Autumn Steam Gala 2021...

Autumn Steam Gala 2021…

I wasn’t able to take many photographs during the steam (and other transport) gala last weekend, but the ones that I did manage were blessed with sunshine to illuminate their subjects in most cases!  There are plenty of excellent images available on the museum’s facebook page and elsewhere online.  Terry Pinnegar’s Flickr photostream has a comprehensive selection of images that cover the event, and I’ve also included the professional images taken by David Watchman, who works for the museum’s communications team, in a gallery here too: https://www.flickr.com/photos/23689245@N08/

The event was very successful and also felt very relaxed – the smaller number of exhibits (compared to a steam fair) enabled them to spread out and for visitors to interact with them more successfully.  It also presented much less of a logistical challenge to us organisationally, and in terms of visitor numbers, these held up at a very encouraging level.  Our thoughts for the future are two, two-day events each year (spring and autumn) with a range of exhibits attending each.  We’ll keep the numbers (and therefore cost/congestion) down, but continue to seek out really appealing and interesting subjects.  We’ve enjoyed a certain profligacy with the many Great North Steam Fair events, so now is certainly time to review this and look at refreshing the transport events themes and concepts.  The military vehicles event also proved popular and development of this theme is also being discussed.

Below: John Sullivan attended the event with his superbly restored 1957 Albion CLydesdale tanker.  The lorry has many local connections and the full story was reported in Heritage Commercials No.300 (Decembre 2014) and which can be found online here: https://porschecarshistory.com/wp-content/old/lib/magazines/hc/2014/HC2014-12.pdf

Below: Two Lewins together, possibly for the last time in some time, as No.18 will be withdrawn from operation before the 2022 season whilst Samson is booked to steam again this season.

Below: The screens, as ever, make an excellent backdrop for photography, with Coffee Pot lurking in the background.

Below: Finally, a quick pairing of the museum’s Crosville Leyland Cub with John Sullivan’s Albion tanker.

David Watchman’s images

In the introduction I mentioned this gallery – there are some brilliant views of the event, and just a few of the people who helped make it happen, within this and I am sure we will be using pictures from this set for quite some time to come…