The International Steam Pages


UK Steam Rallies 2017

Click here for the Surviving Steam Road Engine Index.

Click here for the "UK Steam Rallies" index page.


If you want to see Britain at its best visit one of the many Steam Rallies held each year. That's not my opinion, it's Yuehong's, even after 4 years she still enjoys them. Although the novelty has worn off somewhat she loves to sit down and soak up the atmosphere. Of course, these days most tag on "country fair" and / or "vintage transport" to broaden the attraction and its appeal. However, given the nature of this site you will find only steam power in these pages. I had planned to introduce Yuehong to this phenomenon in 2012 but the generally wet weather and other business meant it was put off until 2013, since when we have made up for lost time. Initially not having a car of our own, we employed a little bit of cunning to get to these public transport free zones cheaply. Later we took advantage of competitive weekend hire car rates to travel further from our base in West Gloucestershire. Choose the rally you are interested in which will generally take you to a further index page. Within each linked page click on a thumbnail for a larger image. Then click again to return to the previous page. We did fewer visits in 2015 compared to 2014, we have plucked most of the low hanging fruit and apart from our local events, we journeyed out fewer times but a little further than before. We expected 2016 to show a similar pattern to 2015, but the weather was good, car hire prices very reasonable, (especially as frequent customers we have had two free weekends) and the final tally was slightly more. As for 2017, It turned out to be similar to 2016 with some visits to smaller rallies and museums.

We started visiting steam rallies in 2013.
Click here for the 2013 reports.
Click here for the 2014 reports.
Click here for the 2015 reports.
Click here for the 2016 reports.
Click here for the 2018 reports.
Click here for the 2019 reports.
Click here for the 2021 reports.
Click here for the 2022 reports.
Click here for the 2023 reports.

If your first love is 'steel on steel' or even has no wheels, then 'Working Engines' will normally be of more interest, these are the subject of our YouTube video clips. I have not attempted to distinguish between the various kinds of that group I would call 'traction engines' so 'general engines' includes 'road locomotives' and 'tractors', indeed many owners have engines have been rebuilt over the years so they have swapped categories.

I owe a vote of thanks to David Collidge whose Steam Scenes website (http://www.steamscenes.org.uk/) is a fount of information and was invaluable in identifying engines when they were late entries or the rally programmes got it wrong... David is still out there attending rallies etc, but unfortunately the site has not been fully updated for several years; however www.tractiontalkforum.com includes discussion of recent (and future) events. I make no claim to artistic beauty in what is essentially a set of record shots. Two dedicated enthusiasts have done that in classic books, both of which are readily available at a modest price through AbeBooks or Amazon. Yuehong has sat drooling over my copies. I have added a third book which is very approachable study which covers mainly threshing and ploughing.

  • Traction Engine Album by Malcolm Ranieri (2005) - ISBN 9781861267948

  • Classic Traction Engines by Paul Stratford (2010) - ISBN 9780857040541

  • Steam on the Farm by Jonathan Brown (2008) - ISBN 9781847970527

Great North Steam Fair
(6th - 9th April, 2017)

Trevithick Day
(29th April 2017) 

Chipping
(27th - 29th May, 2017) 

Wiltshire
(10th - 11th June, 2017) 

Belper
(10th - 11th June, 2017) 

Banbury
(24th - 25th June, 2017)

Leicester
(24th - 25th June, 2017)

Heddington
(1st - 2nd July, 2017)

Hollowell
(1st - 2nd July, 2017)

Birdingbury
(8th - 9th July, 2017) 

Rempstone
(8th - 9th July, 2017)

Weeting
(14th - 16th July, 2017)

Marcle
(22nd - 23rd July, 2017)

Somerset
(21st - 23rd July, 2017)

Welland
(28th - 30th July, 2017)

Whitby
(4th - 6th August, 2017)

Cromford
(5th - 6th August, 2017) 

Astle Park
(12th - 13th August, 2017)

Cornish Fair
(18th - 20th August, 2017)

Shrewsbury
(27th - 28th August, 2017)

Harewood
(2nd - 3rd September, 2017)

Speech House
(10th September, 2017)

Grand Henham
(16th - 17th September, 2017)

Old Warden
(15th - 17th September, 2017)

MEAL

Bressingham

Long Shop Museum


Rob and Yuehong  Dickinson

Email: webmaster@internationalsteam.co.uk