Without a doubt the Great North Steam Fair last week was our best-ever transport event, receiving many favorable comments and seeing a huge variety of transport at work around the Museum.  At times there were traffic jams, certainly there were queues, but as we had over 16,000 visitors on site over the four days we certainly hope that the event was as widely enjoyed as the feedback would seem to suggest.  We have some ambitious plans for 2015’s event, as this year’s will take some beating!

There is now a gallery on this site, with photographs by a number of contributors.  As a taste of these, here are some which reflect just a small percentage of the whole event.  To view the full collections (which are still being added to), you can use the dropdown menu titled ‘gallery’ above, or use this link: http://46.32.240.35/beamishtransportonline.co.uk/imagegalleries/great-north-festival-of-transport-2014/

Below: Terry Pinnegar captured a wide selection of views, of which a small sample are seen here in the first four images…

Below: The reuniting of the Tarmac Sentinels (first time since 1944 that they had steamed in public together) was certainly a highlight and a vast number of photographs appear to have been taken of the pair!  Here they are whilst being prepared for the Saturday evening photo session.

Below: The army field kitchen, with collection of WW1 vehicles surrounding it, was a popular attraction.  We had a good turn out of First World War vehicles, including three motorcycles.  We hope to build on this, leading to our own WW1 commemorations during the 2016 Great North Festival of Transport.

Below: Realistic traffic congestion was a constant feature throughout the four days!

Below: The narrow gauge railway interacted with the Ilson stone crushing crew, as seen here.

Below: Dave Hewitt captured some evocative images around the Colliery area, and we close this post with a selection of his images, taken during the event.

The event has been an obvious distraction to other projects, but I will update the blog on these later in the week…  Meanwhile, do have a look at the gallery and enjoy the images taken by the various photographers.