Blog – Chasing Trains

22nd July 201924th July 2019

Weeting Steam Engine Rally & Country Fair

Minature Traction Engine Motions — “Scallywag” – Minature Traction Engine

The weather held superbly despite forcasts of possible rain for a trip out through the village of Weeting and on to Fengate Farm for the 51st Weeting Steam Engine Rally and Country Fair on the 19th/20th/21st July 2019.

Weeting Rally is somewhere I have visited many times but only recently begun dragging Wuff along with me. Of course I went for the sun and the steam but Wuff brought her camera along and did some stunning work as usual!

The selection of steam on show was spectacular as ever – the number of traction engines seems to grow year on year.

If traction engines aren’t for you though the Country Fair side has a great selection of market stalls and other shows – sticking with steam and machinery though there are great displays of multitudes of other things.

… and as always for more photos of our trips and adventures make sure you look at our Instagram and Twitter!

20th July 201924th February 2021

Bressingham Steam Museum and Gardens

This trip saw a lengthy chase across the UK to see a variety of gauges of locomotive from 00 gauge to standard gauge and an impressive range of sizes in between.

I had heard so much about this place from Fox that I just had to take a look and see for myself. So on what turned out to be an absolutely gloriously sunny day, we took a drive out to spend the day there.

A rather early 10am arrival and already the Garden loco was in steam ready to go

The Garden Railway –

Loco name – Alan Bloom
Gauge – 10 ¼ “
Route length – Not much

The Fen Railway (Formerly the Nursery Railway) –

Loco name – Gwynedd
Gauge – 2ft
Route length – Mile and a smidge

The Standard Gauge Railway –

Loco name – Martello
Gauge – 4ft 8 ½
Route length – Enough to roll the wheels

The Waveney Valley Railway –

Loco – St Christopher (Sadly not a Krupp)
Gauge – 15”
Route length

Photograph of 15" Locomotive St Christopher

~ Fox

Though I will concede, the Krupp’s are mainliners they’re suited to something like RHDR where they can haul long rakes of coaches at high speed… rough rails and tight bends is branch line territory and a narrow gauge outline tank, like Christopher, works far better.

I just want my Krupp’s back!

Gardens and house –

Two words… ABSOLUTELY STUNNING…. I could say so many more but these two capture the gardens. They are out of this world and truly beautifully planted. As above, we were blessed with the weather, the sun was shining beautifully and everything looked so colourful.

Locos we want to chase following our trip here –

From seeing how sad Mannertreu looked in the loco shed, in parts, with a rusted boiler and then seeing how lovely Rosenkavalier looked in the museum.. This left us wondering what happened to the third of the Krupp’s locos.. Our questions were answered in that it is currently serving Romney Hythe and Dimchurch under the name “Black Prince” – Guess that’s one we have now added to our list of trains to chase…

So in conclusiong.. Bressingham is amazing and I would love to go again! I feel like there is still so much to see and do while there but time and the pressure to commence a lengthy journey home cut our time too short!

Fabulous day.. 10/10 would visit again!

~Wuff