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A Case Tractor’s Story
I am a 1959 Case 311b General Purpose and this is my story. I was created from a bunch of separate parts and came to “life” on February 2, 1959. My first true memories are as my engine was fired up in the plant in Rock Island Illinois; here a Case model 191 front end loader was also installed.
For a tractor built in 1959 I have some impressive features, a full hydraulic front end loader, “live P.T.O.,” and a 12-speed transmission.
Well here I am on a train heading east toward the Atlantic. Now onto a truck going to a Dealership, called Pine Bush Equipment in Pine Bush, NY. There I sit all shiny and bright.
One day a nice gentleman and his sons came and started looking me over. They checked me out pretty well. The salesman is really making his pitch. They all go away. The next thing I know some of my friends (implements) and I are on a truck and starting the first of what will be several trips to the north (in my life time). This trip isn’t too far only to Gardiner, NY and the farm of Ken Shafer. Here I am working with my friends and a cousin, A Case VAC. One winter day I feel this little bottom sitting on my seat and making engine noises. Why it’s Mr. Shafer’s first Grandson, Keith. I will get to know him more and more as time goes on.
I spend the next many years as one of the main tractors here on the Albany Post Rd. farm.
In 1966 a new tractor makes an appearance, it is green in color and a Diesel. The name plate says John Deere 2510 Diesel. Well I still get a work out, as my Loader “keeps me in the game.” In 1970 I get a new operator, that first grandson again. Interesting that he only runs me in the fields his mother can’t see . . . Other tractors come and go on the farm, some blue, some green. But I don’t mind, on the coldest days I will start, without all the hoopla of getting a diesel started. In 1976 the farm gets some new additions, including a barn called a free stall. Guess who is given the crappiest job on the farm? That’s right me. I am now the crapper, oops, I mean scrapper tractor and here I spend over the next two decades going back and forth, back and forth! Something more than 400,000 times!
January 1977, I’m famous, well sort of. I appear in the local paper with Keith who is plugging the 4-H Tractor Operators Course that is coming up next month. A good thing it isn’t a real close shot!
In 1980 a cousin of the Shafer’s who is a mechanic does an in chassis overhaul on my engine and Mr. Shafer’s oldest son, Ken gives my tin work a new paint job. Spring 1986, and it sure is quiet and slower here in the barn. I hear something that the herd went to a buy out program. Those pesky milk cows are gone, (to a farm in Pa.). Boy, I didn’t think I would miss them, eating my wires, pushing up on me, and messing on me, but I do. Those young heifers just aren’t the same. They sure do make less of a mess though.
Fall 2001, I am journeying farther north; my old bones feel it getting colder. I am now at the farm of Mr. Shafer’s youngest son Rich in Hartwick, NY. The farm in Gardiner has been sold and Ken and his mom are moving here.
December 2001 I am on my way further north, I didn’t think you could go further north and still be in the states. I arrive in a place called Dexter, NY, not all that far from the Canadian Border. The home of Keith, he says he is going to restore me. Restore what’s that?
Well right off of the trailer I get put to work moving some crushed stone around the driveway. Next thing I know my hood gets stripped off and my plugs are pulled and a compression tester gets stuffed in me. I don’t get no respect! Soon I’m in the garage and in almost as many pieces as when I was first built. Now that’s another story . . . To be Continued....
7/15/03 What, what, what’s going on, I feel new blood (oil) flowing into me, a charge flows thru me. It feels just like that day I was born all those years ago. I cough and spit a few times. I feel myself being tinkered with, and with a muted roar and a shower of rust and carbon flakes I am reborn.
Right now, I don’t look quite the same though. My dash is missing; no steering wheel and a punch is holding my throttle handle to the shaft. But I’m on the mend. I see the other parts to myself around the shop, hurry up please, I feel naked.
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