UK Steam Rallies 2025

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

The 2025 steam rally season is here and writing this on the last day of April with the sun blazing down on my beautiful West Gloucestershire garden, I have to confess that my crystal ball is somewhat cloudy, I really don't know what to expect this year. 2024 confounded my expectations and the highlight had to be the revival at Old Warden. At the same time, Welland, Weeting and Shrewsbury upped their game and eased the pain of losing the Great Dorset Steam Fair.

For 10 years Yuehong and I have visited and reported on innumerable steam rallies and last year I indicated that we would be scaling back and as expected 2025 has been similar. Additionally, Yuehong had a 'full knee replacement' operation in April, and while she was quickly home and is making an excellent recovery, early season reports were thin on the ground. As before, I would welcome photo reports from fellow enthusiasts. Our main visits began with the eagerly awaited 'Appleford 75' in June which turned out to be more of a hit with the traction engine community than the general public. Since then there have been precious few proper reports on the Traction Talk forum and elsewhere the best source of (limited) pictures has been the click bait 'Reach' network of online newspapers! I don't 'do' Facebook but Google searches suggest there's not much there either. All of which may be good news for Old Glory and mean we are returning to the days of pre-internet reporting!

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.

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 quite a few years; 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

Castle Combe Steam Rally (17th - 18th May 2025)	Abergavenny Steam Rally (25th - 26th May 2025)	Hollycombe Portable Engines (31st May - 1st June, 2025)
Appleford 75 Steam Rally (21st - 22nd June 2025)	H. J. Pugh Auction (21st June, 2025)	Bloxham (Banbury) Steam Fair (28th - 29th June 2025)
Severnside Engineerium (9th July 2025, auction results 30th July 2025)	Great Rempstone Steam Show (12th - 13th July 2025)	Weeting Steam Rally (18th - 20th July 2025)
Welland Steam Rally (25th - 27th July 2025)	South Cerney Steam Rally (1st - 3rd August 2025)	Fairford Steam Show (16th - 17th August, 2025)
Marston Steam Show (16th - 17th August, 2025)	Shrewsbury Steam Rally (24th - 25th August, 2025)	North Cotswolds Steam Show (30th - 31st August, 2025)
Malpas Yesteryear Rally (6th - 7th September, 2025)	Speech House Vintage Show (14th September, 2025)	Old Warden Rally (12th -14th September, 2025)
Statfold Barn Gala (13th - 14th September, 2025)	Claymills Pumping Station (visited 27th September, 2025)