A steam-engine used for drawing heavy loads along an ordinary road; a road-engine (commonly as distinguished from a locomotive or railway-engine).
Also a similar engine used in agricultural work, e.g., for hauling the apparatus for threshing to the required place, and then (as a stationary engine) driving the thrashing mechanism; or as a stationary engine for hauling a gang of ploughs across a field.
1859. All Year Round, No. 30. 77. I met a huge lumbering Bonassus of a locomotive … staggering … about Agar-street, Strand. It was called, I believe, a Traction Engine, and will, no doubt, be useful in its generation.
1876. Routledge, Discov., 19. The idea has been successfully realized in the traction engines lately introduced.
1903. Motor. Ann., 202. The law regulating the employment of traction engines on public roads is the Locomotives’ Act, 1898.
