UK Steam Rallies 2015

Click here for the Surviving Steam Road Engine Index.

Click here for the "UK Steam Rallies" index page.

If you want to see Britain at its best visit one of the many Steam Rallies held each year. That's not my opinion, it's Yuehong's, she can't get enough of them at the moment although I am sure the novelty will wear off. Of course, these days they all tag on "country fair" and / or "vintage transport" to broaden the attraction and its appeal. However, given the nature of this site you will find only steam power in these pages. I had planned to introduce Yuehong to this phenomenon in 2012 but the generally wet weather and other business meant it was put off until 2013, since when we have made up for lost time. Initially not having a car of our own, we employed a little bit of cunning to get to these public transport free zones cheaply. Later we took advantage of competitive weekend hire car rates to travel further from our base in West Gloucestershire. Choose the rally you are interested in which will generally take you to a further index page. Within each linked page click on a thumbnail for a larger image. Then click again to return to the previous page. We did fewer visits in 2015 compared to 2014, we have plucked most of the low hanging fruit and apart from our local events, we journeyed out fewer times but a little further than before. We expect 2016 to show a similar pattern to 2015, subject as always to the weather playing fair.

If your first love is 'steel on steel' or even has no wheels, then 'Working Engines' will normally be of more interest, these are the subject of our YouTube video clips. I have not attempted to distinguish between the various kinds of that group I would call 'traction engines' so 'general engines' includes 'road locomotives' and 'tractors', indeed many owners have engines have been rebuilt over the years so they have swapped categories.

I owe a vote of thanks to David Collidge whose Steam Scenes website (http://www.steamscenes.org.uk/) is a fount of information and was invaluable in identifying engines when they were late entries or the rally programmes got it wrong... David is still out there attending rallies etc, but unfortunately the site has not been fully updated for a couple of years although recent pictures are there if you look hard; however www.tractiontalkforum.com includes discussion of recent (and future) events. I make no claim to artistic beauty in what is essentially a set of record shots. Two dedicated enthusiasts have done that in classic books, both of which are readily available at a modest price through AbeBooks or Amazon. Yuehong has sat drooling over my copies. I have added a third book which is very approachable study which covers mainly threshing and ploughing.

• Traction Engine Album by Malcolm Ranieri (2005) - ISBN 9781861267948

• Classic Traction Engines by Paul Stratford (2010) - ISBN 9780857040541

• Steam on the Farm by Jonathan Brown (2008) - ISBN 9781847970527

Great North Steam Fair (9th - 12th April, 2015)	Llandudno Victorian Extravaganza (2nd - 4th May, 2015)	Ashley Hall (23rd - 25th May, 2015)
Abergavenny (23rd - 25th May, 2015)	Tinkers Park (30th - 31st May, 2015)	Hollowell (4th - 5th July, 2015)
Wiston (11th - 12th July, 2015)	Somerset (17th - 19th July, 2015)	Marcle (18th - 19th July, 2015)
Welland (24th - 26th July, 2015)	South Cerney (31st July - 2nd August, 2015)	Torbay (31st July - 2nd August, 2015)
Astle Park (8th - 9th August, 2015)	Cornish Fair (14th - 16th August, 2015)	Fairford (22nd - 23rd August, 2015)
Shrewsbury (30th - 31st August, 2015)	Gloucester's Trotter The Sleeping Beauty	Speech House (13th September 2015)
FFFB (26th September 2015)