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Good mix of weather andexhibits at Great North Fair

Alex Hayward's 1893 Marshall (and Marshall liuing van) prepare for duiy outside theRegional Museums Store, ANTH0NY C0ULLS

BEAMISH'S annual Great North : the north, held from April 12-15,Steam Fair is now established in this i writes Anthony CouIIs.;pring slot of mid-April and is a : Growing bigger and better eachworthy season-opener for many in : year, the olganising team always

foden N0 13218 of 1929 Cestria andnewly recommisioned open lop ex-Blackpool tramlo 233, the latter enjoying good loadings lrom visitors. DAVID WARREN

l0 | JUNE 20 r2 OLD GLORY

Henry Netherway's Foden basks in spring sunshine in the colliery yard as a narrowgauge loco passes in the background. ANTH0NY CoULLS

manages to pull some new rabbitsout of the hat, led by dy'namictransport curator, Paul farman. Thisyear was no exception, and alongwith the usual complement of roadsteam, site traffic on the roads wasaugmented by more vintage cars,commercials and a superb array ofvintage belt-driven motorcycles -lhe action never ceased from doorsopening to public closing.

While under a mixture ofsunshine, rain and hail, the crowdscame out and enjoyed the spectacleofworking steam in the landscape.

Down in the colJiery area, acomplete 2ft gauge railway systemwas laid out, and two steam locosand a Baguley petrol engine weretaking their turn on demonstrationtrains.

Many of the road engines wereeither locals or regulars, but severalnoteworthy machines caught my eye-Trevor Wrench's Clayton &Shuttleworth traction engine, newto Lanchester and making a return

in preservation; Fowler crane engineDuke of York making its impressivepresence felt; Alex Ha1'lvard'svenerable Marshall tracLion enginewith its set back perch bracket camedown fiom the Borders and HenryNetherwayt beautiful five tonFoden steam wagon. I wasparticularly pleased to see the latteras some 15 years ago I first saw it asa boiler unit with smashed cylindersstored in the Beamish colliery areawhen Jim Rees owned it. Nowrebuilt, it is a joy to behold andfitted in with its surroundingsperfectly.

Another newcomer came in theform ofAveling & Porter eight tonroller No 10921 of 1924 Julia, whichrecently returned f?om a majoroverhaul and ex-Bishop AucklandRDC.

I understand that visitor numberswere high - certainly all buses andtrams looked full each time I sawone; how will the team top this year?Wdll have to wait and see!

Visiting tram Birkenhead No 20 ol 190{l rounds the corner of the townscape atBeamish. lt is owned by Merseyside Tramway Preservation Society and housed atWirral Transport Museum, STUART CHAPMAN

I recent rcstoration in the lorm ot Aveling & Porter No 1 0921 ol 1924 Julia. DAVID WARREN

STEAMTRACTION

The Beamish'home fleet'With Beamish Museum now pledging that the first weekend of each month will have'extra road steam guaranteed' in addition to published events, transpotl curator Paul

Jarman talks Alan Barnes through the 'home fleet'.

f you had to choose a location wheretraction engines could be steamed andhave the freedom to roam in a PeriodIocation then Beamish Museum would

be somewhere near the top of the list. As wellas owning engines itself, the museum alsoprovides a regular home for several othertraction engines. With Beamish as their basethe owners of these engines know that theirmachines will not onlybe kept in secure andcovered accommodation but that theywillalso have access to the maintenance andworkshop facilities if the need arises.

Paul Jarman, transport curator at Beamish,is enthusiastic about the increasing numberof steam powered exhibits which can beseen during the events and rallies held duringthe year. This is in marked contrast to onlya few years ago when this museum sometimescame in for some criticism due to the lackof regular road steam. With a new steamingseason now upon us it is perhaPs anoppoftune moment to highlight some of theexhibits which are now considered to bethe steam'Home Fleet' at Beamish.

As Paul explained: "The'Home Fleet'is theterm we have come to use when referring tothose engines which are often, although not

exclusively, based at Beamish for most ofthe year. In addition there are several otherswhich come and go throughout the rallyseason - often laying over here for eventsand putting in additional appearancesaround the town as the opportunity arises."

The whole thing really came about in 2O09

when I arranged an ad-hoc steam weekendover September 25-28 and which starred thevisiting railway locomotives Furness RailwayNo 20 and Belleropbon - along with one ofMike Sutcliffe's restored Ley'and buses andMichael Davison's newly restored 1889Marshall traction engine No 17734 MarytMarga.ret.

The single cylinder traction engine hadmade its first public appearance theweekend before at Locomotion - the

: The owners of theengines have somewheresafe to keep them a;rlid a'playground' in which to

enioy them

National Railsvav Jluseum at Shildon,following a total reconstruction carried outby George Hudson. Vhen newly built thisMarshall had been exhibited at the RoyalAgricultural Shos' at s'indsor before beingdelivered to JR Barler'. a firm of threshingcontractors in Thirsk.

After life in North \-orkshire as acontractor's engine it eventually found itsway into preservation although by that timeit was in a very derelict state. I had metMichael at the Shildon event and I hopedthat he would be able to bring hismagnificently restored engine to ourweekend. At that time Beamish was comingout of a period of change and with thesuppofi of a new director the transportaspects were beginning to receive a greatdeal of attention. I svas able to developvarious ideas for events as n.ell as forbringing to life the rails'avs and road steamperformance at the museum.

Through Michael, I came to know the restof the group which has informally becomeknown as'SODEM 2' (South DurhamEnginemen) and very soon we saw a smallnucleus of engines coming to be based atBeamish. The opportunity to keep engines

34 | JUNE 2012 OLD GLoRY

under cover in secure buildings and usethem on our two-mile roa<i syitem withoutharassment from modern traffic wasobviously a big attraction.

The general 'swing, of the site on a busvday is quite intoxicating and the recentopening of the chip shop seems to havereinforced the popularity of days out whensteJm i\ on the menu.

It was thanks to Vincent Allen, who wasassembling our 1871 steam locomotiveColfee Pot No 1 at the time, that NeilCorner's Burrell showman,s road locomotiveNo 3909 ol 1.922 Winston Cburcbilt ]nascome to spend a lot of time here. Thisengine was supplied new to A Holland ofSwadlincote, Derbyshire and originallycarried the narne pride of the Roael and" wasrenarned when it entered preservation. )

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w@Mwffi8The wallis 'Advance' outside Barclays Bank' Marshall traction engine Mary Margaret (behind) looks like she took ashort cut to get to town. BEAMISH

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i;i;i';;i';'i[iru,' ierizi'ii1931 Bambletwas purchased

two years ago by Beamish fromGlI R:tt9l. T|RRY PTNNEGAR

oLD GLORY IUNF 20 l2 | 35

Mary Maryaretatthe locomotive wolks. BEAMISH

Mark Sutherland has, at times, kept his Wallis & Steevens traction engine No 7769 of

1923 Grcenwell at the museum. TERRY PINNEGAR

Another engine named namblet at Beamish comes in the form of Clayton &

Shuttleworth No 48215 of 1919, owned by Trevor Wrench. BEA|ISH

Mark Sutherland has, at times, kept hisSfallis & Steevens traction engine No 7769of 1923 Greenuell at the museum and wealso currently have C1a1'ton & Shuttleworthtraction engine No 182t5 of l9I9 Rambler,owned by Trevor V?ench. He is busy at themoment with the rebuilding of the boilerfor the museum's 1913 Ruston Proctorcolonial style portable engine. His Clayton

was originally used quite locally toBearnish, at nearby Lanchester althoughnow it is normally based in Suffolk.

Guy Rutter came to Beamish with hisFowler DNA road roller No 18877 of 793IRambler a couple of years ago and we wereso taken with the engine that we eventuallyarranged to buy it from him. This 10-tonroller spent its working days in West

Yorkshire and was bought for preservationby the late Eric Holland and spent manyyears based at Haverthwaite station inCumbria. Guy also keeps his sir ton'WallisAdvance'road roller No 7861 here andvisitors will often see his Lighrweight SuperSentinel steam waggon No 1465 steamingaround our road system.

He said arrangements u.ith engine owners

Neil Corner's Burrell showman's road locomotive No 3909 ol 1922 Winston Churchill

spends much ol its time at Beamish. TERRY PINNEGAR

36 | JUNE 20 r2 oLD GLoRY

Supplied new to A Holland of Swadlincote, Derbyshire, No 3909 originally carried the

name Pride of the Road and was renamed Winston Chutchill when it enteredpreservation. BEAMISH

Regularly seen in steam at Beamish are the three-abreast Savage Gallopers of 1893, purchased from the Ayers lamilyin 2009. The family had owned them for 116 years. TERRY PINNEGAR

were kept as informal as possible, with the'regulars'being signed up as museumvolunteers and allowed the freedom toroam.

They are fully conversant with theoperation of the site, the behaviour of thetrams, the horses and many other siteactivities. This works very well from bothsides and is a direct result of keeping itsimple and restricting the number of sucharrangements that we have. The result isregular road steam, threshing, sawing orstone crushing performances alongsideBeamish's own exhibits and staff. Theowners of the engines have somewhere safeto keep them and a'playground'in which toenjoy them. Guy's Sentinel has certainlyexpanded the size ofthis playground andwhen here is often seen thundering around.

The museurn is extremely grateful that therespective owners and volunteers feel soable to support Beamish and give up somuch of their time and it is thanks to theirsterling efforts over the past three years thatsteam has become such an established partof the museum operation. Current plans todevelop engineering and timber workshopswill hopefully repay this commitment bymaking the facilities available to them aodanother short term project under discussionis to create a'steam contractors'yard'.

This will provide a typical setting for the'Home Fleet'as well as for visiting enginesand associated equipment and will provideimproved access for alarger number ofvisitors to enjoy the engines here.

More often than not there will beadditional steam performances on mostweekends in the high season but we haverecently decided to make the first weekendof the month a feature of the calendar interms of additional steam and transportattractions which will be in action.

While road steam in action will alwaysimpress visitors, Beamish also has somenotable static steam exhibits. Work torestore a Ruston Proctor portable is underway although it will be a while before thiswill be seen in steam. No 473L9 wassupplied to Ruston's South American agentSaavedra, Bernard & Co in l9L3 andwasone of a number of engines brought back tothe UK by Ttrxfords. It was bought by themuseum in 2OO9 and while it does need

The engine most frequently to be found in steam is this1855 Crowther ot Newcastle vertical winding engine,originally sited at Beamish No 2 pit, which closed in

1S62. BEAMISH

extensive festoration it has the advantage ofbeing a wood burner which fits with themuseum's plan to better utilise its 120 acresof woodland resources. V/hile it may besome time before this engine burnsanything at all there are two notable andhistorically important engines which visitorscan see in steam.

The engine which is, undoubtedly, mostfrequently in steam is the winding enginewhich can be found in the colliery. TheCrowther vertical steam winding enginedates from 1855 arld was originally sited atthe Beamish No 2 pit which was closed in1962. The engine was relocated and rebuiltat the museum where it is well maintainedand can be seen in steam on most days.This engine was the last of the big Crowtherwinding engines to work in County Durhamand was developed from the design for animproved vertical engine which had nobeam and which was patented by PhineasCrowther of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1800.This type of engine was widely used incollieries throughout England.

Also regulady in steam is another static

Powering the Gallopers is Savage centre engine No 622of 1895 May 0ueen, restored aftet arriving at Beamishand steamed for the first time since the 194{ls. Theorgan was also completely restored, TERRY PINNEGAR

Guy Rutter's Lightweight Super Sentinel ilo 1465(featured lasl issue) arrives at Beamish and enjoyssteaming around the road system. TERRY PINNEGAR

Currently in works at Beamish is Ruston Proctor portable

No 47319, supplied to South Ameilca in 1913 and

retulned to lhe UK by Tuxfords. BEAMISH

engine which powers the set of fairgroundgallopers which the museum bought fromthe Ayers family in 2009. The three abreastSteam Gallopers built by Savage of King'sLynn in 1893 is powered by Savage engineNo 627 of 1895 May gueen. The ride is ofthe highest standard with each of thehorses individually painted and named andwhen operating the musicalaccompaniment comes from an 87-keyGavioli organ.

The carousel is known as the Sally Beachset and was owned by the Ayers family for116 years. It is one of the most original setsto survive. The organ has also beencompletely restored since its arival atBeamish, as has the engine, which has beenreturned to working condition.

It is good to see that the profile of steampower at Beamish is being raised. Achievinga balance with the vaiety of transportexhibits will be the key to success and weare sure that the efforts made by the teamat Beamish Museum will soon be rewardedwith increasing numbers of visitors throughthe gates. i

oLD GLORY JUNE 20 t2 | 37