Table of contents for October 2021 in Old Glory

One of the highlights of the Kent Summer Show at Detling, Kent was the ex-South Notts Bus Company 1963 Albion Lowlander LR3 82SVO with Northern Counties 71-seat bodywork. The vehicle, owned by Brian Catchpole and Roland Graves, was making its first proper public appearance having been through so much to get here and since that date it has been on a tour back to its roots. The lowbridge Albion Lowlander was the answer to the Tilling company’s successful Bristol Lodekka and was a vehicle that Leyland didn’t want to build in the first place as it had the pioneering rear-engined Atlantean going great guns. In 1960 the belligerent Scottish Bus Group, who bought 180 double-deckers a year, did not want a rear-engined bus like the Atlantean PDR1/1, which they had…

I’m sure there are many different ways to describe ‘Community Spirit’ and every one of them is correct, says Gary Anderson, the main organiser of the Chiltern Vintage Tractor Charity Road Run on Sunday 4 July. The Wikipedia definition of the phrase ‘finds expression in individual or group activities in which members of a community choose to engage for the benefit of that community. These activities may be locally organised, or informal and spontaneous.’ My own definition of ‘Community Spirit’ was pleasantly re-awakened recently. For the past 15 years, through the Ferguson Club, I have organised the Chiltern Vintage Tractor Charity Run. In the early years the main driver was to raise funds for our local Thames Valley Air Ambulance. So many people in the area also believed that this…

A combination of high levels of Covid 19 cases and Storm Evert passing through the area failed to deter exhibitors and the public from attending the Driffield Steam Fair, now under new management and held for the first time in two years, over the weekend of 31 July-1 August at the Showground in Driffield, East Yorkshire, reports Mal Jordan. The event had been planned for August 2020 but cancelled due to Covid. It is now under Custom Shows’ management due to the East Riding Engine Club not being in a position to continue after their final 30th event brought proceedings to an end in August 2019 (see OG No 359). A varied selection of exhibits were on show with around 750 in all categories, including about 16 full-size steamers and…

The event took place again on the weekend of 17-18 July says David Vaughan. The sun shone all weekend and by Saturday afternoon the temperature was in the region of 90 degrees. This however did not deter the teams of steam engine owners and their friends from putting on working demonstrations such as road making, timber sawing and heavy lifting. In the fairground, Aveling & Porter showman’s engine Southern Queen was seen generating power for a couple of rides, and Wallis and Steevens TE Pensioner was linked up to a threshing drum. There were no less than three steam crane engines at the event with lifting demonstrations at various points in the day. In addition a pair of steam ploughing engines, together with their plough. were stationed in a field…

The Bluebell Railway’s Horsted Keynes station is one of the largest to be found on any heritage line – a five-platform country junction station presented in Southern Railway condition. Beloved by film and television producers for sixty years, Horsted Keynes station in West Sussex has a filmography as long as your arm. Oozing with railway atmosphere it has played the perfect location for the likes of Poirot, Sherlock Holmes and Downton Abbey. But peel away the ‘set dressing’ associated with providing a heritage experience and the station, now 139 years old, is starting to look its age. So much so that the decision was made to restore the station’s infrastructure as the focus of its 60-year Diamond Jubilee Appeal in the spring of 2020. The groundwork for the appeal was…

Over the past 15 months we have published some of the previously unseen old photographs of the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway (at its original site at Humberston) and the Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway (in its original guise as the Cleethorpes Miniature Railway) following their discovery during office tidy-ups during the early stages of the Covid pandemic. The subsequent publicity surrounding the CCLR’s take-over of the North Bay Railway in Scarborough led to the discovery of a number of old postcards of that line published during the heyday of English summer holidays by the sea. Their publication has now led to one collector sending details of his remarkable collection of 250 vintage postcards of the North Bay Railway – far more than anyone else knew existed. Another reader sent a superb…

The interest in steam portable preservation has grown so much since the 1960s, partly due to the many examples brought back to the UK from all over the world, particularly in the 1990s and the first decade of this century. The centre two engines are typical of what we are talking about as the Marshall 3hp worked in Chile and came back to the UK as a wreck and the engine to its right the 2.5hp Ransomes Sims & Jefferies worked in South Africa. On the outside of these two engines are two venerable 1860s engines with the A W Smith at the far end and nearest the camera Banbury Oxfordshire made Barrows & Co.…

There was a welcome return this July for exhibitors and visitors of the everpopular Guildford Model Engineer Society’s (GMES) Gala. Cancelled last year due to the pandemic, this year it was able to go ahead over the weekend 3/4 July, with a few concessionary changes expected of all public events before restrictions further ease, says James Hamilton. The GMES was founded in 1954 to encourage model engineers to develop and share their skills within a friendly environment. In 1958 they moved to a permanent site in a corner of Stoke Park in Guildford, Surrey where they were able to provide the facilities such as club house, work space and grounds to accommodate permanent way of different gauges to run railway locomotives for the public on open days throughout the year.…

It was a delight to see the fully sprung 1920 Marshall No. 73901 7hp Princess Mary of Dave Wothers and family from Gloucestershire. The engine is back on the road after a 23-month refresh with much of the work done by son Matt. The engine made its debut at the Marston Steam & Vehicle Restorations event on 21-22 August. Here we see Karl Titchener, who painted the engine superbly for the Wothers, giving boiler inspector Dave a new hand-painted front number plate that will certainly finish the job off.…

Thanks to the Whittakers and James Wren Davis, Old Glory was invited on Thursday 26 August to take part in a unique road run starting from the Wren Davis milk farm near Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, where the family have been for some 98 years. The end destination was Carters Fair stationed at Pinkneys Green, Maidenhead, Berkshire. I suppose it all started when the Whittakers were looking for a venue to debut their, so authentic in detail, 1923 23rd March four-berth showman’s living van. The showman’s van was made by Charles D Phillips Ltd, whose main base was at the Emlyn Engineering Works, Newport, Monmouthshire, and who had other bases in Gloucestershire and London. By the time this van had been built the founder had passed on, but in any event,…

A real piece of heritage, steam railway history was made around 11.00 am on Tuesday 27 July, when Black Five 5025 emerged in fine fettle, and in the loco’s original London Midland & Scottish Railway livery, from Aviemore loco shed, out of the darkness and into the Highland sunshine. The oldest surviving LMS Black Five was celebrating its return to steam after a £520,000 restoration project, launched nearly 20 years ago in 2002. Designed by Sir William Stanier, and built by the Vulcan Foundry as the sixth loco of a class of 842, 5025 was allocated to Perth shed when new in 1934. The engine would have passed though Aviemore frequently on the Highland mainline between Perth and Inverness, before moving to the north west of England and was bought…

WHITEBOX A new 1/24 scale diecast Renault Estafette high-roof van has been released by Whitebox in orange and white [1]. RRP is £30.99. The front-wheel drive Estafette was in production from 1959 to 1980, with both low roof and high roof variants available. This version has the straight bottomed grille introduced in 1962. UNIVERSAL HOBBIES In 1/32 scale is a diecast and plastic Fiat 750 Special 2WD with canopy with an RRP of £48 [2]. The front wheels are steerable and the bonnet opens to reveal the engine and chassis detail. These tractors were built between 1967-71, powered by a 75hp, 4.6 litre, four-cylinder diesel engine. Both two-wheel drive and four-wheel drive versions were produced. They were later sold as the White 1470 from 1973-75. TRACTOR COLLECTION Former magazine partwork…

The Evesham Vale Light Railway was first opened in August 2002 and was built by Jim and Helen Shackell, with help from their family and friends. They held a popular Gala on 10-11 July at the Twyford site at Evesham, Worcestershire, says Chris Rowberry. The one-mile line is constructed to 15in gauge and at one time featured a very famous and historically important Barnes Atlantic. Trains run from Twyford Station, opposite the country park’s main car park. The run takes approximately 10–15 minutes, through the apple orchard and around the ‘Balloon Loop’ to Evesham Vale Station. Here, the trains stop for a few minutes before out to the ‘Balloon Loop’ again and on to Twyford Station. The locomotive is then turned and run round ready for the next departure. Three…

Sixty years ago, on the morning of August 13, 1961, the inhabitants of Berlin awoke to find that two thirds of their city had been isolated from the rest by the tearing up of roads, blocking of railway lines and the erection of barbed wire fencing along the 97-mile border the western sector shared with the German Democratic Republic and the 27 miles that divided West and East Berlin. Within four days the barbed wire would be replaced by a concrete wall. Initially the inhabitants on each side of the wall were unable to visit or even telephone each other. From the mid-1960s West Berliners were allowed to visit their relatives in the East at Christmas. In 1971, following negotiations by the four occupying powers the restrictions were relaxed. Even…

This series focuses on steam shovels produced by the manufacturers covered. Some phased out steam in favour of diesel, petrol or electricity to power their excavators and prospered in later years, but those who chose to remain with steam had disappeared by the end of the 1920s. ALLIS-CHALMERS It’s not widely known that the famous tractor builder Allis-Chalmers was a major manufacturing force in the early years of the 20th century. A 1905 catalogue lists over 160 different products including air compressors, rock crushers, dredges, pumps, rolling mills, turbines, AC and DC electric motors, transformers mine hoists, several types of engines including Corliss, and steam shovels. Also machinery for cement manufacture, underground mining, flour mills, sugar manufacturing, logging and saw mills. Sales offices were established in 24 principal cities across…

Visiting Portugal over fifty years ago now, James Waite found some steam locomotives which had been built by the North British Locomotive Company for the Companhia Portuguesa, the main Portuguese railway company. In 1921, NBL built a series of eight 5ft 6in gauge 2-8-0s locos for the railway. They were numbered 1712-1719, later renumbered 712-719, and were part of a larger class constructed from 1912 onwards. The first ten of these were manufactured by Schwartzkopff in Berlin. Some of them, including CP No. 713, remained in use until the last years of steam on the Portuguese broad gauge in the early 1970s. James came across a Glasgow-built loco - NBL No. 22709 - at Nine engine shed, about 30km north of Porto, in August 1970 and he saw her again…

It was a first outside appearance in steam on August 7-8 when the Casey family of Dover’s completed Wallis & Steevens oilbath compound tractor No. 7487 of 1915 made an appearance at Ian Langley’s invitation-only event held near Danehill, East Sussex, writes Colin Tyson. This First World War build was new to Edwin Hughes of Wokingham, a builder, sanitary engineer and stonemason, on contract hire until 1923. It was then converted to roller form and sold to Parr-Head & Clements, Knowling Ltd of Derwent Yard, Ealing, W5, and driven by Patsy Tew until 1963, when sold at auction to John Ullmann. It was taken to Fred Pegden’s yard at Elham, Kent, for work and then purchased by steam engineer Steve Casey in 1982 in ‘as found’ condition, after standing in…

David Reed visited the Great Central Railway for their Beer & Vintage Festival, and raised a glass to the visiting engines and rollers that were displayed at Quorn & Woodhouse station Quorn & Woodhouse station on the Great Central Railway saw a variety of traction engines attend their Beer & Vintage Festival that was held over 22-25 July. This festival usually takes place around Easter time, but with Covid restrictions still in operation it was delayed for a couple of months. This year’s event featured over 70 beers from a number of independent breweries, with various gins, ciders and perrys also being available at three stations along the railway. But it was at Quorn & Woodhouse station that was of most interest to these columns, with the station yard hosting…

The 12th Fylde Steam & Farm Show took place over the weekend of 3-4 July saw a good few miniatures being displayed on the showfield, situated between Preston and Blackpool, says David Reed. Here Anthony Cowell’s 4in Fowler R3 road locomotive was being seen for the first time in a number of years, while his 4in Burrell SCC agricultural traction engine Jeannie was also getting a lot of admirers. The engine was built by Terry Bullard and was bought by Anthony in 2020. There was another Burrell SCC agricultural engine in the show too. That was Nathan Griffin’s 2005 model that was built from a Model Works kit. “I bought it from Station Road Steam seven years ago,” Nathan said, “Before that it had stood in a barn in Ireland.”…

Foden had pioneered purpose-built British dumptrucks with its heavy duty six-wheelers in the late 1940s. In fact, Foden’s first 1947 prototype had been a four-wheel shuttle dumper, but in production it stuck with what it knew best and was soon supplying the Steel Company of Wales, and then quarries up and down the country, and soon as far afield as Italy and the Antipodes. In the mid-1950s it was to decide to take on the successful British Euclid with entirely off-road oversize types. As noted in our recent survey of the AEC Dumptruk, the American firm had set up shop at Newhouse in Scotland in 1950 and had been snapped up by General Motors in the coronation year of 1953. Of course, General Motors owned Detroit Diesel whose two-strokes had…

Following the success of their construction of the two replicas of the very early Cédès-Stoll trolleybuses by a group of volunteers led by Jirka Kovář - Jan Spoutsa advises that these České Velenice enthusiasts of this design of trolleybus have completed another one. The second example of this design (battery-operated for ease of convenience) is now to be found at Sandtoft Trolleybus Museum not far from Doncaster (OG 355) - since it is of a type which operated successfully between 1913 and 1924 at Keighley in Yorkshire’s West Riding - and it provides the ‘missing link’ in the history of trolleybus operation in Britain with it’s very different type of electrical collection system. This new third replica is of the 1909 Bratislava ‘open summer trolleybus’ which was on show at…

Glenorchy Transport Museum at 2B Anfield Street in the Hobart suburb of the same name has an extensive collection of vehicles, including road steam engines, buses and trams, writes Kevin Hoggett. Some of these have previously been featured in Old Glory. The largest area of the site is, however, dedicated to the history of Tasmania’s 3ft 6in gauge railway network and includes a large collection of locomotives, both steam and diesel, together with other types of rolling stock. These have been assembled in an area featuring a newly-built semi-roundhouse loco shed - German or US-style - as well as a station setting and this includes historic signalling equipment. About once a month, but not in the current Covid-19 times, a loco is steamed and short rides are given to the…