Vintage railway film - British Locomotives - 1959
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ต.ค. 2024
- This vintage railway film, produced by Greenpark Productions in 1959 with the assistance of the Locomotive and Allied Manufacturers Union, details the importance and influence of the British locomotive manufacturing industry both nationally and internationally.
There is some outstanding footage featured from places such as Australia, Brazil, East Africa, India and South Africa.
Hi my name is Phil it brings back memories of my time on the footplate 8yrs on steam 50yrs on the footplate I started at edgeley shed on the 4th of April in 1961 in1962 I was made a fireman I finished my time out at longsight as a driver I finished in 2011 Regards Phil.
Fill
Well done Phill this country was built on grafters like you 👍
respect !
Respect to you. I wonder if you worked on services out of Piccadilly to New Mills. You may have been the driver of a DMU from New Mills to Manchester who showed me your job back in 1971
You sir are a legend Phil, thank you for your hard work :D
When Britain used to be a manufacturing nation. Amazing to see the total deindustrialisation that has occurred in my lifetime. Not even the model trains are made in the UK nowadays.
Got a blame the Bastard EU for raping most of our industry 😡
@@timwattison4419 your comments betray your lack of u derstanding of both Economics and History. Manufacturing moved offshore to places where labour was cheaper. This was started well before Britain joined the EU. It was a process that increased in speed during the 1980s and driven by boardroom decisions as a response to foreign competition and the stock market demands for ever greater returns. Not much evidence to the trained eye of your fantasy EU bogeyman.
@@timwattison4419 if you must blame a bastard then blame first Japan, then Korea now China. I think you have been reading the Daily Mail too long!
@@keithwoodburn7895 without the eu we ware weaker against China etc so go figure things are only Guna get worse haha
The same in the Netherlands, only Philips is stil ours, all other famous Dutch companies are sold or given away like Fokker Aviation. We build nothing anymore, we are 100% dependent on China.
These short films were often shown at the Pictures before the main film. Always a bonus when it was a railway one!
I enjoy slow rides
This one seems more for export markets. Would like to know if anyone saw this in a normal cinema back then.
@@Georgey0121 hey me too, especially if there's refreshments
What brilliant scene from what seemed better days,miss them. Respect for showing them.👍
A belter of a film. Thank you. Those were the days!
Love these short films. They were often shown before “the main picture” at the cinema - seeing a railway one was a bonus!
Although I have seen this before it is a tremendous watch.. especially the opening sequence of D208, beautifully clean and new and looking every much as the new beginning for British Railways. I remember seeing them on WCML and on ECML and being impressed and in awe of their power..
Wonderfull film . Love especially the blue Deltic at the end, one of my favorite locos of all time. The Deltic was such a beautyfull design.
That last line. They couldn't have imagined that long line of successful British locomotives was about to end.
I am continually fascinated watching this type of documentary film about British engineering feats with locomotives and thinking further afield with aircraft technology Comet, Concorde, VTOL Harrier Jet, Train development with InterCity 125, Deltic diesel, and Electrified Locos and even the cross channel SRN 4 Hovercraft all 180 tons. All huge successes and world leaders yet the moment they all enter service the ongoing development starts to wain and we are left with outdated relics from 30/40 years ago.
It's not just politics and financial instability that effects development it's also work ethics when people were proud and had pride in their work . Whereas today's generation put profit and greed before invention and development. No it's a sad situation now when we buy technology from abroad because as a country we have become complacent and xxxxxxx idle!
This film was in a mixed train DVD I found and my kids got scared by the beginning music. They got to enjoying the film in later years and we must have watched it a hundred times or more. Very interesting as I'm in the USA.
Definitely my favourite period of rail history, probably because I can remember travelling on trains drawn by some of the locos in this film
The exhaust from the first diesel (D208) is so clean that I wonder if the locomotive was actually pulling the train or if it was being shoved from behind. I never knew them to be that clean!
The loco was almost new at this time, so a clean running engine could be expected. Towards the end of their careers, BR ran them into the ground.
Beyer Peacock had just finished delivering the 60 class Beyer Garrett locos to NEW SOUTH WALES Government Railways 2 years before this film.
@1:21
A couple of motorists stop off for a few pints of beer before continuing their journey.
Some things may have changed for the better since I was born, in June 1959.
Most of the export diesels would soon be replaced with American diesels as these proved more reliable and easier and cheaper to maintain than British diesels, especially an advantage in many overseas countries with hot dusty climates and less trained personel.
Poor reliability and expensive maintenance was also what plagued many of the domestic types shown in this film, the 900hp BTH type 1, MetVick type 2 CoBo, NBL type 4 and the original Mirrlees powered Brush type 2 all got their reputation soon, the EE locomotives were the ones which proved reliable and useful.
I can tell such as I'm involved with both the BTH type 1 and the CoBo in preservation.
A V16 engine with a very complicated exhaust manifold has just to many parts for a 900hp locomotive engine, the EE 1000hp V8 out of a 20 is much easier to work on, and lasts longer between breakdowns and overhauls.
The exported steam locomotives however were of high quality and many have outlived the diesels that came with them.
Also at the end of the film they refer to the prototype Deltic as the largest single unit diesel in the world, which isn't true either.
It was the most powerful single unit diesel in the world when built, however many American diesel units were both larger and much heavier as the Deltic, but had less horsepower (EMD E3, Alco PA, FM Erie built to name a few).
I was looking for this comment. Irish railways bought 90 Metrovick diesels (a huge order by their standards) against the advice of their CMO OVS Bulleid and they lived to regret it. They never gave good service till they were re-engined with GM engines. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIE_001_Class
@@buergidunitz That's one of the examples, the Irish approach showed that the Metrovick diesels were generally well built and only the engines sucked, that's my opinion as working on the CoBo, electrics and most of the auxiliaries are bullet proof and also the frames and bogies stood against time well.
The Australian approach to these was a bit different, although having plenty experience with American engines they WAGR choose to modify the engines long enough to get some sort of reliability out of them, having done over 200 alterations to the design.
Putting GM engines in them was the better and much cheaper solution indeed.
And what I remember from my visit to Ireland in 1987 was that the A class was insanely loud.
@@Tom-Lahaye WAGR a minor narrow gauge railway. The much larger Victorian Railways went GM EMD from the start. All much better service with some 1953 models still performing today. VR F class version of the BR 11 class shunter an exception but proved too small for the decreasing amount of shunting needed by the 1980s. Even WA went GM EMD with L class and did not repeat UK problems as did almost all Australian dieselisation.
@@johnd8892 I have seen a railway film from 1957 Australia this morning on this same channel.
And indeed, some of the VR A and B class and several other old EMD and Alco locomotives may still turn up in front of some trains.
I live close to the Belgian border in Netherlands, and it's still possible in Belgium as well to see 60 year old EMD powered locos working PW trains, many of them still on revenue services as recent as 10 years ago.
In the UK it were EE locomotives only to reach such a long working life, like the 08, 20 and 37.
"Poor reliability and expensive maintenance was also what plagued many of the domestic types shown in this film, the 900hp BTH type 1" Also, not sure why they described that class as being "for heavy freight." They were only ever intended for local trip workings; heavy freight would be handled by something with twice the horsepower or more.
The old Deltic was a beast. I remember seeing one being started. It's like opening the gates to Valhalla!
Thanks for sharing, shared.
8:00 D600 class 41 warship pulling out the station with a passanger train
8:00
8:00
Regards. We used to do our trainspotting on the path leading down to the Edgeley sheds back in the early fifties. Happy memories.
Is this the same Britain that we now live in?
I think not.
Great film,with very familiar locomotives👍
I was born in 1959. How this country has changed. It’s almost unrecognisable now.
It's still a work-in-progress as well.
Nice to see Ivo Peters in one of the clips.
Stunning arcive film
Great to see brings back so many memories
Very interesting video & specially the sound
Priceless footage!
Interesting cars at 1:22 - an Austin Healy 'Sprite' (frog-eye) and a Sunbeam Talbot (a very sporty saloon of the day). Well-heeled owners!
I seem to remember that so many diesels were ordered 'off the drawing board' they were frequently failing. The Royal Train used steam to the end. A steam engine would have to have something seriously wrong such as a wheel falling off for it to be declared a total failure. One could even take the side rods down on one side to move the loco at least off the main line.
An absolute gem.
13:30. That's what i call a shunting yard😲😲😲
I love this guys voice
Yes, so much pleasanter than that ghastly estuary pronunciation we hear everywhere these days.
It sounds like Tim Turner, who narrated a lot of the 'Look at Life' films.
I think it is David de Keyser. Not sure but I know it isn't Tim Turner.
"... countries like Africa..."
"...and there is virtually no smoke."
@Phil Weatherley - I suspect you might be very, very high on drugs.
@Phil Weatherley Uhhhh... You good?
@Phil Weatherley Funny!
@Phil Weatherley what
"In 1955 the British Transport Commission announced a fifteen year plan to modernise the railways..."
In 1960 they were still making steam locomotives.
Go figure.
Reason being nearly all the pilot scheme diesels were unreliable, low powered, short lived disasters.
Took quite a while to sort out some reasonable designs.
A lot of waste involved.
When the world just looked cleaner, no plastic bottles thrown beside the track etc etc. Mass disposable consumerism has a lot to answer for!
The first S&D trains took coal from the Shildon area to the river, east of Stockton. It was the finance which came from the two towns!
Brings back memories
6:53 class 28 metrovicks
7:04 D600 at high speed
Fantastic to see this
Class 40 diesel locomotive .... great machines!
Has anyone else noticed that the map near the beginning of the film shows Stockton as near the Wash & Darlington near Spalding, Linc's?!!
i love the music
yet another masterpiece produced by humphrey swingler
Any relation of Stephen Swingler, politician of the 1960s?
1959 Britain to the World : "You give us Your resources and we will send You equipment to transport those resources to us faster and in a larger volume" - sounds 'fair' , right ?
I was amused to hear these sales of British locos referred to as "contributions".
Brilliant film, although it saddens me, our last British built loco was the class 60 in the early 90's.
North British Locomotive company in Glasgow were world leaders in steam locomotive building.
They couldn't diversify into diesel locomotives, their type 2's were so unreliable that they bankrupted the company.
English Electric built many great Diesel locomotives, many are still in use, as did Brush.
But we buy Canadian locomotives, and some from Spain now, we build nothing here now.
Class 92 built at Loughborough 1993-96.
Victorian Railways had North British build 70 R class Hudsons in 1952. Took so much work to correct the low build quality.
Quite the topic of the time in Australia when new tenders were evaluated for new equipment.
We need steam to come back I wouldn’t mind making one if I have the money 🤞
Love the little girl trainspotting (with her brothers?) at 7:55.
This one seems more for export markets. Would like to know if anyone saw this in a normal cinema back then.
I have never seen a class 40 run without a ton of clag
Interesting coverage of the early Brit diesels. Can't say I'm a big fan of their styling though. They look sort of Soviet...
The opening section includes the GN line north of Peterborough, filmed from the Stamford line, notably passing Helpston crossing and north of Maxey crossing.
Same stretch as used in the "Elizabethan" film.
This was filmed in the year I was born. What has happened in the meantime? We own and build next to nothing today. The trains we now assemble, which is very few indeed, are a Japanese design and product built under license. Successive UK governments have totally neglected industry and let the few successful ones be sold off to foreign ownership. Even strategically important utilities like electricity generation and water supply companies have foreign owners. This has mostly been as a result of Tory policies that ignore most of everything outside the Greater London area and particularly The City of London's financial sector. At the moment it looks like policies [Brexit] has ensured even that is going into severe decline with deals being done within the EU as an alternative. What does the future hold for this once great nation? It is on the cusp of breaking up, again as a result of far right policies.
I loved the film of the old diesels and electrics but I was hoping to see steam as well. 1959 would have been a good year as it was right in the middle of the replacement. Obviously this wasn't the object of the film but it would be nice to find a film of the time that shows all three types of traction.
My favorite br loco is the class 55 deltic diesel loco.
🇸🇪✨✨✨👍👍👍👍
Interesting Vid! Subscribed!
16.50. The 46 class electric locomotives of New South Wales
The map showing Stockton to Darlington is Way out !!
wooow , great!
Pretty good film showing diesels.
1:44 unlucky tug brought me here 😂
A small comment; Indian Railways went over to Alco,and between the original orders,and Indian built engines,the WAM-2's and variants there are about 2700,engines still operating,and now GE,and EMD,are in the game,so Britain is out,again! The irony is,that the first produced 4000 HP,engine was the protype Kestrel,which I believe was built by English Electric. It was ahead of its time! One other note,it only took 50 plus years to get airbrakes on goods rolling stock,and how many years to get decent headlights on both steam and diesels(also Electrics),in n many ways,Britain was 30 years behind the rest of the world! A trifle too much insolation from the rest of the changes ongoing in the world at large,plus a total lack of investment in technology,and people! A semi-slave type of mentality at the top,impeded many inventions and upgrades,to the detriment of all concerned! The US is in the throes of the same death spiral and with the same mentality,and arrogance! One more item,the INTERNATIONISTS FORGET THAT YOU NEED VIABLE NATIONS TO EXIST,OTHERWISE YOU DIE! That killed Britain and it's killing the US! See what happened to Britain during WW2,when 75% of its merchant fleet was sunk,and it went bankrupt in 1941,and it dependent on the US,for sustenance! A sad fact of history,that was/is overlooked! Thank you for attention! ( Correction: add was between it and dependent)! One other rule is,never depend on 10,000 mile supply lines,as they are subject to interdiction,and how many examples are now extent????🛳⛴⛵⚓⚓⚓⚓⚓⛽🛢🛢🛢🛢
topp notch
The good people at Greenpark Productions don't seem to have understood the 180-degree rule. 😉
Release more videos about indian and other railways.
They had the class 28!
Damn diésels
I just subscribed
Funny how there's an almost 'Soviet' feel to the music.
Looking at the nap I have just seen in this video. Someone has moved Stockton and Darlington further south.
You misread the map at 2:37. Stockton and Darlington are shown as being in the correct location, a little way south of Newcastle. However, they're also shown in an inset and, in a rather remarkable coincidence, the North Yorkshire coast in the inset merges seamlessly with the East Anglian coast in the main map, the mouth of the River Tees in the inset appears roughly where the Wash should be, and the line linking the inset with the main map is easy to mistake for the coastline. Couple that with the tilted view of England and it's very easy to think they've put Stockton about where Kings Lynn is.
@Grassy Ranks I'm honestly not sure -- I did a double-take when I first saw the map.
see this is what I was talking about
. . . . whilst you show us some utterly stupendous stuff. UK has toy trains by comparison.
What happened to our country 😢
I'm hoping someone will prove me wrong, but is that am EMD F3 in Pale blue at 16.25? And again at 17.57
Prototype of the English Electric Class 55 Deltic locomotive. It's styling was inspired by EMD. The production 55s got a more squared-off nose and tail.
Was the electric line the one from Manchester London Road via Woodhead Tunnel to Sheffield?
Yep. That's the Woodhead Route alright
Hey I was wondering if you could manage to get another drivers view vid the other day when I was riding the train on the joondalup line I spotted an A series at the Nowergup Depot and It hasn’t been the first time I’ve seen an A set in the yard since they stopped running them on the Mandurah and joondalup lines I was wondering if you could request a drivers view of an A set running up to the Nowergup depot from Claisebrook or Perth station and I was speaking to one of the drivers the other day that mentioned he drove a B series nonstop from butler all the way to Mandurah and I was wondering if you could request those videos as I reckon it’ll be idea for the drivers view videos collection all in real time and time lapse if you can get any footage as I really enjoy watching the cab view videos thank you :)
What a refreshing change to see an optimistic film about British exports and achievements rather than the self-flagellating woke rubbish we see nowadays.
Just imagine the trade deals we could've done now, had we still kept the steel and locomotive industries running here in the United Kingdom - what a waste!
Can't build Tyneside metro stock in the UK (at Newton Aycliffe) but a new-build factory is happening near Goole. Madness.
In the era when we stopped being able to design and build things that could last. Nearly all these Diesels were design failures - Britain's sudden hurry to modernise caused absolute chaos and it seemed to be a case of throw as much mud at the wall and see what sticks. Meanwhile they were still building steam locos that were successful designs with proven track records. And then scrapped them with only 5/6 years of service with a good number of the diesel designs meant to replace them following to the cutters torch shortly afterwards. Utter incompetence.
Er, You need another map, Darlington is in the correct place, it has always been there, at least that is where I arrive when I come home from work.
So, if Darlington's in the correct place, why do they need a new map?
@@2H80vids Obvious really, the map they used was not correct.
Yes it's not in Peterborough 🤔👍
That Deltic - its gorgeous blue livery with streamline stripes flowing from its nose to that horrible wasp-pus colour that they slapped on the common service locos - ffs why??
That engine on its way to Spain is back on the rails now! th-cam.com/video/SokGFTUkIks/w-d-xo.html
8:04
At 4min 50, where is that?
That is on the woodhead line but not sure where exactly, the route is gone nowadays
In terms of cleanliness, diesels were hardly an improvement over steam. As for electric engines, it depends where the electricity is coming from.
@Percy Harry Hotspur Depends on what type of oil used. Most steam era oil burners used Bunker C which was awful cheap sludge like dregs of refining. For cleanliness Disneyland steam locos used diesel fuel since day one in 1955.
Some recent coal burning bans in Europe have led to some very efficient conversions.
Chris Eden Green raised the issue but got annoyed that the diesel or vegetable oil firing alternative was so successful in comments to his vid. He had his answer already pre conceived. Shoveling new stuff.
Steady oil burning with the right amount of oxygen can be cleaner than explosive burning with the fuel and oxygen requirements changing each fraction of a second with varying speed and load.
The key is the boiler stores energy on tap like a battery.
@@johnd8892 Is "Bunker C" similar to No. 5 oil? I often hear that one in US videos.
The dirtiest Chinese/Ex-Soviet power plants produce electricity more cleanly and efficiently than the equivalent ICE powerplant per BTU.
So swing and a miss on the second "point".
Written by Clifford Hornby you couldn't make it up!!
When Britain was great,sadly this country has gone to the dogs
Is the Writer and Director, Clifford Hornby, the person named of Hornby model trains sets?
Founder Frank Hornby died in 1936. Sons Roland and Douglas. Sons lead Hornby to near bankruptcy and takeover by Tri-ang in 1964. Then closure of Liverpool factory. Unlikely to be a grandson.
Could as easily be related to Twiggy, real name Lesley Hornby.
🚂👍
Steam loco Mallard broke the word speed record at 126 MPH going downhill????. Wow😂😂😂😂😂
Er... yes? Why is this a big deal, or even a surprise? Speed records are usually set downhill.
BEETLE DON'T TALK THRU YOUR ARSE.
@@beeble2003 speed records for land speed record cars are run in both directions and averaged.
Railways are attracted to downhill records for a few seconds.
A speed record is not the most useful measure of the quality of a railway system.
@@johnd8892 Yes, car speed records are much more rigorous and try to take account of wind, gradient and so on and make it all about the car. As you say, railway speed records aren't really important to the running of the railway, so they're not done as rigorously. Probably if there were many attempts at rail speed records, better standards would have been set but, since there are so few attempts, nobody's bothered to standardize.
@@johnd8892 I'd meant to add -- I should have said that downhill is normal for rail records. The last three words are important in that sentence, so I shouldn't have left them out.
Then we joined the common market and they took our industry as they became the EU. I worked in crewe works from 1971 until 1991 and have worked in the rail industry until I retired as did my father and his father before him. Crewe will not be remembered for the railway as it seems to be slowly removed but it will be remembered for Bentley as they are now the biggest employer and not British owned anymore as Rolls Royce in crewe has now been forgotten. RIP crewe works.
Was ! THIS ! THE ! FLYING !! ENGLISH ! MAN !!??
And now WE buy from Japan.
Yes the kids used to collect loco numbers...now they just try to push pensioners under them
Narrated by
th-cam.com/video/bN2BmVVJknE/w-d-xo.html
To my British friends.
I must say these are some of the most butt-ugliest locos I have ever seen.
You don't build a locomotive to be pretty, you build it to do a job.
Original UK loco designs were copied from the USA, go check....
@@scotsguy422 evidence?
@@davidantoniocamposbarros7528 British Diesel Locomotives of the 1950s and ‘60s (Shire Library). Class 40's at Work, John Vaughn. Page 8 - Concept-Technical Appreciation and Recognition. The Class 40 Preservation Society. The Deltics were also closely designed on American loco's of the time as the British Designers had very little experience (late 1940's, early 1950'). English Electric had built a batch of loco's for the Rhodesian Railway in the early 50's that utilised the same engine as 10000/10001. When BR started making substantial withdrawals of the class in the early 1980's, several of the engines were exported to Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) for reuse in their existing fleet. We also exported Class 47 designed loco's to Cuba in the 1960's.
3@@@
Lol mallard was actually recorded at 126.4mph
And truo allegedly did 102
I hate when facts are glossed over 😒
I've never seen anyone but you claim the point-four for _Mallard,_ and the video reports the correct figure of 102 for _City of Truro._ So, really, I've no idea what you're laughing at, or what you think is being glossed over.
Mallard's actual record is 125.88 MPH Close to 126 MPH
@@davidantoniocamposbarros7528 What's your source for this claim? I've never seen any reputable source claim anything other than 126mph (instantaneous peak speed) or 125mph (maximum five-second average).
There is no way that the speed was measured to five significant figures. It was recorded by a pen being moved across a roll of moving paper, like an old seismograph. If that paper was a foot (~300mm) wide one inch corresponds to about 10mph then 0.01mph would correspond to just one thousandth of an inch (about 0.025mm). That's about one tenth of the width of the line drawn by a very fine-tipped pen and you simply cannot read the position of a line that accurately.
This is true British self determination. To hell with the EU. We are well rid of them!
While this is a fantastic video. It is also clearly propaganda. Britain did help supply multiple nations with locomotives. But to the extent of which they are taking credit for is slightly exaggerated
It was true in the case of steam locomotives. The UK exported more than any other nation until the era of dieselisation.
@@farric1 it's mainly because of the map they showed. They really mostly only were sending them to developing nations/3rd world countries. So when the map shows them giving away locomotives to USA and Russia and other world powers like that, it don't really seem accurate
Fascinating video and very much focused on the future with movement away from steam to diesel and electric. Whilst all this was going, railways closures were going on in the background as passengers and freight moved from rail to road based transport. Propaganda - more likely a selective few of the truth. Even the Woodhead route was obsolete in 1959:using DC rather than AC technology.
"Britain did help supply multiple nations with locomotives." In most cases, you mean "Britain's colonial administrations decided to buy locomotives from the motherland -- gosh, what a surprise."
@@cjstibitz2130 "when the map shows them giving away locomotives to USA and Russia" Er, you mean "selling"...
diesels suck