Mechanical Orgy: The Great Dorset Steam Fair
The English revere their industrial heritage and glory in their eccentricity, two traits that indulged to the nth degree at what is reputedly the largest event of its kind, The Great Dorset Steam Fair. I’ve been to steam fairs before, but nothing on this grand scale. where else can you go to see a couple dozen steam rollers, all merrily driving around a couple miles of pasture land? A veritable orgy of steam and rivets, the air thick with the acrid coal smoke of hundreds of fireboxes, the air rent with the shrill sound of steam whistles, the rattling of chains and gears, and the cloying sound of colliopes, the overall effect of the thing is beyond words. 200,000 people were expected to visit this year’s 40th anniversary event. [see my full photo gallery]
Central stage at GDSF is the Heavy Haulage Area. All day long, steam engines of various sorts, along with the occaisional Diesel interloper, circle around about a 2 mile loop, the far end of which is relatively steep. Although there are some steam rollers (see the two at the far left), the real stars are the transport engines, the road locomotives that hauled heavy wagons, or short trains of lighter wagons, on public roads. Loads being pulled in the Heavy Haulage Area included a large generator, a huge tree, and big bulldozer on a trailer. Shown coming up the steepest part of the hill in the picture at the top, a train of 3 traction engines, 2 in the front and 1 in the back, chuffed out huge clouds of dense black smoke hauling this load.
Other traction engines, although they could haul themselves and their attachments to the job site, were used primarily as stationary power, running threshers, balers, and saw mills. Steam rollers were demonstrated not only smoothing down a road being constructed at the site, but were also used to pull grader blades and tar wagons, and were demonstrated powering a rock crusher. The most powerful steam engines working at the fair were the plough engines. Even as late as the 1950s, traction machines were used to plow large fields in the UK. A matched set of engines, right handed and left handed, with huge winches located under the boiler, alternated pulling a multi-gang plow.
Most of the engines, and their owners, were eager to get their hands dirty, but one class of engines are in a class apart. A showman’s tractor has an electrical generator and is traditionally used to power the rides and calliopes at fairs, carnivals and other events. Decked out in gleaming paint, with ornate twisted brass brackets, they were also used as tractors to haul fairground equipment between events. Many of these were in evidence at Dorset, powering calliopes big and small, and fair ground rides.
Although steam is the main attraction, many other forms of motive power were on display at the fair. Over 400 commercial vehicles–mostly trucks and busses–were neatly lined up in the display area. Presumably, someone whose wife won’t let them have a steam roller is somewhat mollified by possession of a classic bus. Actually, whole families were in evidence in the steam, commercial, and even military vehicles, including a teenager gleefully manning the machine gun in a half track.
Throughout the day, there were parades of farm tractors, military vehicles, commercial vehicles and miniature steam engines. The commercial parade, which only included about 265 of the 400 vehicles at the show, still lasted over 4 hours. The announcer found something unique to say about each entry, commenting either on something unique about the model, its history, of the fact that owner’s dog was riding shotgun. My favorite rig was a huge offroad dump truck being pulled on a trailer by another truck. What would people do with toys like that without an event like this?
Not everything was that extravagent. A bewildering variety of mostly pre-war 2-wheelers (and one very odd looking trike) had their moment. After each entry was announced and given a turn around the ring, the entire lot of them were set loose to provide an especially noisy and smokey finish.
There were many non-vehicular exhibitors, too. A huge jumble sale included the normal sort of surplus and used goods you’d see at any English car boot sale. Unique to an event like this were sellers of used tractor parts, classic micrometers and gauges, and wrenches the size of cricket bats.
A couple hundred small caravans constitued ‘collections,’ each one with an awning covering sets of somethings that someone’s role in life is to find and attractively displayed. I didn’t have time to get to even a fraction of them, but what I saw included cobbler’s tools, cameras, fire monitors, lanterns, pre-war vacuum cleaners, and well-known buildings created out of Lego blocks.
I only spent 8 hours at the event, but there was a lot more that I saw but haven’t written about, and I didn’t see everything.
A more complete set of photos can be found in my full photo gallery.