Lucky it wasn’t going FLAT-OUT.
A stunned resident in a sleepy rural hamlet woke to find his solid stone garden wall had been quite literally STEAM-ROLLERED by a runaway traction engine.
The driver of the low-powered steam-powered traction engine lost control on a steep hill and the vintage vehicle – top speed 5mph – bounced off a parked car then demolished the wall.
None of the three people on board were hurt in the low-speed smash in Ford, Glos., but firefighters rushed to empty the engine of its steam – fearing an explosion.
Neighbour David Sandy, 60, said: ”I was finishing my breakfast when I was alerted by a huge ball of steam rising up out the front of my house.
”The engine appears to have gone down the hill and skidded on the cats eyes – sending it across the road.
”It then hit the end of a neighbour’s car and crashed into the wall. If it hadn’t have hit that wall, it could have crashed into a house.
”It was such a sad sight to see the engine, which had obviously been lovingly restored, lying shattered.
”My neighbour had just spent the summer repairing his wall too!”
The brown and black steam traction engine, bearing the name ‘S Kavanagh, road contractor, Surrey’, was towing a caravan when it crashed.
Neighbours believed it was travelling from the nearby Toddington Steam Fair.
Traction steam engines – often called road locomotives – became popular in Britain from the 1850s.
The metal-wheeled vehicles were used to tow heavy equipment and usually travel at around 3-4mph.
Although this isn’t the slowest crash we’ve seen this week – that award goes to the test driver of this Bugatti Veyron who reversed the £1 million supercar into a stationary Toyota.
