Innehållsförteckning för January 2024 från Old Glory

From Martin Oliver the MD of Great Dorset Steam Fair comes this press release confirming our fears that the show will not take place in 2024. £4.7million and £4.9million, another staggering increase, closely mirroring the previous huge increase from 2019 to 2022. In order to bridge the financial gap caused by yet another vast increase in operating costs, turnover in 2024 would need to increase significantly. However, after again closely analysing all income streams, it would be necessary to raise ticket and camping prices by 70% to 75%. Whilst this would be in line with what some other major festivals charge, the GDSF Directors are very conscious that, in the midst of the cost-of-living crisis, the overwhelming likelihood is that the majority of our visitors would find this to be…

Aremembrance gathering was organised by Paul Ransley at the Pierce family farm at Hadlow in Kent on 11 November, to show our respects and raise some money for Help the Heroes. There was tea and coffee along with homemade cakes and a barbecue on offer. They managed to raise £1,011 which was up on last year, says Bob Moorman. Most resident engines were in steam making a good display arranged in an arc facing the large shed where the food and drinks were being served. There were five road engines: Fowler road loco Endeavour, the two single-cylinder Fowler ploughing engines, Paul Ransley’s Fowler ploughing engine The Mistress and Aveling & Porter roller Canterbury. The six portables were: two Ransomes Sims & Jefferies of 1906 and 1923, A W Smith of…

The Waterworks Museum - Hereford is delighted to announce that it has been awarded full accreditation from Arts Council England. An independent working museum concerned primarily, but not exclusively, with the story of the supply of water for public consumption from earliest habitation to the close of the 20th century. Entirely run by volunteers, the vision is to be recognised as a specialist museum that brings industrial heritage to life. Full accreditation is the gold bar of the national standards and is the benchmark for well-run museums and galleries. It means that the Waterworks Museum – Hereford is properly managed and governed to the nationally agreed industry standard and shows the museum takes proper care of its collections, sharing them with visitors and keeping them safe for future generations. Accreditation…

The popular South East Bus Festival will be back at Kent Showground, alongside the A249 near Maidstone, on Saturday 6 April 2024 and the organisers are looking forward to welcoming well over 100 buses and coaches as well as several thousand visitors. The well-established event - the twelfth since 2011 - will once again be part of Kent County Agricultural Society’s Heritage Transport Show which normally attracts 700 or more cars, commercials, military vehicles, motorbikes and tractors. The showground offers a vast amount of space on which to display a large number of buses and coaches, and the internal road layout allows a frequent free bus service to run between different parts of the site while giving the opportunity for people to ride on buses that they might not otherwise…

A MESSAGE FROM THEEDITOR I’m delighted to boast that this is Britain’s best selling magazine for steam and vintage machinery enthusiasts. You’ll find it all in Old Glory: the latest news, places to visit, black and white photography of machinery in working times – all produced by top writers and photographers. If you have enjoyed this issue of Old Glory and love original style and gleaming restored machinery, or are fascinated by Britain’s rich industrial and transport heritage then why not subscribe or give a gift to a friend or loved one? You will save money on the shop price and receive every issue direct to your door. SUBSCRIPTION BENEFITS • Enjoy one whole year of Old Glory • Get each issue delivered directly to your door in 100% plastic-free…

Some 411 pre-1905 cars, bikes and cycles took part in the event this year, while 13 withdrew, 30 did not start, 45 retired and 323 finished. Three electric cars took part and 11 steam cars were noted, with one breaking down - Robert Lederer’s 1904 White 15hp, a type, you would have thought would be more reliable than most. It’s amazing that again the two-cylinder 10hp 1896 Salvesen steamer of Duncan Pittaway made it to Brighton. Sadly Ben Collings, who normally gets there first in the Mercedes, was here with the single-cylinder 3.5hp 1898 Benz that was running rough when it came by me at Cuckfield and retired not long after. Dave Main didn’t get to Brighton with the lovely single-cylinder 1903 Darracq 8hp rear-entrance tonneau and Stuart Gray also…

Carters Steam Fair opened the doors of their hallowed yard in White Waltham near Maidenhead for a final chance to see many of the rides built up and buy a final souvenir from this iconic travelling funfair. Since announcing in 2022 their intention to stop touring the fair, Joby Carter had been looking for a new home for the rides to remain together as a collection. Joby had the following to say about the future, what has happened since the announcement: “In April 2022, we announced the final tour of our unique collection of vintage fairground rides. Since then, we’ve done everything we can to raise awareness of the sale of the fair and have spoken to relevant individuals involved with heritage and the arts, government representatives, national organisations and…

As for the engines themselves, representing the Crossley name was J Heslop’s 1933 HD3 12hp oil engine that had made the trip from Shipton near York, while also making the trip from York and equally impressive was A Deakin’s 1904 Crossley SS Oil engine with hot tube ignition. This engine was designed to run on either Russian or American oil, and is now running on central heating oil and needs a blow lamp burning all the time to heat the ignition tube. Weighing in at 3½ tons with the flywheel alone weighing 1½ tons, the engine had an important role during its working life. It was used to turn the swing bridge at Crowle that carried the Isle of Axholme Railway over the Stainforth and Keadby Canal, although the bridge…

The atmosphere was pleasant and everyone wanted to help each other which was great to see and the showground staff were more than helpful. In fact the show was better laid out, even the stationary engines were not left out, which is a common complaint I normally hear at this show. Moving the show a week forward has paid dividends as well when you get down to it. It was perhaps rather tight in the George Stevenson Exhibition Hall, but it worked well in the end. There has been a refreshed approach to the judging as well with new people brought in from outside the local area who perhaps have better knowledge of the subject and in most cases the results were about right, there were only a few that…

On 18 November 1822, an engineer opened the regulator of a newly-delivered locomotive in a siding of the newly-sunk Hetton Lyons Colliery. The chaldron waggons clunked and bumped as they took up the slack and the train made its way slowly along the first leg of the nine-mile journey to the then-new staithes close to the mouth of the River Wear at Sunderland. This railway used two of George Stephenson’s newly-built steam locomotives to haul coal for the first 1½ miles to Hetton Dene bank-foot; from there, two steam-powered stationary engines pulled the waggons to the line’s summit at Warden Law, over 600ft above sea level. Four gravity-worked rope inclines then took the waggons down to North Moor near Silksworth from where more of Stephenson’s first steam locomotives took them…

A mile to the north of Leicester city centre, and next to the National Space Centre, stands Abbey Pumping Station, which now houses Leicester’s Museum of Science and Technology. This popular free attraction in the city contains a selection of vintage vehicles with Leicester connections, and a short narrow-gauge railway. But the main attraction on site is the pumping station itself, a building that dates back to 1891 and which played a pivotal role in Leicester’s development. As with most towns and cities during the 19th century, Leicester’s population grew rapidly, increasing to around 40,000 in 1841 and 68,000 by 1861 as new industries developed and the boot and shoemaking industry boomed. In 1831 there were only 425 boot and shoemakers in Leicester, but by 1861 there were 2,741. To…

SUNDAY21st APRIL 10-2.30pm Bodle street green Village Hall & green, east sussex BN27 4UB OPPOSITE THE WHITE HORSE INN FOR FOOD AND DRINK ☐ Veteran, Vintage & Classic Tractors ☐ Steam ☐ Cars ☐ Commercial Vehicles ☐ Stationary Engines ☐ Motor-Cycles ☐ Live Steam Models welcome ☐ Model Railways ☐ Village Hall Displays FREE ENTRY FOR PUBLIC AND EXHIBITORS! COME AND MEET LIKE MINDED FRIENDS! FREE refreshment and cake voucher to all exhibitors! Breakfast and lunch available on site Road Runners will leave at 10.15am for tour of local delights, anticipated return 1pm SAFETY FIRST! All machinery to be insured and drivers to hold current driving licence. Please come and join in the day’s fun and bring your old vehicle here! Further details from Peter Love, tel: 01323 833125 email: peterlove@madasafish.com 2024…

EXSHAW The Purrey steam wagon business in Bordeaux, France was acquired by J H Exshaw in 1910. The Berliet Foundation believes him to have been British and by 1913 the wagons were certainly being sold in London as Purrey-Exshaws. A visitor that year to Bordeaux claimed that over four hundred men were making up to three hundred wagons per year for service world-wide. The vehicles featured automatic coke firing and boiler regulation and were described as having simple twin-cylinder engines in place of earlier four-cylinder compound tandems. At the time, 172 Purrey steam trams were said to be running in Paris. During the First World War, the French Army used Exshaws for transporting light tanks. With the return of peace, 4, 6 and 8-ton models were listed with a variety…

Volunteers at the Downpatrick & County Down Railway say that they’re down, but not out, after devastating floods hit Downpatrick and the railway on Thursday 2 November. Flood waters inundated the town after several consecutive nights of heavy rain, causing the River Quolie to burst its banks and wreak havoc on the railway terminus, workshops and historic carriage gallery, undoing years of work and effort. As an immediate consequence, the popular, and, crucially for the railway, revenue-generating Lapland Express events, usually held on the weekends running up to Christmas, have been cancelled, although the D&CDR is exploring the possibility of alternative events with a Christmas theme. An even greater casualty is the cancellation of the line’s New Year Diesel Gala, planned for 6 January, and to which Dublin-based Tailte Tours…

Hugh Dougherty reports that Dundee City Council has given the green light to planning proposals to repair and convert the 1901-built former Maryfield tramway depot into the city’s new transport museum. Preliminary repairs started in January. Now, following granting of full planning permission, work to convert the depot, which formerly housed trams and buses and was then used by Scottish Water for some years before being bought by the museum in 2015, into a dedicated transport museum exhibition space is in full swing. The £5m project will provide vehicle display and workshop space, archive storage, education and community meeting rooms. Over the winter the museum will start to move its collection of tramway, railway, road transport and marine artefacts out of the temporary accommodation it has been in since 2014…

The team consisted of owners Andy and Jacqui Parncutt from Uckfield in East Sussex, Steve, Neil and myself. The prepping for the London to Brighton veteran car run started for Andy and Neil every Sunday throughout October. This consisted of filling up the greasers, stripping and cleaning the band brakes, Neatsfoot oil on the leather cone clutch and flat belts, to name just a few of the tasks. Andy and Jacqui were doing the brass lamps on the Friday before, over a gin and tonic! On the road test the trembler coil started giving trouble. This was on Friday 3 November, help! It meant a dash down to Nigel Parrott of Veteran Engineering at Marle Green, Heathfield for a spare. Rosie is a 1903 Rambler P Roundabout with single-cylinder water-cooled…

The Burrell name was certainly prominent with a variety of engines to be seen. Starting with some 4in agricultural engines, there was John Rex’s scratch-built example Denella, an engine that emanated from 2010 as did Genie, that was built from a kit by Ken Harness of North Thoresby near Grimsby and finished off by John. Continuing the theme, Jason Redfearn’s 2015 example Rose is a Live Steam Model kit with a John Rex boiler. It passed to Jason in 2021, while David Smith’s 4in engine Elsie is a regular at rallies in the area and was kit-built in 2007. An engine that that has been rallied in England, Scotland and Sweden is Dora, Stan Atkinson’s 4in Burrell SC agricultural engine that was built between 1985-1989, and is based on 1924…

It’s not unheard of for a manufacturer to exaggerate its products’ achievements or qualities in a bid to drive sales but, where Bedford is concerned, there was no overstatement in its simple but memorable slogan ‘You see them everywhere.’ For much of the 20th century, the marque was celebrated the world over for the quality and variety of its commercial vehicles, but its rise to the forefront of the industry was very sudden. While the likes of AEC, Dennis and Leyland were all well established by the 1920s, the first Bedfords did not appear until 1931. Despite coming onto the scene as the Great Depression was tightening its grip, Bedford’s arrival was pretty risk-free because its parent company was General Motors, which was just commencing its 77-year reign as the…

The Historical Construction Equipment Association’s 2023 annual International Convention and Old Equipment Exposition was held at the organisation’s headquarters at Bowling Green, Ohio, over 22-24 September. It was also held there last year, breaking the tradition of choosing a different place each year and returning home to its headquarters every third year. So this year’s show was actually the first time in the organisation’s history that the convention was held at the same location in two consecutive years. One reason for this is that locations are becoming more difficult to find. Although several historical organisations and associations across America request the HCEA to join their own local events to help boost attendance, most change their minds when they find out that we are a ‘working’ event. When they say, “You…

All illustrations are from the author’s collection. The introduction below is repeated for those readers who may not have seen Part 1 of this article. In the early years of the 20th century, many of the then existing railway companies realised the benefits of road steam vehicles to supplement their business requirements. OGs 387/8 provided an insight of those organisations in which steam buses played a part in bringing passengers to their railway - and taking them back home again later. Equally important was the development of railway parcels services for the collection and delivery of all manner of products to and from farms and industrial premises up and down the country. When the major shake-up of the railway companies happened in Britain in January 1923, four major organisations were…