London Transport Cine Gazette-Chiswick & Acton Works + Croydon Food Production Centre
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ต.ค. 2024
- In the glory days of London Transport it was pretty much self sufficient. On this Cine Gazette we see Chiswick Works and the famous skid pan, then Acton Overhaul Works where the Underground fleet was over-hauled and finally the Croydon Food Production Centre where food stuffs were made & distributed around the vast LT empire to various staff canteens. Before 1970 LT had the green country area buses and Green Line coaches and had garages from Crawley in the south, to Luton in the north. Grays was furthest east while out west were Guildford, High Wycome and Tring. Not forgetting all the red garages and the Underground staff canteens-depots & meal relief points +Aldenham Works, Chiswick and Acton! That's a lot of places to keep stocked with food & drink! If you liked the video please subscribe to my channel, there are lots more transport & quirky vids to upload!
Hats off to the people who comissioned these films. I could watch this stuff all day long!
The history of them goes back to the Grouping companies like the LNER & LMS, indeed the LMS's Edgar Ansty became the leading light in the new British Transport Films after nationalisation in 1948......
Love the Boogie piano soundtrack
Superbly excellent voice tone of the narrator. I believe his was also the voice that described the truly excellent production on the retirement of the last tram in London the title of which escapes me for the moment. What a gift it is to be blessed with good vocal tones, well delivered they will remain in the well adapted recesses of those that hear them, to bring later instant pleasure and reflection of past simple delights.
The tram film was 'The Elelphant Will Never Forget', produced by the brilliant Edgar Ansty ex LMS film unit which became BTF films upon nationalisation of the railways.....
I agree with you but sadly good vocal tone seems to be less appreciated these days.
@@robertp.wainman4094 Not appreciated? I'm afraid it's positively discouraged, old chap!
Dig that boogie woogie piano!
The bloke at the end with the piece of bread vigorously mopped the plate clean with attention to detail and saved the canteen lady a job of washing it.
They probably had a good canteen there, and they worked hard so i assume he wanted every last bit of his grub!
@@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus It's a clip from "Our Canteens" and he had come in quite disgruntled and argumentative.
Lovely, just caught the tail end of those days, remember the old R stock with its whining MA sets well. Back when LT was something to be proud of.
I'm pleased you like the upload. I too grew up with the R Stock and the CO/CP's. I missed videoing R Stock by a couple of years, they went in 1983 and i didn't get a video camera until 1985 but i've caught quite a bit of stuff since that time and i'm still at it!
I was moved age 5 from London to bloomin Coventry.... Yay. Now take my daughter at Easter for a girls weekend for a show, food and museums. I just hope next Easter won't be hell. Daughter is 12 and understands the underground. We have fun. I love London, Husband doesn't. aaarrrggghhh.
No, it's a crazy placce today. I visit it in short burst and retreat back to my rural life as soon as it's practical.
Looking at how well run and managed London Transport was when the people owned and ran it, you can see the disaster of the last 41 years of Thatcher and the private sector. I lived in London and used the services. I was shocked at how bad the service has become.
The service is still a lot better than outside London.......But yes, when LT ran their own operations without political interference it worked very well, until 1970 the country towns and villages around London were served by green London Transport buses and Green Line coaches, from Crawley in the south right up to Luton in the north! It started to go downhill when LT had to buy buses they didn't want rather than their own bespoke designs. These new buses barley lasted 10 years, some only around 5-6 years. RTs did 40, and Routemasters 50! Even te Titan lasted around 25 years but then Leyland collaborated with LT on the design.....
Impressive!
London Transport at its best! Check out videos on Aldenham Bus Overhaul Works to see how they dealt with the bus fleet, it's even more impressive!
London Transport when it had rhe best buses and best drivers.
I love all these old films like the BTF ones. Films made by Edgar Anstey were the best.
I just about remember the days of guards on the underground. I lived in Tolworth, and we rarely went into London. (Old enough to remember RTs & RMCs on the 406 to Redhill, and RFs on the 418)
As others have commented, the HSE would have a fit if they'd visited Acton works back in those days.
They looked after their staff in those days, canteens using food prepared in house. Now, you'd be lucky to find a canteen, if you did, it would be outsourced to one of the bigger companies serving crap unhealthy plastic food. Nowadays it's a room with a kettle or water boilers and a microwave, possibly just a vending machine or two. Failing that, tough tits lads, there is a takeaway and a corner shop a few doors along.
The art of looking after staff and the happy employee is a good employee are long gone.
In those days, if you had a job with London Transport or British Railways, it was a job for life. Maybe not as well paid by todays standards, but you were looked after and they all had good pensions to look forward to. Unlike the current rail pension scheme which according to what I've read, has an increasing black hole in its finances. Hence Stagecoach's situation with rail franchising.
Keep the old films coming, they are excellent.
Yes, Edgar Ansty knew how to make good, quality, informative films. He was an LMS man who ran their film unit which became part of BTF upon the formation of British Railways.
Seeing those traction motors took me back to my days in the steel works changing the traction motors on one of the two material handling cars on the Blast Furnace was one of the worse jobs jn the steel work the top of the material handling car were level with the adjacent canal thus the rails on which the cars ran were level with the bottom of the canal and the canal wall leaked so always wet,wetter even more when it rained between the rails was a small inspection pit much like a concrete coffin without a lid so you got to squeeze into the water filled pit to disconnect the motor then struggle to get the rusty footbolts out drag the motor out and get to do it all in reverse
Very interesting film, I was familiar with the bus overhauls carried out at Aldenham but knew nothing of the extraordinarily skilled work carried out on tube trains at Chiswick. The East Finchley platform indicator board showing WEST END as the train's destination was interesting to see... nowadays it's just 'Morden via Charing Cross'...not much romance in that!
Actually the Underground works is known as Acton and was separated from Chiswick Works (where mechanical bus units were over-hauled + the bus drivers training school) by BR's freight only line to Kew East Junction. Chiswick Works is now history while Acton carries on!
Soi Buakhao thanks for the info!
@@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus - ironically Aldenham was made for Underground trains but when Northern Heights was cancelled and the RM fleet was bought LT decided to convert it for bus overhaul and Chiswick became experimental shop. Acton as you stated remained one of the tube overhaul shops.
44 years since I first "found" Chiswick ... And I still visit the area. I can still recall the fascination of spotting the buses - great engineering lost.
Chiswick did indeed have an experimental shop but continued to overhaul all the mechanical units sent from both garages and Aldenham. Plus of course the Driving School with the famous skid pan, all of which survived until the mid 80s. Aldenham became a conveinient place for a bus works when the Green Belt legislation stopped house building north of Edgware and so removed the traffic flow the Northern Line extension needed. LT had already had the idea for a large overhaul works in the late 30s to relieve pressure on Chiswick (which over-hauled the whole bus itself back then) and the RT bus was designed with the Aldenham Works Float system in mind. The Rt's were the first to use Aldenham in the mid 50s as a BTF film called 'Overhaul' shows. And in the late 60s fifty RM's disappeared into the Works Float system (some fleet numbers not appearing until the late 70s/early 80s!) and for a while RT's and RMs were overhauled side by side. A lovely place, i've been there twice on the two Open Days that were held in 1979 & 1983 and it's only when you stand under an RM body hanging up in the air on the works crane.
a crane operator wearing tie... oh the class of yesteryear
Everyone drssed properly back then from what i've seen on films.....
@@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus They were told in advance the film crew was coming, I bet.
Gone are the days when men were actually real MEN.
1:14 is that Blakey in the middle?
I 'ate you Butler!
At least half the men in these workshops looked as if they were well past retirement age.
Men looked older than their age in those days. They had to work for a living!
1951 long before Health & Safety Law with its yellow jackets and hard hats and the Common Market, and the rest of the nonsense found today in 2020, all in house with no contractors like Metronet and the rest TfL and a Mayor to medal in affairs.
London Transport was a complete world that looked after itself. Bus Works, train works, even a food production centre at Croydon, a building department. At Parsons Green next to the ststion there was a works that produced all the enamel signs and concrete bus stop posts and such like plus the staff association sports grounds and staff canteens at garages and depots, LT was a vast organisation that ran with meticulas precision and detail, record keeping second to none and all without computers!
Yes boo workers not dying on the job, boo an economic system that kept Britons employed post empire and boo a mayor representing the most productive part of the country against provincial nobodies like you....
H&S stopped a lot of people being maimed or killed. In those days safety gear was a flat cap and a woodbine.
Jack Sugden So you prefer to not have a law that protects workers? Amazing.
Yeah, wasn't it great when working class people were considered completely expendable, and were allowed to die from completely preventable industrial accidents and diseases? That's exactly what we need back again!