Vintage transport film - Measured for transport - 1962
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ม.ค. 2021
- This vintage transport film, produced by British Transport Films in 1962, details the challenges of moving a new power station transformer by rail to Blaenau Ffestiniog, Wales.
Not a yellow vest in sight, coloured cones, multi coloured tape, Police cordons.....just the village bobby and a dozen interested kids....love it !
Marvellous film showing the expertise of good working men and engineers whose labours built the infrastructure of the UK. In those days there was a sense of national pride which is sadly lacking today.
That my friends, is what's called innovation. Those Pickfords trucks were sure working hard but they got the job done. Brilliant stuff.
Another excellent archive from British Transport Films, good team effort and those lads on the jacks certainly earned their wages.
A fascinating documentary!!
Just love these old films, such a contrast.
High quality (probably shot on 35mm film) and in colour.
1962: Bridge in the way? Design the thing to fit under it.
Today: Bridge in the way? Factor the cost of demolishing/rebuilding the bridge into the cost of the thing.
My Father was part of the workforce that built this transformer in Walthamstow E17 remember it going past my House, Big Pickford Lorry's with Police Escort. I Was seven years old
Fantastic to see this. Before the link line between the Conwy Valley line and the line to Trawsfynydd(on the old route to Bala) was opened of course,hence the last part of the journey being road. Biggest shock of all to me,was the sun was out in Blaenau Ffestiniog!!!😂
Eh? The Bala line was long gone...
@@philbarber2 You don't understand then. The original Conwy Valley ended at the old LNWR station in Blaenau. The GWR line from Bala had its station where the present day NR/Ffestiniog one is. Hence the section between there and Trawsfynydd is on the old Blaenau-Bala line!
I agree, a splendid video. I see your point about the line to Trawsfynydd (though I thought that was still in place in 19622 but maybe already truncated for the power station), the Tan-y-Grisiau hydro is the other side of the town and one valley over. The last bit was always going to be by road. The only railway along the lower lake route was the narrow gauge. I remember visiting that power station in the 70s (74?) on an organised visit with my father and one of his professional societies (he was a power engineer). We also went to the tunnel site of the LLanberis hydro pump storage which was not much more than a hole in the mountain at the time! It's amazing that Blaenau Pump Storage is still in use and the contemporary nuclear station has already been out of use for 30 years.
@@railfreightdrivergallagherGBRf Ah! now I get your point.
You're right that this was before the through link to Trawsfynydd was opened, but that has no relevance as the transformer was on its way to Tanygrisiau. This was the nearest it could travel by main line rail, and still is.
Those massive mountains of slate will always awe me.
The color is amazing for 1962!
You can tell this was filmed before modern health and safety, that guy ducking under the wires broke so many modern rules.
Meanwhile, not far away, the narrow-gauge Ffestiniog Railway was about halfway through having its full length reopened for heritage steam services, and its volunteers were wondering just how they were going to bypass the power station reservoir, that permanently prevented them using the original route into Blaenau Ffestiniog; at that time they had reopened from Porthmadog as far as Tan-y-Bwlch, and a few years later reached Dduallt. Twenty years after this film was made, Ffestiniog trains once again reached the Blaenau thanks to a special spiral arrangement. One may wonder though how a transformer could easily have been transported on the narrow gauge, despite obvious clearance issues. Samuel F.
Even if the narrow gauge line was still there, they couldn’t of moved it that way. The transformer is far too large for the Ffestiniog Railway’s loading gauge, plus I doubt their engines have the power to pull it
@@Jaidencharlotte Couplings as well.
Fantastic operation! Loved the large Jenga set!
I was at Junction in the 90s. It’s great to see the Branch before I signed it. Surprised to see a 20 on the train.
This was interesting -- an answer to one of those situations where you wonder, "How did they do that?"
Wonderful peek back through time.
Very interesting, thanks for onlining
No gloves, no helmets, no tea, everybody's smoking!
Plus no HiViz jackets, no hard hats, no walkie-talkies, members of the public in close proximity - just pure common sense. Things only got dangerous when the ‘elf’n’saftee w@nkers got involved.
Plus no waiting 2 years just to fix a pothole
Wot! No tea? Doesn't sound British
I was thinking while watching: everyone in the way of movement; no harnesses, straps, or safety rails for those on moving vehicles.
No goggles! What if the seals suddenly ruptured on one of those jacks and squirted the attentive foreman right in the eye with hot, pressurized, carcinogenic hydraulic oil? He'd have run over the cwm crying like a baby! Oh, wait-not in those days. He'd have wiped it off with his sleeve without a flinch.
A boot full of adventure and an egg for tea 😍👌🥚👍
@@Trevor_Austin Yes, the good old days, when you could tell a press operator by his missing fingers.
They had to do a screw over several times. Yes, I have been screwed over a good many times in my life. Otherwise, fascinating. All the machines, electric, rail and road, made in Britain. The Pickfords tractor units were a Scammell and an AEC. And how delightful the Welsh landscape is here, even the industrial areas. Time for a revisit after covid.
A lot of sheer muscle involved and no one wearing gloves. Men were tough then and used what they had jacks, winches, blocks of wood. Great a big Meccano set just as I had when young. This power station is still used as designed. Brilliant.
Nice video makes me wonder what happened to everyone , the kids and such what life did they have .
I often think that as well
@@xr6lad history
Excellent film, hard work on the Harp.....
In Victoria in Australia the State Electricity Commission (now privatised) moved a few big transformers by road. Sometimes using two trucks side by side. The terrain was mostly flat. I imagine the Wales location had many winding roads.
Transformer built by Ferranti’s of Edinburgh. Sold off their Heavy Electrical Division to Napier’s in the late 20thC., to concentrate on avionics. Now a subsidiary of BAE.
Ferranti, Hollinwood Avenue Chadderton. Also home of Avro.
Poor transformer got screwed over so many times even before its service life started.
Not to mention the "Jack and Pack, Jack and Pack, Jack and Pack..."
Plus the "bullet ends thrust past" as well. What an innuendo filled video. Love it.
@@GaryNumeroUno I'm gonna hafta listen to this again and screen the soundtrack for breadcrumbs of dry Brit humor.
To "screw it over" they were using a Ratchet (rat-sh*t, get it?).
Just wonderful.
Admire the chief engineer’s tweed suit!
The spot coat! The 60s were wild.
Brilliant film😀
Super film.
I didn’t know Pickfords had been going this long!
The company was founded in 1646- one of the oldest established companies in the UK
By then it was part of the British Transport Commission with BR, NCL, Tilling Bus and few of the shipping arms that became Sealink
@@daveoftheclanburgess I did see (in my distant youth) Pickfords lorries with a logo on the cab very similar to that of British Railways (the one after the cycling lion) so I guess that it must have been a generic logo.
Read of Pickford's having a container furniture house moving system using railways and local horse cart pickup and set down in 1848. In the book Stokers and Pokers.
Very early rail container transport 170 plus years ago.
The woman at 6:47 'Weebles wobble but they don't fall down' !!!
Interesseting video :)
Fascinating film
Excellent
Fascinating. Such planning and all without computers. We have probably lost those skills in just a few of generations.
yes, you have
I love Bleanu, great industrial history
Had this on video in the 1990s. I believe it may have been called Pickfords Power and had two other documentaries on it.
ASMR is great. This is lime train ASMR.
Only last year another transformer was delivered to Black Rock Sands by sea to complete its journey by road.
Fascinating film to watch it was funny the old woman getting amongst it 🤣
4:27 oh that poor 4F. Imagine if that load did come lose and rolled back into that poor thing. It could have derailed the poor engine, or at least cracked the frames
If the couplings broke then surely the vacuum brakes would have come on automaticaly.
The brakevan would've slowed the breakaway section, I think it was just a precaution.
Love those Pickford trucks
And the cloth caps
Notice at 12:33 a shot of a group of boys watching men doing something useful. Nowadays it's boys on playstation, men tapping at a keyboard.
An interesting vintage video, nicely done. I wonder if that transformer is still in service?
Life before the SPMT - Self Propelled Modular Transporter
"jack and stack"... I suppose nowadays it would just be lifted by a pair of mobile cranes...
Narrated by Richard Baker. Is that the same Richard Baker who used to read the BBC TV news? Kind of sounds like him.
Imagine making something to fit where you need to move it. The Dutch people building bezos's yacht should have watched this
Ah, the good old days?
👍👍
Wasn't this section of line cut during the Beeching act?
No its still there. Though the station at Blaenau Ffestiniog is now closed, replaced about 200m further along the connecting line to the old GWR line which is closed and lifted beyond Trawsfynydd Power Station, and currently disused from beyond the present Blaenau Ffestiniog station shared with the Ffestiniog Railway.
Look at the old biddy getting mixed up in the scheme of things at 6.48!
She always comes back from the shops at that time of day. She's not putting herself out for any of that new-fangled transformer nonsense.
Never mind her, what about the woman in white at 10:27 ?
When men were men and women were proud of em.
if any of the (single) cables would have failed, there would have been lots of casualties, injured or killed by the cables, especially with the many bystanders. those there the days of terrible safety, but then safety is red tape anyway that must be removed at all cost.
I wonder if it is still there?
The transformer? I wonder...the power station itself is still going strong but some of the plant might well have been replaced since.
Sounds like the same narrator for the class 53 "falcon" film
DracoFatalis299 the narrator is Richard Baker, later to be famous as a newsreader.
3:03 Levitating child!
😂😂
That was a problem: the limits are put by the logistic problems... not by techonology
Yes Syed, over here we just suck it and see.
Saw this 7 years ago lol
Posted by another youtuber
I bet that cost a fortune to send through ParcelForce!
It was actually sent by Red Star!
Bet they were pissed off when there was nobody in and they had to leave a card.
You get a discount if you speak Parseltongue.
If that was a modern parcel courier they’d have chucked it over the fence without getting a signature!
Surely all wagons would be on the pipe. Fully braked ?
Only the front part of the train would have been braked - there would be no way of running a pipe over the transformer wagon.
@@NickBurman I’ve dealt with steel carrying Bogie Bolsters with 60 foot long steel brake pipes to supply vacuum to the next wagon. Stoke Gifford, and St Phillips Marsh Bristol.
Lots of mention of health & Safety, etc, but look how many people were involved. Mammoet and the like do this with a team less than a quarter of the size these days, but in exactly the same manner. The efficiencies of the later 60s, 70s and 80s and onward were not kind to these skilled people.
Minecraft is my favourite game.
Good.
I like turtles 🐢
@@mikesharples6086 Who else laughed at this? 😂😂
yea- that's how i would have done it
Why not take the pieces and have the company take its workers up to assemble. Surely cheaper than changing rolling stock and bridges etc.
See xaenon's qustion and answer above.
Not a Health and Safety wally in sight, and yet the job gets done without any fuss.
would have taken ten times as long no with the risk assessments etc
5:07. Typical. One guy bustin his ass, four guys supervising.
Would it not have been easier to disassemble the transformer for shipping, and assemble it on-site?
Not so much. The transformer shell is a single welded structure (to better prevent leaks of oil), so no way to make it smaller. It could be made lighter, by shipping the three cores separate from the shell, but then you would have to install them at the site, which would need an overhead gantry.
@@SynchroScore Okay, that makes sense. Thank you for clarifying that.
No hi vis or health and safety just common sence...lol theres lots screwing over in this vid...
They got their hands dirty and worked hard, is that allowed nowadays?
You'd be surprised if you just left your tiny bubble of nostalgia.
Movements of Monstrosities
MrBeast is a better than this but I still like it.
Pewdiepie is better.
Who, the cringe nazi?
@@cantthinkofaname3344 You're a moron.
The word "nazi" has lost all meaning.
I didn't know he had been ill...
Nobody likes him