Steam Rollers, Traction Engines, Showmans Engines, Steam Powered Lorries and Cars, Pumping Engines, Mill Engines and Pithead Winding Engines. From a very early age Fred Dibnah had a love of steam powered machines and
spent a large part of his life restoring them and studying their construction and history. Here he shares that passion as he unearths the best of our steam heritage and meets some of his fellow enthusiasts who devote their lives to finding, restoring, preserving and operating steam engines of all sorts of shapes and sizes.
The Story Of The Traction Engine
From the first steam powered road carriages at the beginning of the 19th century and the early development of the traction engine for work on farms, to the great road locomotives, showmans engines and steam lorries of the twentieth century and the birth of the preservation movement, Fred tells the story of steam power on the roads. Filmed on location at some of Britain's major traction engine collections - Thursford, Strumpshaw, Hollycombe - and with enthusiasts and builders of replicas of some of our earliest steam vehicles.
Britain's Biggest Engines
Fred travels round Britain to unearth some of Britain's biggest and most powerful steam engines. Starting near home he takes us to see the biggest mill engine in Britain in Trencherfield Mill at Wigan Pier and goes to see groups of enthusiasts who are dedicated to preserving some of these engines at the Northern Mill Engine Society in Bolton and Ellenroad Engine House near Rochdale. He visits the biggest pit head winding engines in Britain at Astley
Green Colliery Museum in Lancashire and the Scottish Mining Museum. He takes us to the biggest steel rolling mill engine at Kelham Island in Sheffield and some of the biggest pumping engines at Papplewick Pumping Station, Bratch
Pumping Station and Kew Bridge Steam Museum. On the way he tells us some of his stories about mill engines and disasters.
On The Road With Fred
The story of Fred's epic journey round Britain on his traction engine in 2004 for the television series Made In Britain. This specially edited version covers the first half of the journey with all the teething troubles Fred and his mate Alf
Molyneux had as they set off from Bolton for the first time
then we follow them on the engine to Cumbria, Central Scotland, the North-East and Yorkshire. For the first time you will see all the bits of Fred you never saw on the
television - every stage of this first half of the journey and every stop along the way in full.
DVD
