Held at the National Steam Centre, home of the Melbourne Traction Engine Club is Steamfest. It's located at 1200 Ferntree Gully Road, Scoresby, immediately after the exit off of EastLink for Ferntree Gully Road if you're going north. <link>
It's held across the Labour Day long weekend from the 11th March 2023 - 13th March 2023. It is full of stationary engines, industrial engines, traction engines and a miniature railway that goes around the boundary of the land.
Before you even pay your $15 entry (for adults) is a mini rail crossing for the miniature railway, complete with boom gates operated by a pulley system from the mini-Scoresby station area.
Then you're greeted by the sounds of a fairground organ, with the background sounds of whistles, engines and the sound of steam being worked.
The first shed as you start to wonder is full of industrial steam engines, with most in operation and all having an information sign to explain where it had come from. Although some of the older ones it's seemed to be a case of 'we're not sure who made it'.
This supplies the steam for all the engines on display.
Cleaver Brooks Co., Milwaukee, USA
(Built under licence by Tomlinson Steel Ltd., Western Australia)
Four-pass Economic Package Boiler
Because of all the steam and engines operating in this shed it's quite warm inside these sheds.
The next shed, they're actually all joined up but had different doors and different engines within. The next section held diesel engines and the boiler that was generating the steam for all these engines, followed by some models, and then the steam engine and the other steam-operated parts of the Lyttelton II tug.
Outside of the sheds there were more people showing off individual smaller traction engines and random engines like a MerryGo Round engine.
MerryGo Round Engine
There was also a shed of books for sale, the various manuals for many of the engines and older vehicles that were on display, plus magazines etc.
Towards the back of the site, heading out to the ploughing area there were a several older / vintage trucks and cranes on display.
In the ploughing area I saw a plough being operated between two traction engines, it's basically winched along by one and it tilts / pivots in the middle so at the end of one row it can tilt and then be pulled back by the other engine.
It seemed, looking at it to be somewhat of an inefficient process, with two of these huge traction engines to do ploughing, especially in the context of when these would have been coming in. I can imagine (with the costs involved) farmers just sticking with their clydesdale or other horses for ploughing.
As I wondered back I contemplated the food offerings; a milkshake / tea and coffee van, a pizza van, a burgers, sausage stall and a hot chips van.
I went with a sausage in bread with onion $4.
Before I left I decided to ride the miniature train. They have diesel and stem locomotives pulling carriages around. You leave from Scoresby and there's one stop at Clydesdale (basically where the ploughing happens) and they'll give you a pass so you can jump back on the train.
The miniature train is very quite small, the carriages wobbled / swayed a bit as the adults sat down onto them. I wish I'd asked what gauge the miniature railway was.
The train I ended up getting had a diesel locomotive. It moved at a decent speed.
We got about 3/4 of the way around the track and then came to a slow stop, it seemed the steam locomotive had broken down, or something so we had to wait in the sunshine (and then after a few moments we crept forwards to some shade) until the steam locomotive had been fixed.
All up it was a great interesting day out. It's mostly flat and gravel or paved, I saw lots of people with children and with prams. Also several people in wheelchairs both the pushed variety and people propelling themselves.
The only part that might post a problem is the ploughing area which is grass. There is a tractor with trailer that goes from near the front around the site, so if there's people with limited mobility then that's an option.
Parking is on a mix of gravel parking out the front of their gates, and then as that filled up they opened up a paddock next to this, it's where I parked, there were a mix of cars both SUV and not, there shouldn't be any problems parking regular vehicles.
If it's sunny best wear a hat as there's not a lot of shade around when you're not in the sheds.
