Table of contents for July 2020 in Old Glory

We’re into the fourth month of lockdown, albeit now with some relaxing of restrictions; we can now visit mother-in-law but not yet go to the pub. The month of May came and went and inevitably thoughts turned to where I could have been and indeed have been before during the month; Llandudno, Strumpshaw, Chiltern, Cuckoo Fayre, Woolpit, the old Rushden rally and my local Tinkers Park rally. Realisation of lockdown dawned when I didn’t receive my usual wristband and car pass for the London to Brighton run, which is my normal season-starter event. Into flaming June and the weather has been perfect for rallying – Inishannon will have to wait another year. As will my own travel plans, having had to cancel trips to South Africa and the Czech Republic.…

THE FRIENDS OF KING ALFRED BUSES (FoKAB) is in sudden and urgent need of new accommodation for much of its unique collection of Winchester buses and is appealing for help from supporters and anybody else with an interest in supporting us. Most unexpectedly, FoKAB has been asked to quit by the end of 2020 the location outside the city where many of its vehicles have been safely accommodated for the best part of 20 years. This will not be easy, given that quite a large space – or a series of smaller spaces – will be needed. An undercover site near Winchester is needed. Otherwise the carefully-restored vehicles would quickly deteriorate parked outdoors. To store them away from the city would seriously hinder the ability to stage events recreating the…

SATURDAY July 25 sees the Dennis Johnson Collection come under the hammer of Nixon Auctioneers in the centre of Ceresco, 68017 some 12 miles from the university city of Lincoln, Nebraska, USA writes Peter Love. The collection has been built up over some 50 years and features some five steam traction engines in various states, plus a raft of interesting tractors, stationary engines, threshing machines and steam and tractor spares. The list was provisional when going to press and extra lots are to be added. There is a preview day on Friday July 24 and the site is not hard to find at all, opposite the gas station in the sleepy town centre right by the large elevators. On-line bidding starts 10am Central Time (4pm UK time). There just might…

The recent article depicting Mike Swifi’s pictures from the famous Raynham Day rally prompted such a lot of interest that Simon Colbeck decided to scan some more pictures of the event - along with some other rally field pictures from the 1962 season. With the grounds of the beautiful Raynham Hall in North Norfolk providing the backdrop for the engines that attended they were blessed with excellent weather. In addition to Raynham Day, Mike also attended Pickering rally in August and Jodrell Bank rally in October 1962, the latter of course being the forerunner of what was to become the Astle Park rally that we know today.…

s the engine was examined it was clear that this would be the most challenging part of the restoration. Dismantling took several weeks of labour with the engine fighting back every step of the way. The pistons were solid and had to be jacked out by running a bar through each journal and winding down a bolt on each end until the piston let go. Once removed, the pistons did not appear to be in too bad a condition, however, one of the bores was found to be badly corroded and the other three also but not to such a great extent. Steve initially hoped that he could get away with just sleeving two cylinders, but a measurement of the other two cylinders revealed that over the years they had…

A number of British collieries provided a passenger service for their own work force (usually known as a ‘paddy train’) but in only two instances was this extended to a public service. Best known was the South Shields, Marsden & Whitburn Colliery Railway which ran a passenger service until November 1953 but there was one other far less well known example in West Yorkshire. The coal measures at Garforth, originally a village just east of Leeds, are on the far north eastern corner of the Yorkshire coal field. As the coal outcropped here it was easily worked and mining began in early mediaeval times but was not properly developed into deep mines with shafts until the eighteenth century. The opening of the Leeds & Selby Railway on September 22, 1834,…

2020 started for us, like many, looking forward to the season ahead, wondering if our engine might make an appearance this year and generally anticipating seeing friends and engines old and new. Within weeks, the country was aware of a new situation unfolding and meetings at work suggested a new world order was approaching. At the start of March, questions began as to the viability of spring indoor events such as model railway shows and we knew things were getting serious when the large exhibition at Alexandra Palace in March was cancelled. In the world of social media, things move fast, and within hours of the announcement, the concept of a virtual model railway show was born. Mainly to be held on Twitter, using the hashtag #TwitterModelTrainShow, the idea was…

THE ONLY surviving steam roller by the German manufacturer International Baumaschinenfabrik AG (IBAG) of Neustadt an der Weinstrasse was purchased by Martin Hofbauer in June 2018 (OG 344). Martin has been slowly progressing its restoration to a high standard and he’s found the recent restrictions placed on himself and his countrymen in respect of the Covid-19 pandemic to work in his favour. He was pleased that he was able to access his workshop from his garden - without breaking any rules! When the roller was purchased, it had been dismantled by the previous owner and Martin was fearful that all the parts would not be with it. However, so far he’s found every part that was needed during the rebuild. A lot of work has been carried out; the tender…

“There be dragons on New Zealand’s South Island”. THE POWERFUL dualbogie rail tractors built by the Dispatch Foundry in Greymouth went on to become one of the most successful designs ever of its kind, shutting out all the other types of the West Coast bush tram-lokey market. The firm’s first machine of this ‘B-B ’ wheel arrangement appeared in around 1925 and was conceived by the Dispatch company’s designer, Gordon Webb. Controversially, Webb took out the Patent in his own name which caused much ill-feeling in the Dispatch firm - whose view was that Webb was paid to design machinery on their behalf! The Webb tractor had a few design flaws (especially in its transmission system) but it set the scene for the much-improved Dispatch type. It’s believed that only…

Richard Fyson the founder of the business, started as a millwright repairing and later building windmills and wind-pumps. As wind-pumps were quickly becoming obsolete and being replaced by steam engines, so Fysons moved with the times and became involved in the installation and maintenance of steam pumps – so essential for keeping the Fenland free from floods. At the same time, he became an agent for several agricultural machinery manufacturers. In 1891 a portable engine was completed with varying reports as to its size but probably an 8nhp. The boiler was hand rivetted, but the cylinder came from a scrapped engine. It was used by a local farmer for threshing and it was last heard of driving a stone crusher in the 1920s. Encouraged by the success of the portable…

THE TRANSPORT TRUST, the registered charity dedicated to the preservation of the nation’s transport heritage, has announced that Anne, Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal, is to become its new Royal Patron as the organisation is rebranded National Transport Trust (NTT) to reflect its growing and evolving nationwide role. As the umbrella organisation for all forms of transport preservation in the UK, the NTT promotes, encourages and supports the nation’s transport heritage in all its many guises, while further developing its reach and links with preservationists, stakeholders and the general public throughout the UK. “We are delighted to welcome our new Royal Patron, The Princess Royal, who through her associations with the Worshipful Company of Carmen, Aerospace Bristol and the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, among others, has excellent…

IPSWICH Transport Museum and Ipswich Buses have marked the 70th anniversary of the introduction of motor bus operation with a commemorative photograph taken at the museum on Thursday May 14 – the date the first six motor buses entered service in 1950. The original 9B route ran from the Town Centre to Whitehouse estate via Norwich Road and Lovetofts Drive, and was the first to feature diesel engine buses rather than the electrically powered trolleybuses then used by Ipswich Corporation. The trolleybuses were replaced by diesel buses in phased conversions between 1953 and 1963. The first six motor buses were also the first to have ‘three letter’ registration plates, and the very first, ADX 1 has been in the ITM Collection since 1973. ADX 1 was externally restored at Priory…

THE FIRST 3ft gauge train ever to run in Connemara is to arrive at Maam Cross station later this year as part of an ambitious project to bring steam back, 85 years after the last train ran on the standard gauge Galway-Clifden line, reports Hugh Dougherty. Jim Deegan, director of the Connemara Railway project, plans to bring a steam locomotive and carriages to Maam Cross where volunteers will lay temporary narrow gauge track to operate the train as proof positive of their intention to develop a working steam railway at the site. Jim said: “We have already laid standard gauge track at Maam Cross and have a 25-year lease and planning permission to rebuild the station, recreate its original track layout and operate steam trains. As this will take some…

IT IS with the greatest sadness that I pass on the news that Mike Hynd passed away on April 26. He was well-known and respected throughout the rallies in the South of England and was often seen with his engines, stone crusher and living van. His love of all things in the preservation world was a lifelong passion. Like many boys of his generation, a fascination with steam trains and railways was fostered early on. Although his enthusiasm was initially model railways, as his interest grew so did his engines. Upon passing his school exams at 16, he was allowed a week’s volunteering on the Tallallyn Railway in 1956 and has been an avid supporter of the railway ever since. At the Talyllyn Railway he built longstanding friendships that served…

Circumstances have precluded the intended very special anniversary event at Masham taking place this year. However, it was felt extremely important that something should be published as a tribute to all those local people and others who have worked extremely hard to steer the rally in North Yorkshire through thick and thin over this very long period. It therefore seems appropriate that it should be the author who has risen to this challenge, since he is now the only person whose name was in the 1965 programme associated with a steam exhibit displayed at that first Masham rally. When anyone mentions that first event, my immediate thoughts are that it was a very wet rally - on one occasion we went to the toilet across the far side of the…

When Richard Trevithick’s contraption called Pen-y-darren lurched forward for the very first time, the world changed. No longer was mankind dependent on the wind, or temperamental horses or gravitational pull for transportation; he could now ride on the saddle of the iron horse and go when and where he wanted, as long as suitable tracks could be laid. The age of the train had arrived on the back of a bet, for Trevithick’s steam powered machine had originally been conceived as a stationary engine. Suprisingly, that great genius turned his back on developing his new machine further, in favour of taking his know-how of high pressure boiler pumps to what is still one of the remotest destinations on the planet, the mines at Cerro de Pasco in Peru. Ironically the…

By post: Old Glory, Kelsey Publishing Ltd, 5 Yalding Hill, Downs Court, Yalding ME18 6AL Contributions welcomed by Derek Rayner, email: derekinvicta1915@gmail.com WORLD TRAVELLER and Canadian steam enthusiast Don Heron has been to the very south of Chile – to Puntas Arenas in Patagonia - where he visited the Institudo de Patagonia and discovered a quintet of various types of steam engines. Perhaps arguably the most interesting example was an unidentified (by works number) Leeds-built steam wagon made by Mann’s Patent Steam Cart & Wagon Co on Pepper Road, Hunslet. This saw use by a local agricultural organisation for carrying wool bales. Also there was another Leeds-manufactured machine, this being an 8hp McLaren road locomotive No 1570 of 1913/4 which carries an incorrect valve chest cover with the number 1296…

FOLLOWING the publication relating to the wonderful display of Zettelmeyer steam rollers owned by the Valli contracting company at Aarau, Switzerland, in OG 360, Martin Frey reports that there are now seven active men in the Valli steam roller team and they are always very busy. In addition to the six restored steam rollers, they have ‘technically’ refurbished Valli Fleet No 9, (Zettelmeyer No 504 of 1930) but it’s been left in the same external condition as it was in the open-fronted shed in the yard for some 60 years. The team are about to start on Fleet No 12 (Zettelmeyer No 600 of 1934) to bring it back into operation. However, it’s been discovered that the boiler tubes are now life-expired and these will require attention. This roller is…

Harold Wood & Sons was considered to be the largest tanker operator in Europe and the third largest in the world in the 1960s, with around 600 vehicles in its fleet, many on contract in customers’ liveries. Harold Wood had built up his business from one vehicle in 1922, always specialising in bulk liquids. In spite of setbacks, the fleet was built up to 12 tankers by World War II, AEC being the preferred make from the mid-1930s. First based in Cleckheaton, the company’s headquarters were in Heckmondwike from the early 1950s for the rest of its independent existence. The company specialised in carrying chemicals, including many considered too dangerous for road transport these days, as well as petroleum products. Loads such as molten sulphur, sodium, potassium, acids, bitumen –…

COUNTY DONEGAL RAILWAY Heritage Centre manager, Niall McCaughlin, turned sleuth to find out the story behind the stamp that never was. In the process, he’s unearthed the artist behind Irish narrow gauge train stamps issued by An Post, the Irish post office, in 1995. “When I started at the centre in 2018, I noticed a faded image of a CDR train on a stamp on the office wall and wondered if we could trace the image to use as the basis of a jigsaw souvenir gift. I tried to contact the artist, but An Post wasn’t able to help. An email to Stampa, the Irish National Stamp Exhibition, did the trick however, and Charles Rycraft, the artist commissioned to produce the artwork for the stamp, emailed me back.” Charles revealed…

FOWLER DNA road roller No 19053 of 1931 Patricia-B, owned by father and son Ian and Lewis Mason, was the first choice when the problem of how best to lay 300-ton of stone at Andy Bowen’s yard, where the roller is kept, was considered. Lewis suggested that Patricia-B would love the challenge. Andy needed to be reassured that a steam roller would be up to the job, as he didn’t realise the weight of her. After a late start on the first day and an early finish only a small area was completed due to a lack of stone. Come the next day Andy spent a good few hours in the cab of a tele handler shifing and levelling the majority of the stone, ready for Lewis to have an…

Heap of junk or a canny purchase? Like many of you, I found myself with some extra thumb-twiddling time due to the Covid-19 pandemic and when my son Ed points out that as I love a project there could be no better use of this extra time than to find myfirst tractor I agree. With a budget of less than £1000 we were never going to join the ranks of owners with rarities or veterans. But, provided we weren’t too choosy, a starter classic tractor was eminently achievable. the criteria was simple, it had to be small (ish), as early as possible and on decent rubbers. the make or model didn’t really matter, it was all down to what cropped up at the right price. Sitting at the kitchen table…

During the 1970s Roy paid a number of visits to Yorkshire, often accompanied by Sandy Ross to photograph some interesting surviving operations Roy had a particular interest in paddle steamers and made two visits to Hull in 1973 and 1976 to photograph the steamers which at that time still plied the Humber Estuary as the last coal-burning paddle steamers operating a regular service in the UK. The vehicle and passenger ferry service operated between New Holland Pier and Hull and only ceased to operate after the opening of the Humber Bridge in 1981. The paddle steamers had been commissioned by the London & North Eastern Railway and at nationalisation in 1948 had passed into the ownership of British Railways. The corporate blue and red colour scheme of BR’s modernisation programme…

William John Stephenson-Peach (1852-1919), a mechanical engineer, opened his workshops in Askew Hill, Repton, in 1887 as the ‘Stephenson School of Engineering’ and the boys of the public school at Repton where he taught engineering were allowed to attend on half-holidays for the sum of five shillings a time. Photo 1 shows a general view of the machine shop. Stephenson-Peach has been reported as the grandson of either George or Robert Stephenson but this is not the case. His maternal grandfather was John Stephenson (1794-1848), a notable railway contractor who, in the 1840s, built a considerable track-mileage of railway between Lancaster, Carlisle, Glasgow and Edinburgh; some on his own account, some in partnership with Thomas Brassey and William Mackenzie. The young W.J Peach was clearly proud of his engineering heritage…

Using information sourced from OG 315, whilst on his way to see the Henschel locomotive F6 of 1924 (OG 364), Phil Barnes passed Grafton of Bedford crane No 2261 of 1920 by the roadside just outside the Escuela Tecnica Superior De Nautica, Marquinas Y Radioelectonica Naval. As explained in Phil’s update on the loco, he was on holiday in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and took a walk along the promenade and headed north from the city. Like a lot of the items displayed around the port area, this crane had a useful information plate on it to help with its interpretation. It was used in the port area of Valleseco (about 500 metres from where it’s presently located) and was used to unload ‘barges’ full of coal for Cory Brothers…

LOCATED in an old sugar warehouse on the Gent to Terneuzen ship canal at Sas van Gent, about a mile over the border from Belgium, is the ‘Industrieel Museum Zeeland’ which first opened its doors in 2015, writes Kevin Hoggett. The museum tells the story of industry in Zeeland, that small part of the Netherlands separated from the rest by the River Scheldt to the north and Belgium to the south. It has a number of interesting exhibits, all immaculately restored. The centrepiece is a large horizontal compound Corliss-valve steam engine and generator by the wellknown Gent firm of Van den Kerchove. This has been relocated from the coke works at Sluiskil. Originally, there were three such engines there, but two of them were removed by German occupiers during WW2.…

DURING A VISIT to the Ocean Beach Railway at Dunedin on New Zealand’s South Island, a rare ‘Trails’ shunting tractor in the station yard at St Kilda was found and photographed. The machine turned out to be the last of two shunting tractors which didn’t go into the timber industry (the other was No 113). Tractors to this design were all built by the Dunedin firm of A&T Burt at their North East Valley plant which closed in 1981. The loco is a 4-wheel petrol powered machine which is based on the bush tramway tractors developed by Frank Trail as a cheap means of moving logs to the saw mills involved in the New Zealand logging industry. The loco’s chronology is such that it was built in 1926 as Build…

DESPITE the recent disruption that Covid-19 has caused to businesses throughout the world, and of course is having a major impact on the steam rally world, business is strong at the Northamptonshire premises of Steam Traction World. The company, which is famous for creating affordable miniature steam engines kits that are seen on rally fields up and down the country and further afield, has found its order book bulging as people look for ‘lockdown ’ projects. It was only just over a year ago that cofounder of the company, Steve Baldock, sadly died of prostate cancer, leaving his business partner and best friend Dean Rogers with the difficult decision of what to do with the business. Whilst everything was in good order prior to Steve’s early demise, they had been…