Rarely would visitors to the National Museum of Australia gaze up at a particularly spectacular exhibit on display on the marbled floor of the building's atrium and wonder "how did that get here?".
But should the question arise, the answer is: very carefully indeed.
And such was the significant logistical exercise which began late on Monday night to install the newest and weightiest exhibit yet to grace the atrium: a 1912 McDonald "Imperial Oil" tractor.
Weighing in at six tonnes, the McDonald is the heaviest item yet to be rolled across the museum's expensive floor, so careful attention had to be given to the atrium's loading capabilities and also suspending the thick, steel treads of the tractor purpose-designed for churning through muddy paddocks.
Before the exercise even began, a Fyshwick steel fabrication company had to build a frame to suspend the tractor onto special load-bearing rollers in readiness for its journey from the museum's vehicle repository in Mitchell across the museum on the Acton Peninsula.
As darkness fell on Monday, the slow process began of easing the tractor onto a quick-lift truck - a process of several hours alone - and then the slow journey around to the museum, where the unloading and positioning - using a forklift to push and pull - absorbed even more long hours.
Yet for all the McDonald tractor's significant physical presence, senior curator Dr Ian Coates said this giant piece of Australian-built agricultural machinery was a lightweight compared with the steam-driven tractors which preceded it.
"We're delighted to see it go on public display because this machine is a really significant item in Australia's agricultural history," he said.
"It's one of only three that we know of that still exist."
Wind the clock back more than 110 years and Australia's farming industry was still in the horse-drawn plough era.
Huge, steam-powered traction engines were generally too slow and cumbersome to use as field tractors so they were generally assigned as stationary powerplants, with belt-drives for operating items such as saws and threshers.
Most were imported, expensive, and had to be constantly fed with water for making steam and wood as fuel.
In 1908, clever Melbourne engineers Alfred and Ernest McDonald set about building an oil-powered tractor, borrowing ideas from the US. Historians are still a little unsure as to what "oil" fuel really was back then but the best guess was kerosene, or something similar.
The parts for the tractor were all made in their Victorian factory, usually by hand, and borrowing ideas from here and there they gave their new machine such advanced features as coil ignition, a three-speed gearbox and car-like, rack-and-pinion steering. To cool the engine, water was pumped up and over vertical steel mesh sheets mounted on the "bonnet".
Vehicle curator Nathan Pharaoh said the McDonald tractor could best be described as the "missing link" between steam power and the diesel-powered production-based tractors which followed.
"It is an extraordinary piece of local engineering for its time," he said.
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