Britain's best selling steam & vintage magazine!

Brighton great...

Having allowed me a sponsors’ ‘trailer ride’ throughout the journey (thanks, guys!) I had an immensely enjoyable day (and night) being shaken to bits.

I imagined that this is what it would have been like in London all those years ago when Hickey’s took to the streets with similar road train haulage loads. Bemused night clubbers came outside to see what the noise was all about, cars tooted in acknowledgement and many an upstairs curtain twitched at dawn to see what was going on outside their front door!

Dedicated enthusiasts saw us off at 2.10am and continually overtook us for their next photo spot all the way to Brighton – and our own dedicated photographer, James Hamilton, kept up with the convoy all the way to Brighton on his fold-up cycle!

At every hill and every overbridge, scores of photographers had come out to witness the spectacle and many well-known faces from the world of steam had caught up with us at the longer water stop at Handcross. BSEPS and EATEC members had travelled down by the car-load; even Dorset’s Martin Oliver drove across, perhaps to see that we were looking after his show’s trailer!

It’s the steam element that certainly attracts interest; having slowed traffic on the multi-laned A23 nearer Brighton, every other car that passed us had someone hanging out of the window taking a photo with their mobile; kids waved – just as they would a main line steam train – and no one seemed to mind that we were delaying their progress to the coast on such a sunny bank holiday Sunday.
Congratulations team. You are all great ambassadors for the hobby.

… New Brighton not great

Now north to New Brighton, a seaside resort on Merseyside, where things are not so good and a dangerous precedent is being set.

Battle lines have been drawn at its 200sq yd model boating lake against owners of model steam boats – ironically just a few yards from the river Mersey which was once alive with ocean liners, cargo vessels and tugs.

Unravelling the nonsense reported in the likes of the Daily Mail (and thanks to the many readers who drew our attention to it) which loves a reason to bash ‘Elf n Safety’ – it seems that rival electric and sail-powerd boat owners that use the lake didn’t want sedate steamers chuffing round the lake and have cited the old ‘boilers could explode’ line to the local council, which seems to have taken it all in like a sponge without gathering any facts.

There has been no record of any steam-related mishaps or injuries caused by ‘pop-pop’ steamboats – either at New Brighton or anywhere else – from boats that use not much more then camping stove-type fuel and half a pint of water.

But the council says they are ‘too dangerous as they could explode and injure onlookers’.

Stan Parkinson, chairman of New Brighton Model Boat Club, said they had no choice but to support the ban, which also applies to petrol-engined vessels, as their insurance didn’t cover steam powered boats. Well done Mr Parkinson, you must be very proud that you’ve put the hobby back years.

I suggest, as there is no bye-law written against it yet, that steam boat owners get their own insurance sorted (which they probably have anyway) and continue to use the lake – although coming from an area where the Wincham ‘Preservation’ Society sent its historic 1948-built MV Wincham for scrap in 2009 without consultation, I don’t hold out much hope.

Colin Tyson
Editor