Beamish Steam Fair

April 03, 2023

Beamish Steam Fair

This weekend saw a post-pandemic return to Beamish Museum to help out at their Steam Fair. Beamish is a fascinating place on any visit, but there is something magical about the steam fair events when the place comes alive with an almost unimaginable number of vintage vehicles. Steam driven traction engines, rollers and wagons take to the museum’s roads alongside vintage cars, vans, bicycles and motorbikes. The resident trams and buses operate an intensive service round the site and trains run on the colliery and narrow gauge lines.

Having previously visited Beamish on a non-event day, the main attractions in the colliery area were the drift mine and the excellent fish and chips. During the Steam Gala, there is steam running on the standard gauge colliery railway and also the narrow gauge. Plus numerous steam powered road vehicles drive into the colliery and then impressively climb the steep hill out of the colliery help bring this part of the museum to life.

All this additional running puts a strain on the staff and a few years back I was fortunate to be asked to help bolster the numbers to run the event and have spent some very enjoyable days on the colliery and narrow gauge railways.

Beamish has a unique ability to support exhibits that would have no use on other railways. There’s the fantastically bonkers Coffee Pot vertical boiler loco on the standard gauge, this year being supported by visiting Barclay No 1219. On the narrow gauge, the unique recreated Samson was running with Glyder, another Barclay loco that has been wonderfully conserved to look like it’s fresh from Penrhyn Quarry whilst being mechanically very sound underneath.

For me, crewing Glyder was the highlight of the event. Seeing how the Barclay well tank design evolved from the 1918 built examples such as the Talyllyn’s No 6 into the 1931 built contractors loco built down to a price. Plus, Glyder is very much in original condition compared to any of the other survivors.

With the Waggonway being closed for maintenance, there were more people available than usual this year. So in addition to stints running the Coffee Pot and Glyder, there was also a brief opportunity to escape the colliery and visit the very busy town. Something not done on any previous steam fair visit.

Some photo highlights from the weekend. Saturday was grey and drizzly whilst Sunday dawned bright and sunny which made for some interesting photo opportunities.

Barclay 1219 on the colliery railway.