What Did You Do Today 2025

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Spent the afternoon at Chickerell Steam & Vintage Show 2025 ( near Weymouth).

Quite a cramped site in a valley and the stewards made an excellent task of marshalling the single entrance / exit on the fairly busy B3157, and crucially of course, the movement of some two dozen traction engines & steam wagons plus a plethora of other vehicles, among very many visitors.

The Show is very miniatures-friendly with about 40 miniature steam road vehicles, and a sprinkling of  radio-controlled military models. The miniatures can and do amble freely around the grounds while the full-sizes have to slumber on the sidelines apart from arena parades and a saw-bench demonstration (fenced of course).

On the Saturday evening as I was driving home from elsewhere, on passing the show ground I saw ahead a thin smoke plume at the crest of a sizeable hill, and was surprised to discover this was not from a full-size engine just over the skyline but two miniatures of around 4-inch scale, a general-purpose traction-engine and a roller, pulled into a small layby at the summit.

I learnt the TE owner is very intrepid with it, having ventured into Weymouth on Friday and Saturday evenings to find chips and ice-creams: a round-trip of eight miles on busy roads with many twelve-inch-to-the-foot hills.

 

My home club (Weymouth) was well represented with several steaming their miniature TEs, and others operating their 16mm-scale locomotives and trains on the club’s portable display (but not scenic) table-height track in the Model Tent.

This marquee was a delight to explore with not a huge number but a very rich range, with a sprinkling of model-engineering exhibits, a collection of Meccano models, a display of models of unusual work-boats (these had come all the way from Hayle), some superb miniature houses …. and what may be described as pure fun! This last being conveyor-type machines, not strictly models, moving marbles or ball-bearings in very ingenious ways around endless circuits. The rubric above a display of beautiful wood-engineering revealed amusingly that the maker had the company of a nest of swifts above the lathe, and had to be careful to avoid trampling robin chicks on the workshop floor. Intriguing that the birds seemed to have no qualms about this human sharing their chosen nest-site.

 

The programme cover photograph is of the late Len Watts’ ex-Eldridge – Pope Brewery, Austin K4 lorry he had driven professionally, and bought for preservation. On it at the Show was Len’s freelance Showman’s Road Locomotive, to perhaps 2-3 inch scale, with its distinctive cast-steel rear wheels Len always said were from Bren-gun carrier’s tracks.

This same lorry bore his coffin on Len’s final journey a few months ago, with the showman’s engine, eaves lamps on, in leading position on the platform.

Within the programme, we read this year’s show was in memoriam of both Len, and of Mr. Stephen Vine, whose family own the host farm.

 

Sorry about the quality of the snaps, taken with a small camera in my shaky hands and with the screen very difficult to see. These full-parade images give more a flavour of the rally than an engine-spotter’s exercise. The miniatures and their owners, incidentally, were all encamped in a sizeable “model avenue” area but this saw unfortunately few public visitors because it was not clearly signed, and to most visitors probably seemed just the exhibitors’ camp-site.

The Burrell roller in the second photo was one of the two engines I passed on the road yesterday (Saturday) evening. Beyond it, in the full-sizers’ line-up, are a Mann steam-cart and a Stanley Steam-car.

 

 

[Author]

Posts