South Cerney Steam Rally (4th - 6th August, 2023)
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 2023 introduction and overall index.
Last weekend, not so far away at Welland, over 100 road steam engines attended what is likely to prove to have been the 'steam event' of the year, not surprisingly the chairman of the organising society is a steam man.
Back in 2015 I wrote "What was previously the Gloucestershire Steam and Vintage Extravaganza is now the Gloucestershire Vintage and Country Extravaganza" which says it all, it reflects more accurately the show's current offering. If you visit the website or the rally itself, you will see where the organisers' priorities lie. So it's no wonder that South Cerney is very much in Welland's shadow and the steam section organisers do a very good job in the circumstances.
I was celebrating a big birthday and the plan was to go myself on Friday and meet up with 'family' on Saturday but the weather had other ideas. Yuehong and I stayed at home and my guests went straight here. I doubt if much money was taken at the gate. Sunday was much better and the crowds returned. We were up the Skirrid, a mini mountain near Abergavenny.
There were 60 road steam engines present on Friday, it was grey and overcast until very late, I had left at 17.00. Normally I would have expected several more engines to have arrived on Saturday, but whatever owners' intentions, I doubt any turned up, let alone were admitted.
As such the record in this report is not up to my usual standard! If you want to see pictures of these engines in the sun, you'll have to click the 'old links'. The number of engines present was ahead of 2022 (53) but still rather less than 2019.when there were 78 attending. The numbers are unlikely to increase again but for the steam section organisers, as a 'show within a show' they have a lot of the basics from toilets to ticketing done for them.
It could have been worse, further north, Whitby was apparently a mud bath on Friday and the following two days were a complete rain soaked write off. The organisers there will have 'caught a cold'.
Choose the page you are interested in and within that, click on a thumbnail for a larger image. Then click again to return to the page.
