a massive long stroke single cylinder engine notorious which took an eternity to cycle. The vibration from the ignition of the fuel in the cylinder was so great that if the machine was left idling on soft ground it could bury itself.
The Moline, which was designed in the very early days of the machine era, looks like no tractor most people have ever seen. That said, its four cylinder engine was remarkably sophisticated for its time.
Like many early tractors it started on petrol and ran on kerosene. The Lanz Bulldog was famous for its ability to run on almost any fuel including crude oil and even sump oil.
Donald, who says the machines are a valued link with Australia’s post pioneering agricultural heritage and a testament to the hard work of the men and women who laboured under extremely difficult conditions to bring the harvest home, has been buoyed at the growth of interest in recent years.
“A lot of the younger farmers are getting into this now,” he said.
That includes his sons who will be piloting the family’s treasured heirlooms – they have all come down through the generations – in the tractor pull.
Like him, they appreciate the rugged simplicity and sheer ingenuity that went into many of the early designs.
Images and story by David Ellery. Sourced from David Ellery’s Facebook page.