Table of contents for February 2024 in Old Glory

David Reed Editor-at-large - Former York school teacher who has worked with the editor since 1995 and has a wealth of knowledge on steam, commercials and tractors. Derek Rayner Technical and Vintage World Editor - Derek’s knowledge is extensive, a steam roller owner since the 1960s and a world traveller in search of nothing but the best. Bob Moorman Rally Archive Editor - This former engineering inspector is a fount of knowledge and has been rallying since the 70s. His own restos are award winners, as his ex-Kings 1927 Foden will be now that it’s finished! Mike Neale Diecast Models Editor – It’s a great pleasure to welcome this well-known model expert and photographer who is an architect by trade, to the magazine. Nick Baldwin Senior Correspondent - It’s a…

Phil Barnes tells us it’s been over a year since Bagnall 2-4-0T Polar Bear last ran in traffic during the Halloween Event at Amberley Chalk Pits, the engine's HQ, in October 2022. Since then, Polar Bear has been stripped down to component parts with the boiler going away for refurbishment at Bennett Boilers in Highbridge, Somerset, whilst the chassis and other components have been dealt with in house at Amberley. On the subject of houses, quite literally Polar Bear has ‘lived’ in its own house in the form of a party tent, which was erected in the running shed, and has created a more comfortable (ie it can be heated) and dust-free environment to work in over the past year. The chassis has been needle-gunned and initially painted in a…

The Case-New Holland Basildon tractor plant held its first Christmas Charity Tractor Road Run on Saturday 16 December at 5pm in aid of St Luke’s Hospice. The charity provides compassion and care to those with incurable illnesses. The tractors went on to blaze the streets of Basildon, Laindon, Pitsea and North Benfleet. The highlight for Old Glory readers was Tony Ready’s ex United Diaries 1964 Scammell Highwayman which carries a Gardner LW120 and certainly looked the part. Got a story? Contact Old Glory • Email: peterlove@madasafish.com • Tel: 01323 833125…

The annual Helston, Cornwall road run took place with 70 tractors taking part in dry weather conditions, but wet underfoot and they raised £850 for South West Children’s Hospice from the event says David Payne. David had his 1964 Massey Ferguson 65 Mk2 out on the run celebrating its 60th birthday.…

The place to go on New Year’s Day in Somerset is Greenslade Taylor Hunt’s, Sedgemoor Auction Centre, North Petherton, Bridgwater where the Somerset Traction Engine Club holds its annual gathering. As usual there was plenty to see of all types of machinery and the weather stayed dry says Allan Bedford. If you were a Land Rover or hot rod pick-up fans this was the place to be. Sadly there was only one steamer in the Club’s mascot, 1905 Burrell 6hp single-crank compound No. 2767 King Sedgemoor which came on the road to the event with its water cart to keep the Burrell topped up. There are always a great line-up of tractors here, but just one grey Ferguson this year in a 1956 TE-F example. However there was a good…

The editor is always delighted to receive your e-mails, letters, photographs and more on any subject you like! But please be sensible and courteous to everyone when you write in. Letters published are not the views of the publisher or editor. Thank you! Peter Love, Kelsey Publishing Ltd, The Granary, Downs Court, Yalding Hill, Yalding, Kent ME18 6AL Tel: 01323 833125 peterlove@madasafish.com MORE ON THE GRIFFIN Dear Editor It was great to see Foster 14446 The Leader on the cover of OG 401, where Burrell 2804 The Griffin also featured. These were the first traction engines I ever saw working, at the Birmingham Carnival Fair in November 1952. I could not have imagined that I would later be the driver of The Leader, which has been my privilege until recently. There…

Most fairground showmen had, over the years, built up a circuit of fields or hard-standing where regular fairs were held having built up a working relationship with the local town council or landowner. More often than not these fairs were set on or around the same time each year, so that the local population had a date in their calendars to look forward to. This practice dates from the time when the local fair was the high spot of the year and were sometimes the result of a Royal Charter going back centuries in time. Such was the case with the fair featured here which, by the early 1960s, had become the largest fair in Sussex, and undoubtedly the oldest. The Chichester Sloe Fair was first held in 1107 when…

There were good numbers of exhibitors in most classes including tractors, commercials, models, vintage cars and motorbikes, barn engines, steam engines, miniature steam, catering, steam car, fairground, trade and car boot and a military section, so basically a little bit of everything for the many visitors who went along. The two visiting steam engines were Martin Robinson and family’s Aveling & Porter showman’s engine Duchess. This engine was built in 1906 as No. 6091, with registration AY 9526. Originally built as a 7nhp RC15 road roller, it was converted to a showman’s some years ago. The second engine was Mike Middlewood & Son’s Burrell No. 3048, a 7nhp GP engine. Also on show was the Byass-owned Fowler D5 road roller No. 16031 Claire in its original clothing. The roller was…

In the 1880s, Mr Biprodas Palchoudhuri was the founder of a tea estate between Siliguri and Sukna, very close to which now runs the world-famous Darjeeling Himalaya Railway (DHR), a World Heritage site. He came to England where he interned at Ransomes at Ipswich after completing his engineering training. At the time, the firm was a leading manufacturer of boilers and agricultural equipment. Thus, when the time came for some mechanisation to be introduced into his expanding tea business, it was not surprising that in 1883, Mr. Palchoudhuri procured a Ransomes portable engine, works number 5700, for the Mohurgong Tea Estate. This was supplied at the time when the Ipswich firm was known as Ransomes, Head & Jefferies - thus making it very much of a rarity today. Mr Palchoudhuri…

Well, I’m writing these notes between Christmas and the New Year 2024, a time to reflect on all that’s going on. My rally season will start again at the excellent Somerset Vintage Tractor Show at the Bath and West Showground, Shepton Mallet, on 27-28 January. If you have never been, it’s well worth a visit. The same must be said for Retromobile in Paris at the end of January. The latter is relatively easy to get to via the Eurostar, but unfortunately doing it there and back in the day is a thing of the past, with the drastic reduction in trains to Gare du Nord from St Pancras. This is all since Covid; well that’s the excuse these days. As for the Somerset Show, I normally drive down from…

It’s less than two years since we featured this engine's recovery (issue 384 Old Glory February 2022) from Cross In Hand, East Sussex and we have great news that the engine is amazingly back in steam! This ex-Cyril Philp of Castle Hedingham, Essex engine was very rough when Dave Anton purchased it from the Cheffins 1995 sale. Sadly it just sat in East Sussex with its wheels shipped to Riverside, California, USA where they were to be restraked by Dave at his home base, but that is not going to happen now unfortunately and hopefully they will be returned to the UK. In the meantime, when 1919 Fowler BB1 No. 15430 was purchased by Zack Fields-Pattinson the wheels had to be removed from Dave’s other BB1 engine No. 15165 which…

A small friendly private gathering was organised by Derek and Louise Gransden on a farm near Faversham, Kent, on New Year’s Day says Bob Moorman. There were two Sentinel steam waggons, Derek Gransden’s S4 The Lion No. 8850 of 1933 and the Hazelhurst Family’s prototype SDDG4 No. 8448 of 1930, which was driven by Colin and Vicky some 20 miles from their Chatham Dockyard base. The Jardine family’s Aveling & Porter 10 ton roller No. 12103 of 1928 was driven by Mrs Jardine with her son Fergus steering the three miles from its base. Also seen were several internal combustion engined vehicles on show including three fine Riley’s one of which was a rare Sprint. A superb 1961 Renault Dauphine was spotted which has recently been rescued from a garage…

Held in the Buckinghamshire market town of Stony Stratford, Vintage Stony is a popular New Year’s Day fixture on the calendar says Zack Stiling. This year it attracted dozens of pre-war vehicles, plus a smattering of commercial vehicles, including a beautiful 1949 Guy Wolf bus in the colours of Thomsons Tours of Stoke-on-Trent and a 1954 Commer fire engine remodelled as a race support lorry. A regiment of wartime vehicles, mostly of American origin, were stationed just outside the town centre but the ex-Royal Navy 1945 Austin K6 gantry lorry of Chris Naylor and Suki Read stood out handsomely. It was good to see several veteran cars, including an 1897 Léon Bollée, 1902 Oldsmobile and 1902 Gladiator.…

HACHETTE BERLIET TRUCKS COLLECTION A while ago Hachette issued monthly model releases of 1/43 scale diecast Berliet trucks as a magazine partwork series in France, available there by subscription or in newsagents. More of these have become available on general sale in the UK. The models are made by Ixo. Models released include a 1925 Berliet CBA 9 ‘Porte-Alambic’, or distillery truck [1], selling for £29.99. The CBA was introduced at the start of the First World War. It had a four-cylinder 25hp petrol engine, with chain drive, and a steel chassis. There was a four-speed gearbox, a honeycomb radiator, and it was fitted with solid rubber tyres. Many were used by the army throughout the war, with 25,000 having been delivered to the French armed forces by 1918. Some…

In mid-November, a major disaster befell the Old Patagonian Express, a steam-hauled excursion train in southern Argentina on the 750mm gauge. Not seen by the train crew in time, at a small bridge or culvert, there was an under-track washout and the weight of the loco going over it resulted in the track giving way beneath the train, with the inevitable consequence of a somewhat horrendous derailment which left the loco and train, which included wooden bodied coaches, on their sides. Because the coaches were coupled using the standard type of Buckeye coupler, once the loco left the track, it pulled the rest of the train with it with the unfortunate result as seen in the adjacent images. The inaccessibility of the location of the derailment puts a question on…

Just as we are going to press, we have just been given the deeply sad news that Old Glory correspondent Nick Baldwin has died from lung cancer (Nick had never smoked); he had been a personal friend of OG editor Peter Love since 1973. All at Old Glory send our deepest and heartfelt condolences to Julie Baldwin and their many worldwide friends and family at this time. This is Julie’s message, which we have just received. Dear Jayne and Peter, Sad news is that my lovely Nick passed away peacefully and comfortably on Wednesday 10th January 2024 at 4.30am. He had literally just finished the Old Glory steam A-Z L section and his last motoring article about braking entitled Full Stop. Roger Bateman came over to help us to do this…

It was a day of showers and sunshine for the annual Saunders collection Christmas Road Run on 29th December says Simon Colbeck. There was a fine selection of the Saunders fleet heading out onto the road on the Friday between Christmas and New Year, joined by plenty of people enjoying a steamy break away from the end of year festivities. The circular route from Stotfold took the engines through the Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire villages of Arlesey and Letchworth, before finishing at the Coach and Horses pub in Stotfold. A lunch time stop was made at Arlesey Town Football Club, providing a chance to get up close to the participating steam and visiting vintage commercials. Appearing for the first time on the road run was 1918 Fowler BB1 ploughing engine No.…

On Saturday 9 December at 6.30pm, spotted running well on the Ringmer Christmas Tractor Run in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital and St Peter & St James Hospice was the Thornycroft J-type. The lorry and tractors, plus Austin Hawkins Aveling & Porter piston-valve 10 ton roller Lion Heart which lead the early part of the run started out at Downsview Farm, The Broyle near Ringmer, East Sussex before heading around Lewes, East Sussex and back to where they started by 8pm.…

New Year’s Day at Winchester is all about Friends of King Alfred Buses, when the vintage and veteran buses takeover the running of the stage coach services into the town. All car parks are free to park in. A huge crowd came in good weather conditions, perhaps more so than ever in sympathy over the fire in the King Alfred outer storage facility at Andover which saw the fully restored prototype 1948 Leyland Olympic JAA708 destroyed. However, it is thought there is the possibility of restoring it again, but, it will cost approximately £500,000, help! All services were packed, but the star of the day was not a King Alfred. It was infact the Morris owned ex Cumberland 1936 Leyland TD4 with 1950 Eastern Counties bodywork, which was making its…

A MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR Delighted to boast that this is Britain’s best-selling magazine for steam and vintage-machinery enthusiasts. If you have enjoyed this issue of Old Glory and love original style or gleaming restored machinery especially road steam, or are fascinated by Britain’s rich industrial and transport heritage then why not subscribe? You will save money on the shop price and receive every issue direct to your door. Whether you’re interested in the latest news, places to visit or black and white photography of these wonderful machines in working times, featured by top writers and photographers you’ll find it all in the pages of Old Glory. SUBSCRIPTION BENEFITS • Enjoy one whole year of Old Glory• Get each issue delivered directly to your door in 100% plastic-free packaging• Save…

Those visiting the show enjoyed a large display of full size and miniature steam engines including wood sawing powered by a steam traction engine which is not often seen at similar events. This year also saw the biggest gathering of vintage and classic tractors ever at the show, ranging from 1937 to the late 1990s, some preserved in their working clothes and others restored to a very high standard. The tractor section also featured two locally-made Jones balers. Jones balers were built at Rhosesmor before being sold out to Allis Chalmers, but thanks to the Vale Vintage Show and other similar events people of today can still see these locally-produced machines working. Other exhibits ranged from awning displays, push bikes and motorcycles to classic cars and classic caravans. Those visiting…

Going to spend time with family in California last autumn provided Ian Moore with the ideal opportunity to visit the Roaring Camp and Big Trees Railroad to the south of San Jose and close to the Pacific coast at Santa Cruz. This latter seaside resort is perhaps best known for its famous Beach Boardwalk and maybe more especially so for its historic 1924 wooden roller coaster known as the Giant Dipper. But it was a birthday treat which took Ian to the railway in search of ‘Steam.’ There are two railway rides available, the standard gauge line to the Beach or Boardwalk is diesel-hauled but it was the other, at 3ft gauge up a steeply graded line into the woods to the top of Bear Mountain which drew Ian to…