Great Central Railway, Easter Vintage Festival (7th - 10th April, 2023)
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 overall index for 2023.
I had had this event down as a 'possible' in 2022. I try to avoid these 'preserved railway' events which usually suffer from a lack of space which severely limits movement and tends to cram the engines up together. In the event, Paul Gilbey attended on the Friday and tipped me off about the attendees and there would have been just two 'new engines' which, with the current financial squeeze most pensioners face, saw me stay home and work on our garden instead.
So we attended on the Saturday with a good idea what to expect 'on site' but also knowing that there would be a 'road run' in the afternoon - variously described as being at 15.00 (on the website) and 15.30 (programme). In the event, the miniatures left at 15.00 and the 'full size' engines at 15.15. Yuehong described Quorn as a 'posh village' and the 'turkey shoot' in the afternoon was undoubtedly the highlight of the day. Two thirds of the engines had been present in 2022, one of those and two of the others were new to me, which is quite satisfactory these days. While the Marshall tractor (68823/1915) was delightful, 'The Muddler' (Ruston Proctor 35501/1908) had to be the star of the show for me.
As a prosperous village, Quorn merited a station but passenger traffic was not expected to be heavy and a single island platform was a sensible economy. The goods yard might be described as 'generous' these days which allows for events such as the Easter Festival. Today it was busy but not uncomfortably so.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Steam Rollers
General Engines
Steam Wagon
Showman's Engines
Fairground Centre Engine
|
Maker |
Number |
Notes |
||
|
|
Savage | 664/1896 |
"Lady Go Lightly", Savage 664/1896 Seen previously on several occasions including Fawley Hill in 2014, Llandudno in 2015 and Elvaston in 2018.. |
