THE WEEKEND OF 8th & 9th AUGUST 2026 SAW OUR ANNUAL RAILWAY GALA EVENT.

Where we had in service a good selection of Buses for all to enjoy a ride on, also the model railway layouts were in full swing housed inside our exhibition halls. There was also intensive train action on the Great Bush Railway, plus support from local classic car clubs. Our ever popular traction engine trailer rides around the 25 acre site, and cab rides in our Green Goddess fire engine made for a very enjoyable day out for the family.

This years guest steam locomotive was ‘Emmet’ from the Old Kiln Railway (pictured above), which worked alongside our resident Orenstein and Koppel locomotive ‘Sao Domingos’.

A brief history of ‘Emmet’ –

Emmets story stretches back nearly 90 years and spans two countries.

The locomotive we know as Emmet (Named after the railway cat at the Moors Valley) was built at the Moors Valley Railway by Jim Haylock in 2003, but its origins go much further back. Beneath the steam locomotive is the chassis of a German-built Orenstein & Koppel diesel locomotive dating from the 1930s.

The original diesel worked at Kiel Docks in Germany before making its way to Britain after the Second World War. It then found a new life in Dorset, working on the Norden clay railway system, hauling ball clay trains until the industrial railway closed around 1970.

Rather than being scrapped, the chassis survived and decades later became the foundation for a remarkable new project. At the Moors Valley Railway, with a boiler from Bennett’s and a pair of steam crane cylinders, it was transformed into the steam locomotive Emmet, giving the old industrial machine an entirely new identity and a second working life. It is also believed that the internal combustion components do still exist in the restoration of another locomotive!

From a German dockyard diesel, to a Dorset clay railway workhorse, to a heritage steam locomotive still in service today, Emmet’s story is a wonderful example of narrow gauge at its best.

We would like to thank the Old Kiln Light Railway and the Moors Valley Light Railway for allowing Emmet to have been this years visiting locomotive on the Great Bush Railway!

For all enquiries relating to the Railway Gala, please contact: mrplus@tinkerspark.com

For Bus entry requests, especially if you would like to be in service over the weekend. please contact: busrally@tinkerspark.com