The period between the late 1800s and the late 1920s was the heyday of the road steam traction engine. Prior to that, ‘portable’ steam engines were pulled by horses from farm to farm to provide the power unit for belting to machinery for tasks such as the annual threshing. The invention of the self-moving traction engine brought many advances, always staying one jump ahead of amendments to the Locomotive Acts. Fairground operators hauled their huge road train of rides to the next fair; plo...

Lincolnshire today is a thriving agricultural county and home to one of the finest medieval cathedrals in the world, but not so long ago Lincolnshire was equally famous as a prosperous industrial county. Within the city of Lincoln, factories such as Clayton & Shuttleworth, William Foster & Co., Robey & Co. and Rustons employed just about every man of working age as they grew from humble blacksmith beginnings to producers of agricultural machinery renowned around the world. In August 1914 t...

An eminent early preservationist, John Crawley was able to amass an enviable photographic archive of steam traction engines and road rollers in their working days, of which this Aveling & Porter selection formed just a part. Organiser of over eighty steam rallies, John saved up to thirty steam traction engines for preservation from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, at a time when they were considered not much more than worthless scrap. Indeed, he became the first owner of no fewer than twe...

Opened in 1960, the Bluebell Railway was the very first standard gauge former British Railways line in Britain to be taken over by volunteers, having seen the success already achieved at the narrow gauge Talyllyn and Ffestiniog Railways in Wales. Starting with a leased line of just under 5 miles and one steam locomotive and two coaches, the railway has grown over its sixty years of operating to amass 32 steam locomotives; 89 carriages; 83 wagons; 750 volunteers; 10,500 supporting members a...

Ever since the Romans built Stane Street from London to Chichester and pedlars used the high ridge-line tracks across the South Downs, Sussex has needed strategic transportation as an aid to commerce and its ever-growing population. Sussex roads only improved with the arrival of the Turnpike Trusts, creating toll houses, coaching inns, milestones and bridges, while the rise of the private motor car brought filling stations. Waterborne transport has left its mark in the form of short-lived ...

At first glance the largely rural county of ‘Sussex by the Sea’ may not be the first to spring to mind when it comes to the subject of industrial heritage, but closer inspection reveals that it had its fair share of extractive industries, such as early chalk quarries and lime works, thanks to the geology of the Sussex Downland, and from the interior Wealden Clays came brickworks and iron forges and furnaces. At first goods moved on early turnpikes and by long-closed canals. Sussex was late...

An extensive history of the American Museum of Natural History and Hayden Planetarium, featuring a cast of colorful characters.The American Museum of Natural History is one of New York City's most beloved institutions, and one of the largest, most celebrated museums in the world. Since 1869, generations of New Yorkers and tourists of all ages have been educated and entertained here. Located across from Central Park, the sprawling structure, spanning four city block...