3 minute read
Grantown East Vintage Machinery Day
at the Highland Heritage & Cultural Centre, Scotland on Sunday 15th August
Report by Mitchell Ross, Operations Manager
The history of Vintage Rallies at Grantown East is a short one. However, we hope it will continue to grow into a well-attended event which people can look forward to on their calendar.
Grantown East held its first Vintage Rally in 2019, during our first season of opening. We opened or should I say reopened on the 2nd of November 2018, 50 years to the day that the station was closed as part of the Beeching cuts in 1968.
Our first rally attended by various vintage tractors, machinery, implements, stationary engines and steam traction engines was a huge success. It rivalled our opening day in terms of attendance and was an event we firmly planned to have as an annual gathering on our calendar…
Then “2020” happened, and the world changed. We were just beginning to gear up for our second tourist season when Covid struck and we, along with everyone, were forced into lockdown.
Fast forward 18 months or so and we found ourselves in a much better position, positively looking towards the future and with imposed restrictions easing we began to look to host events again, albeit in a slightly different way.
After successfully hosting a few events earlier in the summer, we were again approached by Mr Green and Mr Calder, two local gentlemen heavily involved in the vintage tractor world about reviving the previous event held at Grantown East in 2019.
Without hesitation we agreed and started planning for an event on Sunday the 15th of August 2021.
This year’s event was again very well attended, with even more, tractors, machinery, implements, vintage cars and some bikes. We estimate we had in the region of 30 tractors of various vintages and marques. 5 vintage road vehicles, including a Series 1 Land Rover with a PTO that was able to drive a working vintage grain mill.
We were lucky enough to even have a couple of model steam traction engines and a steam waggon. Unfortunately, quite a few of our steam powered attendees from 2019 were unable to bring live steam power to this year’s event, as lack of an active calendar meant that understandably most of them opted to not put their boilers on test for safety certification and insurance purposes.
We were in a similar position ourselves with our Tinkerbell steam locomotive needing a boiler test in 2020, and us deciding to postpone it until we knew we would be able to open again.
All in all, the day was very much a success with enjoyment had by all that attended. We benefited from some great weather and the feedback from everyone, exhibitors and members of the public was overwhelmingly positive.
With the future looking bright, and with the aid of some aerial photography from our drone, we are already planning a bigger and better event for 2022. We estimate we can double the capacity of exhibitors, whilst still being able to do a miniature run out on our events field.