Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2025 i Old Glory

One of the highlights of the 50th Haddenham rally this year must surely have been the wonderful line-up of showman’s engines next to the former Pat Collins Marenghi/Chiappa 98-key organ Wonderland. Owned by the Marchington family since 2016, this year the organ was taken to Haddenham under steam power, being reunited with former Pat Collins 10nhp Foster showman’s engine No. 14446 of 1921 The Leader for perhaps the first time in 30 years. The big Foster had company on its journey with Burrell 8nhp Scenic showman’s No. 3909 of 1922 Winston Churchill also travelling by road with a living van in tow. The opportunity to see two of the country’s most famous showman’s engines out on the road with authentic loads was one not to be missed and the day…

ENGINEERS’ TRAIN DEMOLISHES HISTORIC FOOTBRIDGE Investigations by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) are underway after a footbridge over the Dean Forest Railway was struck by a train on 14 August. The incident happened at St Mary’s Halt, Lydney, when the bridge was struck and destroyed by the railway’s 360-degree excavator which was being transported on a wagon. The excavator had been loaded at Lydney Junction but with the boom positioned too high. Part of the footbridge landed on the train, which included a guard’s van carrying volunteers. Fortunately, there were no injuries. The Grade II-listed footbridge connected public footpaths either side of the railway. After being closed in 2007 due to its condition, it was restored in 2019 using an EU grant. The RAIB said: “Having assessed the evidence,…

The Chester-le-Street Steam & Vintage Rally took place at the end of June on the Lambton estate in County Durham; it is one of the oldest events in the country. This area used to be home of Lambton Lion Park where various wild animals including lions roamed free in the grounds, being observed by families in their cars. The lions have long since gone but the rally continues to thrive. The first event took place in 1956 and it continues to showcase large displays of cars, commercials, motor bikes, tractors, stationary engines and of course steam, both full-sized examples and miniatures. Focusing on the large engines being displayed, just under 40 were seen, with some choosing to be put through their paces in the haulage arena, where trailers loaded with…

As always the entry (invitation only) was full of quality vintage and veteran tractors and crawlers besides interesting implements, nearly all working on the fields. The site was slightly smaller this year which affected the combining situation, but we were at least able to see the Knight’s restored Gleaner Baldwin Allis-Chalmers EA2072K combine doing some work. Beside this the ultra-rare Marshall 625 prototype combine was also here which the late Ron Knight rebuilt from a total wreck. Most of the combining was done on the Saturday afternoon by Somerset’s Mike Lawrence driving a very fine 1949 Fordson E27N Major Perkins P6 featuring some interesting heavy cast wheels with a trailed combine also looking superb. Hay tedding on the Sunday was Dan Bartle’s wonderful award-winning 1935 Case C in such original-style…

In March 1923 a new competitor, Redcar, was established in the town by J B Elliott and his two brothers. Their first, modest vehicle was an ex-WD Napier (KK2754) carrying a 14-seat body. This was used on their initial service to Cranbrook. Rapid expansion soon followed with six speedy Talbots fitted with twin rear wheels and 17 seats in service by June. Two equally rapid Lancia 20-seaters followed in the autumn. Redcar were soon competing with the old-established firm on many of their routes with their buses timed to operate just in front of the Autocar, while claiming they were offering the public a better service. In reprisal Autocar would send a ‘Chaser’, with the six 1923 Leyland ‘O’ type 32-seaters initially used, although these were fitted with solids. At…

On Sunday 5 October the Sussex and Kent Weald Stationary Engine Group provided a varied display of engines in the shade of the late Charles Hudson Building (also known as the Robey House) which houses the Amberley Chalk Pits Museum collection of stationary engines. This was at the Museum’s end of season transport gathering, which celebrated various anniversaries on the day particularly connected with the Fowler and Marshall engines. All in all a very satisfactory end of season event for stationary engine owners, on this superb site in West Sussex…

Chris Thomas reports that Thursday 2 October was a red-letter day for the residents of East Harling (Norfolk), when Murray Hearn brought his ex-Mornement & Ray Marshall 6-ton convertible engine No. 72096 on a nostalgic visit to her old stamping ground in East Harling. Although now in tractor form, Murray tells me he has all the components to convert her back to a roller should the need arise, as it was when she was in the Mornement & Ray fleet. After the firm closed down, the Marshall was one of the last engines to leave the yard. A photo of her lying derelict in the yard was featured in the Old Glory article about Mornement & Ray last year. Although now built on with housing, a plaque on a house…

Bob Moorman says the wellknown 1930 Foden HH type wagon, No. 13624 features the smaller 5-ton boiler, had two speeds and chain steering. Not many were built but West Riding County Council had three tippers and No. 13624 was one of them, working until 1939. It was in the Penrith Steam Museum for many years restored as a brewer’s dray in a blue livery. It was sold in 1994 to Gareth Jones who had it painted in Bishop & Sons colours and put a 1901 lift van body on the back. At a later date Mick Tuxworth fitted a third speed and tidied up the cab paintwork. In recent years the boiler underwent some major repairs along with some mechanical work at Jimmer Marsh’s yard in West Sussex. The wagon…

Bob Moorman reports the Scott family of Bedfordshire have decided to sell both their steam engines, 1920 Fowler No. 15466, a 7hp A9 traction engine has been sold to Stuart Gray and their 1920 Clayton & Shuttleworth wagon No. 48510 of 1920 has also been sold. Neither engine has been steamed recently, both having been restored many years ago with the Fowler in good order boiler-wise. The Fowler was new to the Albury estate near Guildford and drove a Stenner & Gunn saw bench for many years, it was owned by Simon Bath from Roxton in the 1970s. As for the Clayton wagon it has had a raft of owners. Stan Burgess restored it from a total wreck and at one time it was owned by Tom Varley who sold it…

Although commercials are the main draw at the Kelsall Steam Rally, the steam miniatures are an important part of the event, with a varied selection being present at this year’s rally, all of which were getting a lot of attention from the large crowds. The highlight of the day had to be when the engines steamed into the ring, lining up in front of the full-sized engines and making a fine display. Looking at the miniatures in more detail, the Burrell name certainly stood out. Getting things going was Alan Gibbs who had made the trip from Middlewich with his 6in Burrell Gold Medal tractor Luby Lou. This engine has been scratch-built by Alan with work starting in 2009 but with another project on the go, progress was initially slow.…

Highlights included around 30 fullsize engines, 40 miniature steam entries, 135 tractors, an intriguing Days Gone By working section, a special 80th anniversary of the Fordson E27N and a tractor pulling area presided over by Norman Young. Full-size steam included the 1918 Fowler Queen Mary. Although originally ordered by the War Department after WW1 it spent its early working life on Portland hauling stone and was later converted to showman’s specification to power funfair rides in the south-west of England with Townsends of Weymouth. Now owned by the Farwell family from Stourpaine it remains in Dorset. It has recently undergone a major paint job and work on the rear wheels. Next came a 1922 Aveling & Porter E type 10-ton roller acquired in 2024 by Ollie Trubridge; No. 10271 Mary…

Friday morning at 4am on 25 July was misty and cold. A few of us were gathered overnight at a farm shed in rural Shannondale, New South Wales, Australia to start a big road run weekend with my Fowler DNA roller, works number 16771 from 1926. Friday’s destination was Grafton, a regional city about 17km (10.5 miles) away. I’ve owned Fowler No. 16771 since 2022, I guess it was a half mid-life crisis purchase, half Covid lockdown compensation, and the rest of the decision was jumping in headfirst with my eyes shut! Three years on, I’ve found a place in an amazing community group, a reliable, sound boiler, and quite a few interesting mechanical surprises that always come with old machinery. She was an older restoration, originally purchased in 1926…

A few years ago, I had the honour of travelling in and writing about an 1897 Daimler which was said to be only the second ‘Coventry’ Daimler ever built. That claim would make it the oldest British series-production car in existence, and one can hardly overstate the fact that taking it out on the road is an extremely special experience. After that, what else can come close to inspiring that profound sense of history which we all hope to capture when we interact with old vehicles? Look no further – on these pages is another 1897 Daimler, chassis number 1197 and engine number 1193, powered by the same twin-cylinder, fourstroke 4hp engine as the aforementioned car, but carrying a ‘Scotch-built’ wagonette body by Stirling’s Motor Carriages which can seat up…

There has been much world-wide interest in the recent move to another location, a relatively short distance away in the town, of a large wooden church in Kiruna, Norway, as a result of extensive underground iron ore mining. It brought back memories to Andy Plunkett in Queensland, Australia, when the whole town of Clermont – a town notably situated on the Tropic of Capricorn and close to where he lives, was moved following a somewhat deadly flood. There are photographs of this exercise which happened after the low-lying town flooded around Christmas time in 1916, following which the buildings were hauled upwards, in a similar manner to the Norwegian church - but using steam, to a more elevated site during 1917. Back then, they used a couple of traction engines,…

It has been pointed out by reader Michael Walters that in the brief mention of the post-war German steam wagon manufacturer of DIAS in OG 425, one of the illustrations was a plagiarised version of the three-axle Foden ‘Speed 12’ chassis, similar to the example rebuilt by Mike Dreelan in Scotland; the similarities of which can be compared on the adjacent images. This image originated in the late Maurice Kelly’s book The Undertype Steam Wagon with the exception that the steering has been added by the artist. The book also noted that a Foden ‘Speed 6’, No. 14046 - a demonstrator - was built in 1931 and was sent to Germany in August 1935….…

Well-known Des Maybury from Surrey died last year, says Bob Moorman, and his family have decided to sell most of his extensive collection of vehicles, Des was mainly a bus man in work and play. He bought two early buses from the Michael Banfield auction in 2014, a Tilling Stevens TS3A of 1922 and a LGOC AEC S-type of 1922. The S type has been bought by Les Searle. Des also bought Super Sentinel No. 8109 from the Keeley sale in 2016 which has taken part in the HCVS London to Brighton Run and is now for sale.…

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In the simplest terms, the Pioneer Run is the motorcycling equivalent of the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run, and it has an equally rich history. Organised since its inception by the Sunbeam Motor Cycle Club, it is open to all motorcycles and three-wheelers built up to 31 December 1914, and for many years tradition dictated that it took place on a crisp March morning and ran from Tattenham Corner in the Epsom Downs to Brighton’s Madeira Drive. However, recent years have seen the date set in October following a Covid-era postponement, and the sheer barbarism of modern traffic on the three-lane stretch of the A23 between Pyecombe and Brighton has caused the run to be rerouted to finish at the Art Deco setting of Shoreham Airport. There are many…

In addition to that, 61 historic commercial vehicles were entered including a quartet of diesel road rollers with the Claude Jessett Trust’s venerable 1931 Aveling & Porter Thunder Bird in fine form and Dave Coppard’s rare Marshall also here, along with two Wallis & Steevens Advance rollers. Besides those there were military vehicles, which had their own display numbering 31 entries, while tractor entries totalled an impressive 72 and there were stationary engines and PSV vehicles on site too. The highlight for many people was the appearance of Mike Wilkinson’s ex-Lambert 1920 Foden 8nhp No. 9052, Rob Roy, looked after by Jamie Croft of Brightling. The full history of this most handsome of engines was detailed in a recent Old Glory, but suffice to say that it was making its…

KENSINGTON Starting as a bicycle maker in Buffalo, NY, USA, Kensington offered Small Electric Stanhopes in 1899 and added a Steam Runabout in the following year with “double brakes and a starting device for getting up steam without a torch.” It could allegedly climb 36 per cent grades and achieve 35mph on the level. Kensington Bicycle changed its name to Automobile Co in 1902 when it added a 12hp two-cylinder Belgian-engined auto that soon replaced the rest. It finished in 1904 with one customer describing his motor as worthless. KENT’S PACEMAKER A W Kent designed this bizarre contraption for the Colonial Automobile Co of Boston, Mass, USA who apparently sold a few 1899-1901. It had a single front wheel and three at the rear. The centre one was steam-driven and…

Information received from Satinder pal Singh in India indicates that the Southern Railway there each year organises a heritage run of one of the world’s oldest locomotives, built by Kitson, Thompson & Hewitson in Leeds in 1855. This loco (EIR-21) is the ‘twin’ of Fairy Princess (EIR-22) which is usually kept at the Indian Railway’s Steam Heritage Centre at Rewari, some 60 miles south-west of Delhi in the country’s north-west. India’s Independence Day is 15 August and, in 2025, this was the 79th occasion it had been celebrated. EIR 21 was originally used by the East Indian Railway and, following decades as a static exhibit, the loco was restored by Perambur Loco Works, Chennai, around 2010 and since then she has conducted periodic heritage runs, particularly in and around Chennai.…

Reader Ian Corfield discovered two photos of an Aveling roller taken in Perth on an Internet Facebook group entitled ‘Lost Perth’ in recent times. Perhaps not unreasonably, it was initially believed that the images had been taken in the Scottish city but when looking into the history of the roller, it was discovered that it was originally dispatched to the Antipodes and therefore the location where the roller was pictured was actually Perth in Western Australia. The first photo was taken in 1904, probably soon after the roller’s arrival in the southern hemisphere, and it’s depicted travelling along a road beneath some overhead wires for the local tram service with what appears to be a flagman walking in front of it. Being of that date, it could well have been…

The annual Tractomania took place at Caussade, South West France over 18-19 October. The organisers say during the weekend 40,000 + people arrived in their town, where some 8,000 residents normally live. Here people from all over Europe took in the 600 + trade stands selling tractors, stationary engines, lorries, parts for just about everything from models to pedal cars, enamel signs and more. It’s the French equivalent to the Beaulieu Autojumble, but the emphasis is more on agricultural matters. Many clubs were here with stands and there are now three sections where the trade stands are placed around the town with delightful restaurants and bars placed in strategic places for all to enjoy a drink and local delicacies, all helped by the glorious weather. In the top section of…