Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2024 i Old Glory

The proposed departure time was 10am from Paul Attwater’s extensive Southern Recovery Services premises at Fairbridge Way, Burgess Hill, West Sussex. Opposite Paul’s premises there is an absolutely huge housing estate being built and the builders had a superb view of all that was going on below them and were shouting down and asking intelligent questions. They certainly enjoyed all that was going on and perhaps they needed to work through their lunch break to catch up with their work! Ready For The Action Outside the yard it was all action beforehand with the weather dull and overcast at this stage as Southern Recovery Services’ very adaptable 1990 Unimog U1000, six-litre winch tractor unit pulled the Tasker of Andover four-in-line 30-ton trailer into position. On the back of the trailer…

Some 23 full-size steamers came together over the weekend, along with dozens of tractors, miniature engines, stationary engines, commercial vehicles and historic cars. The Hertfordshire Steam Engine Preservation Society has been organising the rally since the 1960s, and with that in mind it’s appropriate that entry number 1 was the Burbury family’s 1921 Garrett 4CD steam tractor No. 33991 Patricia, which attended the first ever Hertfordshire Show all those years ago. Originally owned by Martley Rural District Council, it was taken over by Worcestershire County Council in 1930 and entered private ownership in 1932. The oldest engine in attendance was the 1890 Fowler B1 8hp traction engine No. 6376 (the second oldest known Fowler TE in the UK) belonging to George and Jake Maskell, while the hardest-working was surely Michael…

The place was bustling with people and vehicles, tightly packed with everyone enjoying the event from the food to the beer as the steam parade started things off at 1.30pm, with David Vaughan welcoming everyone to the show. He described the engines superbly, ably assisted by Brian Tullett and Peter and Zeta in the traditional tight parade ring that everyone enjoys here. It was good to see no less than three ploughing engines at the show, they all looked splendid. The 1919 AA No. 15365 Sandringham was the biggest with its dedicated servant Colin Wakefield looking after the Jessett Trust’s ex-James Lowther engine very well. The Watts/Wade 1914 BB No. 14213 Bob looked the part with its two-speed ploughing gear and it was pleasing to see Jeff Burgess’s 1917 BB1…

As has been a problem this last winter and spring, rain, rain and more rain! In fact that was the case here leading up to this show, it rained very hard on the Friday before the event kicked off on the Saturday. However it was good enough to go ahead, but without tractor parades on the Saturday as the sun gradually came out over the next three days. The history of Turner is a long and complicated one; the Thomas Turner Company goes back to the 1850s and was managed by J S Dumbell whose family became the major shareholders in 1902. Before that Turner obtained a patent in 1857 for a burglar alarm system and was based at the Phoenix Lock and Metal Works, Great Brickkiln Street, Wolverhampton. It’s…

The county of Yorkshire is - and always has been - the largest county in England. It has a boundary some 600 miles long. For administrative purposes, it was split into three parts - the North, West, and East Ridings. The term Riding is derived from the Danish word ‘thridding’, meaning a third. There was therefore never a ‘South Riding,’ except in literary terms since there was a book published by Winifred Holtby by that name in 1950. The County Council headquarters of the three Ridings were at Northallerton, Wakefield and Beverley in the order given above. However, there was also a somewhat flippant title given at one time to the areas around Sheffield and Doncaster, that being ‘The Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire’ - but it was only a…

After having his annual ‘railsteam fix’ in Germany earlier this year, Wolf Clarke again visited the Danmarks Tekniske Museum in Helsingør on his way home to Sweden. On this occasion, however, he allowed himself considerably more time there than on the previous occasion and, as a result of this, he’s managed to take more photos of the two rollers he discovered there last year. These were a 20hp Munktells motor roller, manufactured at Eskilstuna in Sweden dating from 1926, and a Gainsborough-built Marshall compound steam roller No. 65654 of 1914. He was lucky this time, since having explained about his previous visit, he was able to have a free visit to the museum on this occasion in order to photograph the Marshall roller’s worksplate and provide it to the magazine…

The experts counted 19 portables on site including some which were not on public display; the Museum uses several to drive the fairground rides. In addition to the home collection there were 13 visiting engines. There were nine different makes on show: Barrows & Carmichael, Brouhot, Brown & May, Clayton & Shuttleworth, Davey Paxman, Richard Hornsby, Marshall, Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies, Ruston Proctor and Smith. In addition to the portables there were 16 road engines and several miniatures. Road Engines First The Bicknell family brought along four engines. First up was their multi-coloured ex-Australian 1910 Fowler 7hp road loco No. 12257 Buster which rarely attends rallies, displayed along with 1924 Fowler DN1 10 ton roller No.16144 Rosie. 1920 Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies crane engine Hooky No. 31066 was loading timber…

The last week in April saw a world-wide transport photographic week take place on the Isle of Man, which saw vintage rail and road steam take precedence. This included the rarely seen Isle of Man Highways 1921 Fowler DN1 compound ex-tar spraying 10 ton steam roller No.15810, under custodian James Mandrel. The engine looked tidy and was a credit to James. The many photographers used the engine with Tom Attwood’s 1920 Foden 5ton wagon No. 10320, which had been brought over to the Island especially for the charter by Brian Allison. Brian returned after the famous TT races in mid-June to bring the Foden back to the mainland. As for the weather, that was just perfect, particularly for the three days the road steamers were used in conjunction with the…

With the famous banked track at Montlhéry turning 100 this year, the organisers of the Vintage Revival received a bumper crop of entries for their pre-war celebration on 11-12 May. All in, some 600 vehicles or more – cars, motorcycles, and a few oddities which seemed to be neither one nor the other – descended upon the historic location. Among several big Edwardian racers, Neil Gough’s 1911 KRIT-Curtiss, which was completed in 2022, and the 1913 Monarch-Curtiss recently purchased by Les and Dee Searle were notable entries. Gough and the Searles, who both travelled from West Sussex, are best-known for their involvement with steam preservation, but it was excellent to see them enjoying themselves just as much in the rather faster-paced world of aero-engined Edwardians. Even though Montlhéry opened in…

I first got interested in miniature traction engines back in 2003 when I saw an advert by Modelworks for a kit to ‘build your own engine.’ I had attended many rallies beforehand, exhibiting my old Land Rover, and saw others with miniature engines and wanted something that was more involving. A visit to the factory in Daventry a year later, which was very impressive, saw me place a deposit on the 4in Burrell agricultural engine kit and so began a friendship between Dean Rogers and Steve Baldock who were effectively at that time doing most of the work. The kit had very easy instructions to follow and the engine has been brilliant over the last nearly 20 years. A few years later and after the two of them taking over…

Of course, the textile industry was prominent in Nottingham, the Lace Gallery has some of the earliest and most important machinery of its type in the country on display, most of which was built or used in the Nottingham area. The machines are impressive, especially when they are running during special open days, allowing visitors to experience what it would have been like to work in a mill during the 19th century. One example is a warp lace machine that was built by Peter Scattergood of Stapleford, some five miles from Nottingham, in around 1869. It was employed making cotton laces, nets and veiling at Truman’s Factory, Ilkeston Junction and later W Beardsley in Stapleford, while an 1880 Leavers landing bar lace machine was built by Joseph Cooper of Lenton,…

With over 300 individual engines listed in the programme, there was certainly a lot to see, with some larger engines being mounted on lorries and smaller ones lined up in the various enclosures, most powering a lighting set or some machinery throughout the weekend. One of the larger lorry-based engines was A Deakin’s 1904 Crossley SS oil engine with hot tube ignition which weighed in at 3½ tons with the flywheel alone weighing 1½ tons. This engine was a vital part of the transport infrastructure in north Lincolnshire, being used to turn the swing bridge near Crowle that carried the Isle of Axholme Railway over the Stainforth and Keadby Canal. It continued its duties for many years, working until the line closed, and although the bridge could be opened by…

It was a beautiful June Sunday afternoon the team from the Saunders Collection had chosen for taking the Collection’s gallopers the 15 miles from Letchworth to Codicote, south of Stevenage. With Alex and Harrison Haslett-Saunders on the footplate of Burrell showman’s No. 3890 Majestic hauling the gallopers and living van, the engine made light work of the undulating nature of the route. Majestic was completed in 1922 for J H Herbert of Southampton. The 7nhp engine was well known in the Dorset and Hampshire area working for Herbert’s until around 1940 when it was laid up. It was sold by Herbert’s in 1952 and after several owners became part of the Saunders collection in 1999. After the completion of a major overhaul in 2015 Majestic has been a reliable member…

A recent purchase from Devon by Peter Watkins from near Aberystwyth is 1902 Ransomes Sims & Jefferies 2hp portable No. 14385, in fully restored and running condition. The engine made its debut with its new owner at the Royal Welsh Show over 22-25 July at Builth Wells where it was very popular driving its sawbench. The engine was sold to Chile were it spent its life sawing timber in a forest, apparently. It was brought back to the UK by Michael List-Brain who has recently retired. The engine was sold to Brian Dando of Bristol on 13 October 2003. It was shown at the GDSF by Brian as a kit of stripped-down parts in 2005. He had Colin Waite of Bristol replace the boiler, firebox and much more, all flanged…

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A chance to ride behind this interesting locomotive on the branch was one not to be missed and so the author headed off to Rothley to enjoy the sights and sound of this Austrian-inspired industrial engine on an industrial railway. The current 1¼-mile Mountsorrel Railway connects with the Great Central Railway at Swithland Sidings, and was built to serve local granite quarries in and around Mountsorrel. Championed by Earl Lanesborough, the first section opened in 1860 and connected Mountsorrel with the Midland Railway main line near to Barrow-upon-Soar. In 1896 the line was extended south-west to Swithland, to carry the ballast required during construction of the Great Central Railway itself. When the GCR opened in 1898, the Mountsorrel Railway formed a link line between the two Leicester-Loughborough main lines, but…

In Keith French MBE’s notes in the programme (who also gave an excellent entertaining awards commentary) he reflected over the past 40 years of the event and spoke about the route crossing The Ridgeway, some 12 miles north of the town of Newbury where the first run finished. The Ridgeway is recognised as Great Britain’s oldest road and starts at the world heritage site at Avebury. It then follows a ridge of chalk hills in a north-easterly direction for 87 miles to reach Ivinghoe Beacon lying to the north-west of London. It was used in prehistoric times by travellers, herdsmen and soldiers, hence the HCVS using the name The Ridgeway Run. On that 1985 event the first vehicle away was a 1926 Morris Commercial Light 1 ton charabanc/coal lorry, YL740,…

Dredging the Lincolnshire Drains Although Mornement and Ray were well known for dredging rivers and lakes all over the country, its perhaps their work for the various fen drainage Commissioners for which they were particularly famous. For thousands of years the Fens, an area covering parts of Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, was an area of swamp and wet meadows, under water in winter and providing limited grazing for cattle during the summer. A few areas of high ground became towns and villages of which Ely and Peterborough were the largest, and eventually they became cathedral towns and cities. Most of the remote villages and settlements were the home of the ‘Fen Tigers,’ a special breed of countrymen who survived by fishing and wildfowling, and who didn’t take strangers kindly! The…