I've worked on the railway for 35 years now and always enjoy these types of films, they would have been shown mainly to employees to keep them up to date with developments rather than the ordinary public.
I particularly enjoyed the part about how much the design of the new stations was so stylish when they were fairly hideous boxes, with zero design flair!
Loved the balancing act with the ladders and the o/h lines. You can't even hire a ladder from HSS now, "...ladders are for access, not for working from". Liked the footage of the Peaks with MkII stock.
Love the levels of Health and Safety we see in these old films... None of this head to toe orange clothing, no mobile platforms, just ladders with hooks on them, and who needs them when you can simply walk the wires ! - At least they had a couple of guys holding the rope around the guys laying on the ladders at an angle of 20 degrees !
Health and Safety has a bad press due to the activities of some petty martinets. The big change in the fifty years I have spent in the Building Industry is the reduction of workers who end their working day in an ambulance. We have all had lucky escapes in the past.
Wonderful to see a rail project of such a scale that was running ahead of schedule and with great precision. Pity we seem to have learnt nothing in the last decades. (e.g. Crossrail, HS2 etc. way behind schedule and 10 times over budget.) Where did we go wrong?😄
These days, any such project will be behind schedule and over budget. It takes time and money to manipulate contracts, sub contracts, so that the get rich quick snakes pick up their over sized slice of the pie....
Because we ignore the true costs of projects in order to get them approved by H.M. Treasury. It's easier to add extras to the bill than get the correct amount approved. But this is what we voted for as a nation.
@@AndreiTupolev exactly, the brand-new cl.317 EMUs sat in the sidings, 'blacked' by the unions, while the depot fitters struggled to keep the already clapped-out cl.127 DMUs running every day.
The new Kings Cross station for the Moorgate / ( thameslink in due course), section always seemed draughty and underused to my thinking - though I was mainly in the area weekends from after 1984.
Literally over the road from Kings Cross. It was replaced in the mid to late 2000s (2007 I think, off the top of my head) by the current St Pancras Thameslink platforms.
wow , for quality in 1980 , it has barely changed since 1963 and the audio quality is much worse compared to 60s ones! I never expected that from early 80s films until now!
It was sad that after all the hard work and finally commuters getting new electric trains the union blacked the class 317s because they were DOO so you had brand new trains left in cricklewood sidings not being used exposed to the element’s one got damaged in a shunting accident ,now days they may of got tagged too then thank goodness the graffiti was just a minor problem except the back of the top deck of a 220 bus
I've worked on the railway for 35 years now and always enjoy these types of films, they would have been shown mainly to employees to keep them up to date with developments rather than the ordinary public.
I particularly enjoyed the part about how much the design of the new stations was so stylish when they were fairly hideous boxes, with zero design flair!
Loved the balancing act with the ladders and the o/h lines. You can't even hire a ladder from HSS now, "...ladders are for access, not for working from". Liked the footage of the Peaks with MkII stock.
Trip down memory lane this film
Fascinating. Pity about the demolition of perfectly good Victorian stations, though. Is Bedford's 'fiesta-like' restaurant still there, I wonder?
Exactly
First thing i thought, what horrible plastic world we entered into in the 80's.
@@flybobbie1449
And it only got far worse!
Its still there and wont be for much longer with EWR needing the space for more platforms!
Great film and you've got to admire the guys doing the electrification works! This was the cheap version of OLE
Love the levels of Health and Safety we see in these old films... None of this head to toe orange clothing, no mobile platforms, just ladders with hooks on them, and who needs them when you can simply walk the wires ! - At least they had a couple of guys holding the rope around the guys laying on the ladders at an angle of 20 degrees !
A few years earlier, they would not have had hi-vis bras either.
Health and safety is constantly changing.
When Piper Alpha rig blew up, all this hi viz health and safety came in. In funny way has lead to all this woke nonsense we have now.
@@flybobbie1449 I bet them hi viz jackets helped when it blew up I think not.
Health and Safety has a bad press due to the activities of some petty martinets. The big change in the fifty years I have spent in the Building Industry is the reduction of workers who end their working day in an ambulance. We have all had lucky escapes in the past.
The 1970s - those were the days my friend / We thought they would never end. End they certainly did though.
Gary Glitter and Jimmy Saville.
@@saltspringrailway3683 Friend said he went to school with Gary Glitter, i asked, what in his car!
@@saltspringrailway3683
Yes because there have never been famous paedophiles in recent times.
Wonderful to see a rail project of such a scale that was running ahead of schedule and with great precision. Pity we seem to have learnt nothing in the last decades. (e.g. Crossrail, HS2 etc. way behind schedule and 10 times over budget.) Where did we go wrong?😄
Ahead of schedule, except that it was all finished and ready but the unions delayed it by a whole year through their usual uncooperativeness
These days, any such project will be behind schedule and over budget. It takes time and money to manipulate contracts, sub contracts, so that the get rich quick snakes pick up their over sized slice of the pie....
Because we ignore the true costs of projects in order to get them approved by H.M. Treasury. It's easier to add extras to the bill than get the correct amount approved. But this is what we voted for as a nation.
@@AndreiTupolev exactly, the brand-new cl.317 EMUs sat in the sidings, 'blacked' by the unions, while the depot fitters struggled to keep the already clapped-out cl.127 DMUs running every day.
@@keef71 and then tyseley kept them going til around 1993 replacing even more clapped out dmus, 115s and 116s??
Excellent film - thank you! Takes me right back...
most enjoyable. thank you
Quite mind boggling planning involved in this. Extraordinary
Oh the memories of the days of visiting St. Pancras as part of my london terminus spotting days
I remember being at school in Bedford when the new station was built
What I remember about the Bed - Pan line is the minimal disruption to passengers during this work.
Kind of a banger at 12:14, and pleasantly out of place for the rest of the film. Sounds like some of Alan Hawkshaw's music library stuff.
Fabulous video
They did all this for £80 million quid? Today that would be £80 billion estimate and still go over budget. And they said BR was inefficient.
The new Kings Cross station for the Moorgate / ( thameslink in due course), section always seemed draughty and underused to my thinking - though I was mainly in the area weekends from after 1984.
Those old, smelly, unreliable diesels were used for another dozen years on the busy commuter routes around Birmingham.
Great in New St station.
Brilliant thanks ...sounds like the original"leveling up " allocation of money £
4:05 - construction worker wearing a pair of moccasins?
And a heavy bridge beam hardly an inch away.
I almost screamed in agony at the sight of it.
👍
Quite why not adding the electrification to corby was beyond my understanding
If this job had ever gone wrong, would they have bed-pan(ic)ed?
Anyone want to tell me where this mysterious King's Cross (Midland) was or is?
Literally over the road from Kings Cross. It was replaced in the mid to late 2000s (2007 I think, off the top of my head) by the current St Pancras Thameslink platforms.
Current affairs? That’s a really bad pun!
wow , for quality in 1980 , it has barely changed since 1963 and the audio quality is much worse compared to 60s ones! I never expected that from early 80s films until now!
One assumes this ended up on vhs.
Can you do the transperth driver view from Perth to thornlie and from thornlie to Perth at dusk please
You've already said that once
It was sad that after all the hard work and finally commuters getting new electric trains the union blacked the class 317s because they were DOO so you had brand new trains left in cricklewood sidings not being used exposed to the element’s one got damaged in a shunting accident ,now days they may of got tagged too then thank goodness the graffiti was just a minor problem except the back of the top deck of a 220 bus
Marylebone is still full of smelly diesels
And will remain so for a long time to come as it's been heavily modernised for diesel running
@@Keithbarber Indeed maybe battery working too
Thou shalt not work upon the seventh day for it is double time and thou wouldst waste the money earned there on on drink.
Can you do the transperth driver view from Perth to thornlie and from thornlie to Perth at dusk please
These are old videos produced by British Rail. I don't think they'd have that in their library
@@AndreiTupolev y'know transperth is an aussie company?
@@randomclass4653 yes exactly, so there's not likely to be much about them in the BR archives
@@AndreiTupolev i'm pretty sure he's asking for a driver's eye view by Bennet Brook railway. Since they do it on transperth lines that's why.