Kelsall Steam Rally (21st - 22nd June, 2014)
This is one of a series of pages I have uploaded to illustrate facets of the steam rallies we have attended in the UK. Click here for the 2014 introduction and overall index.
Kelsall is a medium sized event and I have to confess it was very much a last minute addition to our summer programme. The weather forecasters were predicting a glorious weekend, a hire car was as they say 'a snip' and Yuehong had yet to see Chester. That was the theory and while we did see some sunshine at the rally, I spent a lot of time outside the beer tent waiting for it to show. There was a good and varied turn out of engines, as it was out of our regular area, a fair number were new to me and I confess that increasingly relying on the rapidly dating 'Traction Engine Register', I failed to note the plates of two 'newbies', most embarrassing.
The show was efficiently marshalled and generally very well run, but there were growing pains as it is upsizing. I never saw anything resembling a programme and the arena events were given on a hand written piece of paper posted next to the pay gate. There were insufficient toilets for the numbers attending and they were not easy to find. Finally, there was a distinct lack of 'working steam', even the Burrell hooked up to the thresher was just ticking over as there was no sign of anything to process or a crew to do the work.
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On the way home we got 'lucky', bumping into two engines on the road - see the Green and Red Road Run