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London 2012 New Year’s Day Parade

I got road and rail steam in the same day but couldn’t make it a hat-trick with a pumping station as well – that had to wait until a few days later. I like to try and get to a pumping station that I haven’t been to for a while and this year it was Claymills at Burton upon Trent, a wonderful site, happy volunteers of all ages and great hospitality – thanks guys!

And I take my hat off to the miniature engine owners and their families in the photos above who presumably forsook the chance for New Year’s Eve merriment in order to be fresh as a daisy and in steam early for the London New Year’s Day Parade. You do the movement proud.

Judging by your photos that have come in, there was plenty going on out on the road during the holidays, with a good amount of participants, no doubt due to the milder weather than that of a year ago. Everyone was enjoying the freedom of taking their steamer/tractor/commercial on the road.

And because that freedom is not taken for granted, we have the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs (FBHVC) – motto: to uphold the freedom – to keep an eye on legislation UK and EU-wise.

The current hot potato is the Dept for Transport consultation on MoT exemptions for historic vehicles which, as we go to press, just has a week to run. The EU would like a blanket policy as some member countries, such as Poland, would love to get its ageing and no doubt dangerous jalopies off its roads. Of course, in Britain, if a vehicle gets to that sort of age, we spit and polish it, care for it and just take it out to shows and road runs. That’s the difference.

Our Government’s preferred option is to exempt all pre-1960 vehicles, backing up its idea with the fact that only 10% of pre-1960 vehicles fail their annual MoT compared with over 30% of vehicles which have beenbuilt after that date.

The flip side to that of course is that 10% of pre-1960 vehicles were obviously not fit to be on the road, yet they would be under the new rules! Not everyone is mechanically minded or has access to ramps in order to look at everything themselves. What conditions will insurers then want to impose on us?

The FBHVC has been gathering thoughts on this from its member organisations (which includes the NTET) and will make its response based on its own findings.

MoT exemption for some classes of vehicles was just one of the questions posed to the members of the All Party Parliamentary Historic Vehicle Group (APPHVG) at the House of Lords in December (see news) and from the steam side of things it was a pleasure for me to meet Sentinel waggon owner Robert Goodwill, MP for Scarborough and Whitby, at the reception. With decent people like Robert keeping an eye on the bureaucrats, I feel that we are in safe hands... but you never know what’s brewing around the corner when it comes to legislation.

Colin Tyson
Editor