Wiltshire Steam and Vintage Rally 2016
Working Steam

This is one of a series of pages which I have uploaded to illustrate facets of steam rallies we have attended in the UK. Such events occur all over the country in the summer months, they are easily found by using your favourite search engine and may have anything between a handful of steam engines and hundreds (as at the Great Dorset Steam Fair which could probably be fairly described as having an excess of riches). Click here for the Wiltshire Steam and Vintage Rally 2016 index and click here for the overall index for 2016.

The setting for this rally is extremely attractive and it was a shame that the weather conditions were so unfavourable. The working area was well set out with generous space so as to make it east to view each operation as a whole.

Saw Bench

Wallis and Steevens 7498 was on the saw bench, it seemed to be working harder than most I have seen on this duty, maybe the wood was quite 'green',

Steam Threshing

This was a Marshall engine (65908) and thresher with reed comber attached, run by a local thatcher. This a rare beast, only the third one I have seen, one was at South Molton in 2014 and another (not illustrated) at the FFB show in 2015.

Steam Ploughing

Despite the extremely attractive setting, the two Fowler ploughing engines (diesel 14379 and steam 15183) were struggling with an unsuitable field. The upper part was heavy clay interlaced with flints with a thin layer of recent rain on it and the lower part was 'like concrete'. Moving the active area along the field didn't seem to help much either so, as the pictures show, only one half was being turned over....