For my much missed dad who started as carriage cleaner then fireman & eventually driver for over 40 years until he retired in 1985 Tunbridge Wells West to Victoria xx . thank you
I just wanted to go back that world of our steam railway heritage, everything about this film and its music, voice over, which sounds so British that makes me feel proud and privildeged to have that in my back ground. As London boy with all the assocciated noises of a working railway were never too far away from hearing all it variuos activities. As a boy growing up in that environment i loved all the engineering associted with it when your growing up with playing on those wonderful lattice steel bridges with their wooden sleeper steps you felt the solid vibrations as you walked on them and when you reached the top you will be bathed in a cloud of steam engine aroma,s smelling of coal, engine oil , and coal smoke. that surrounds you when those engines passed below it was so thrilling and exciting. Plus a million other memories of my love and expieriences with the railways of that time too numerous to include on here, but i share the passion and love with everyone enjoys our steam railway heretidge thank you for this evocotive video it really brought me back to those glorious days.
Fond memories of my granddad, he started as an apprentice at Newport (Middlesbrough) shed on the North Eastern Railway in 1908. He became a fireman and then a locomotive driver, transferring to Saltburn shed in the 1920s. He mainly drove the routes Saltburn-Middlesbrough-Darlington or Saltburn-Whitby-Scarborough. He retired in 1961, having made the transition from steam to driving diesel trains, from NER to LNER and British Railways. I can just remember him getting up to walk down the line to work when he was on early turn, with his "bait" tin and bottle of tea. And always with a "Woodbine" in his mouth, which sadly did for him in 1969. My elder brother has his retirement clock and tea bottle. RIP granddad Albert.
I worked in West Yorks Police in 1969 and our mid shift meal was bait or snap... I think snap was more South Yorks.. The free batter pieces on the fish and chips was 'scraps' until just south of Leeds and then 'bits' south of there
I was born in 1946 and by the time I was 20 all the many thousands of steam locomotives had disappeared. It’s difficult to believe now but the Peppercorn Pacifics which were built when I was a toddler had all been scrapped, some after only 13 years of service. Yet we thought of them as permanent features when we went spotting at Newark or Retford. And it’s amazing how labour-intensive steam was, as this film reminds us. Though nostalgics like me regret the passing of steam locomotives, we perfectly understand why they had to go. According to this film, all British railwaymen were stoical chaps who went about their work with the utmost seriousness and hardly ever spoke to each other! I am certain this is a wrong impression!
You should have come to live in Australia my son, as even in 1968 at BHP I was fireman on steam engines at #1,#2,#3 Blast Furnaces. Alright....it wasn't "On the Road" as they say, but it was a lot of fun driving Bantam Class engines. Taking slag to the dump, 100 ton in 5 ladels up front and 5 behind with 100. After getting the "green" you'd "give it the message" from as far back as you can get. Flat out round the corner, tipping an occasional amount on the bend, then up the cutting, dropping sand when needed. Aaaaah.....those were the days! 😁👍
P.S. Afternoon and night shift.....as Fireman/Watcher you'd get to do all the driving. (You have to "learn the trade" my son) Lot's of fun and you got paid handsomely. 😉
I agree and wish I could have seen the old times in person when it came to steam. These old videos are wonderful in lots of ways but a bit of what the office types want us to see instead of how the chaps doing the work really were. They do mention the day to day little issues, but I believe you experienced enough to know better.
Born in 1956 mercifully got a taste of the tail end of mainline steam traction in my 20's. South Africa was the world's last steam train bastion until as late as the '80's when they too bowed to the tenets of modernity. In retrospect, with an abundance of coal and a burgeoning steam train tourism industry, investing in continued steam preservation wouldh've been a WIN.
I was born in 1959. Every schoolboy wanted to be a train driver back then. We all had train sets, we weren’t rich, so I had a wind up one. Probably worth a fortune these days though, if it is in working order. Very nostalgic watching this old film. Thank you. 👍
Almost complete absence of eye protection or other PPE in the foundry areas. A completely different attitude to risk, especially when you think of the systems they had to ensure that the trains ran safely and where we have safety precautions available since the sixties. No wonder people ended up with eye injuries. A fascinating view of how the railways were.
Very interesting film with its views of 'how things were'. It's engagingly reticent on the names of the locations; apart from the obvious ones like Paddington, I couldn't recognize most with the possible exception of a shot at Rugby (15:49 ish).
Yes, I agree. Also love the way the station master's dog is with him and free. Booking office and ticket clerks. No download our app and have your ticket on your phone!
What worthwhile lives they lived, estimable men doing skilled jobs filled with meaning and fulfillment. How little of that we see today in the UK, a devastating loss.
What a brilliant concise programme. My Uncle was driver on the Golden arrow, my Dad a fireman on another train and used to toot the horn when he went past my Mum's factory. Both my grandfathers worked on the railway, both footplate workers I think because they got the extra ww2 cheese ration for the excessively long hours they worked.
Dirty, inefficient, labour intensive, but what a mighty machine the steam locomotive is. One of mans most impressive engineering achievements that started off with the lid of a kettle popping up under steam pressure, and someone thinking, hmmm.....
Wonderful snapshot in time. I love seeing the Castles and the differing roles on the railway, especially the depot scenes. It's such a shame that so much of our rsikwsy network was lost in the 1970s.
For all it was hard work, it was wholesome and supplied good peoples' basic life needs. Where on earth did all that skill and enthusiasm and confidence go ? How on earth did Britain finish up as a sad little banana republic ?
A fascinating tale of the daily lives of railway men. Those in the foundry seemed to have had no protective devices to guard against eye and body injuries.
My male relatives were mostly on the LNER in various positions. Steam engines of course. There was a Railway College in York .where my uncle became a railway surveyor . These graduates were sought after by other countries in the Commonwealth.
10.25....£8 per week wages....but.......the average price of a semi-detached house in England in 1946, was about £1000-£1,200; ( about £76,000 today )....... to put it in perspective!
I used to work for a railway, but not like the guys in this film. I was a telecommunications technician for Canadian National and, back in the mid 70s, often rode on freight trains to get to my work location.
I'm JUST old enough to remember commercial steam (born '61). A steam train pulled into Newbury Station while my Mum and I waited for a diesel, and I remember thinking it was attractive but unusual.
Nearly forced to watch him on the good old days tv programme all those years ago when there were only bbc and itv and they didn’t even have multiple channels 😊ps love the fact the driver and fireman never spoke to each other 😊
Where are all the dark skinned folk who we are now told are supposedly more capable intelligent and talented than us indigenous folk? We never needed them.
£7 per week sounds like nothing, it's nowhere near our present-day minimum wage, but my grandma's housekeeping in those days was 10 shillings, or 50p each week to get all the household food and supplies!
jackie. Sorry, but you have been misinformed - ten bob a week wouldn't be enough, even then. I started work in 1948 as an office junior at 30 bob - 1pound 50p - a week, and my mother took ten bob, just as my contribution to the housekeeping, and I certainly wasn't doubling her weekly allowance!
My grand father was a fireman before going in the army. It's obvious that so many railwaymen were very proud . It's sad that there is scant evidence of any pride nowadays
It's a wonder most of those railroad employees could even see, hear or breath after working an entire career in that line of work. OSHA would have a field day with these guys.
And a couple of years later Nationalisation, Diesels should have been pursued quicker, but poor balance of payments meant oil would have been expensive, coal was Nationalised as well so 999 new steam locos it would be.
Also the expense of renewing war-damaged infrastructure would have been astronomical. But you would have thought post WW2 would have been a good time to make inroads towards dieselisation ; no forward-planning there, & still several loco-factories geared to knocking out more steamers until 1960, inexplicably. The UK still having a large coal-producing sector came into it I guess
Great machines of Fire & Water... For the life of me...i can't understand why British Railway engines never were fitted with Headlamps like the American ones. Anyone here to elaborate on the above?
Yeah but don't forget they didn't need them then because steam was a truly remarkable way of getting about and there wasn't as much health safety back then and not only that but it was better planned out like take the LNER for example the LNER would have told both the PWay gang and the S and T gang on where there going to be working and they would have told the signal man as well as the driver but also steam were a noisy engine interms of the chunting but also you could here them with the fish plates but the modern railway today.
As I am from Ceylon saw so many of steam engines and would say about one of the important thing of running the train on the way the person who is the incharge for the signal is so of in concern please.
The late 1940s just after the Second World War was a brief period of time when Britain was civilised. most people had a job and access to a new NHS. By the mid 1960s Britain was becoming over populated and with unemployment and poverty on the rise again as British industry went bust due to lack of post WW2 investment.
Shakespearean accents would be very strange Shakespeare was around in the Stuart Period. People in the 1950s spoke English not American... before the take over by film and tv.?
Shakespearean? We have no record of how people spoke in the 1500's but WS was from the Midlands so possibly spoke in what we now know as a Brummie accent! The voices in this film are largely Received English, or "BBC English."
WOULD'NT HAV MINDED GIVING MOST OF THESE GRAFTERS PART OF MY WINTER FUEL ALLOWANCE AS A COFFIN DODGER😂 LOL, BUT NOT THE MAJORITY OF IDLE BARSTEWARD TRAIN DRIVERS THATS THEER NOW PLEADING POVERTY,😢😢😊
I worked on BR , alot of those men were probably tired, shift work etc, also it depended on who you were working with, some of the staff on BR were ignorant morons who didn’t know one end of a train from another, scum, in short, and some were nice blokes, I worked for a short time on the S&Y at Ashford Kent in 1978, the blokes were horrendous scum
Lovely stuff.
Wonderful film, great look back at railway work 70 years ago..
For my much missed dad who started as carriage cleaner then fireman & eventually driver for over 40 years until he retired in 1985 Tunbridge Wells West to Victoria xx . thank you
I just wanted to go back that world of our steam railway heritage, everything about this film and its music, voice over, which sounds so British that makes me feel proud and privildeged to have that in my back ground. As London boy with all the assocciated noises of a working railway were never too far away from hearing all it variuos activities. As a boy growing up in that environment i loved all the engineering associted with it when your growing up with playing on those wonderful lattice steel bridges with their wooden sleeper steps you felt the solid vibrations as you walked on them and when you reached the top you will be bathed in a cloud of steam engine aroma,s smelling of coal, engine oil , and coal smoke. that surrounds you when those engines passed below it was so thrilling and exciting. Plus a million other memories of my love and expieriences with the railways of that time too numerous to include on here, but i share the passion and love with everyone enjoys our steam railway heretidge thank you for this evocotive video it really brought me back to those glorious days.
It is the Character of the British people that I miss. We seemed to rise and fall with the steam engine.
Fond memories of my granddad, he started as an apprentice at Newport (Middlesbrough) shed on the North Eastern Railway in 1908. He became a fireman and then a locomotive driver, transferring to Saltburn shed in the 1920s. He mainly drove the routes Saltburn-Middlesbrough-Darlington or Saltburn-Whitby-Scarborough. He retired in 1961, having made the transition from steam to driving diesel trains, from NER to LNER and British Railways. I can just remember him getting up to walk down the line to work when he was on early turn, with his "bait" tin and bottle of tea. And always with a "Woodbine" in his mouth, which sadly did for him in 1969. My elder brother has his retirement clock and tea bottle. RIP granddad Albert.
I worked in West Yorks Police in 1969 and our mid shift meal was bait or snap... I think snap was more South Yorks.. The free batter pieces on the fish and chips was 'scraps' until just south of Leeds and then 'bits' south of there
I was born in 1946 and by the time I was 20 all the many thousands of steam locomotives had disappeared. It’s difficult to believe now but the Peppercorn Pacifics which were built when I was a toddler had all been scrapped, some after only 13 years of service. Yet we thought of them as permanent features when we went spotting at Newark or Retford. And it’s amazing how labour-intensive steam was, as this film reminds us. Though nostalgics like me regret the passing of steam locomotives, we perfectly understand why they had to go. According to this film, all British railwaymen were stoical chaps who went about their work with the utmost seriousness and hardly ever spoke to each other! I am certain this is a wrong impression!
You should have come to live in Australia my son, as even in 1968 at BHP I was fireman on steam engines at #1,#2,#3 Blast Furnaces. Alright....it wasn't "On the Road" as they say, but it was a lot of fun driving Bantam Class engines. Taking slag to the dump, 100 ton in 5 ladels up front and 5 behind with 100. After getting the "green" you'd "give it the message" from as far back as you can get. Flat out round the corner, tipping an occasional amount on the bend, then up the cutting, dropping sand when needed. Aaaaah.....those were the days! 😁👍
P.S. Afternoon and night shift.....as Fireman/Watcher you'd get to do all the driving. (You have to "learn the trade" my son) Lot's of fun and you got paid handsomely. 😉
I agree and wish I could have seen the old times in person when it came to steam. These old videos are wonderful in lots of ways but a bit of what the office types want us to see instead of how the chaps doing the work really were. They do mention the day to day little issues, but I believe you experienced enough to know better.
Born in 1956 mercifully got a taste of the tail end of mainline steam traction in my 20's. South Africa was the world's last steam train bastion until as late as the '80's when they too bowed to the tenets of modernity. In retrospect, with an abundance of coal and a burgeoning steam train tourism industry, investing in continued steam preservation wouldh've been a WIN.
I was Born in 1949😂😂
My father was a driver with the LMS before, during and after WW2.
Some of the most under appreciated people in the war.
Brilliant historical document, so glad they chose to preserve this snapshot for future generations to understand
I was born in 1959. Every schoolboy wanted to be a train driver back then. We all had train sets, we weren’t rich, so I had a wind up one. Probably worth a fortune these days though, if it is in working order. Very nostalgic watching this old film. Thank you. 👍
Could watch these type of film all day. Lovely to look back at how things were run. Thank god they were made to show the old days. Fascinating 😊
Almost complete absence of eye protection or other PPE in the foundry areas. A completely different attitude to risk, especially when you think of the systems they had to ensure that the trains ran safely and where we have safety precautions available since the sixties. No wonder people ended up with eye injuries. A fascinating view of how the railways were.
Very interesting film with its views of 'how things were'. It's engagingly reticent on the names of the locations; apart from the obvious ones like Paddington, I couldn't recognize most with the possible exception of a shot at Rugby (15:49 ish).
Love the P way gang in the era of no high viz vest and hard hats
Yes, I agree. Also love the way the station master's dog is with him and free. Booking office and ticket clerks. No download our app and have your ticket on your phone!
Amazing historic record. "We still use horses for local deliveries." No shortage of jobs then, though the pay wasn't lavish.
What worthwhile lives they lived, estimable men doing skilled jobs filled with meaning and fulfillment. How little of that we see today in the UK, a devastating loss.
Fascinating. When Britain did everything for itself, and made everything for iytself and others, superb skills.
What a brilliant concise programme. My Uncle was driver on the Golden arrow, my Dad a fireman on another train and used to toot the horn when he went past my Mum's factory.
Both my grandfathers worked on the railway, both footplate workers I think because they got the extra ww2 cheese ration for the excessively long hours they worked.
Dirty, inefficient, labour intensive, but what a mighty machine the steam locomotive is. One of mans most impressive engineering achievements that started off with the lid of a kettle popping up under steam pressure, and someone thinking, hmmm.....
Wonderful snapshot in time. I love seeing the Castles and the differing roles on the railway, especially the depot scenes. It's such a shame that so much of our rsikwsy network was lost in the 1970s.
For all it was hard work, it was wholesome and supplied good peoples' basic life needs. Where on earth did all that skill and enthusiasm and confidence go ? How on earth did Britain finish up as a sad little banana republic ?
So much better than the new Jaguar ad !
I started as a Guard and retired as a Manager. I thoroughly enjoyed it but that was before privatisation.
I started as a BR freight guard, became a manager, then saw the light and became a driver. I have no intention of retiring.
I have this on a DVD and it is very interesting. Was born in '50 missed the steam era. 😢
When I started on BR in June 1979. I went from Traction Trainee to Secondman, in 6 weeks.
My father began training as a fireman on the GWR based at reading during the war.......age 14.
A fascinating tale of the daily lives of railway men. Those in the foundry seemed to have had no protective devices to guard against eye and body injuries.
Very nice indeed, totally absorbing, and a very good ending. Once a train spotter, always a train spotter.
My male relatives were mostly on the LNER in various positions. Steam engines of course. There was a Railway College in York .where my uncle became a railway surveyor . These graduates were sought after by other countries in the Commonwealth.
THANK YOU
Wonderful memories from my Childhood
It's remarkable is it really the past, things change so imperceptibly unnoticeably a few years and the the past is gone
Wow loved every moment of that, (tear) fantastic video.
10.35 was Wycombe Middle and 11.05 was Wycombe North Goods.
When the country had pride
Excellent. Thank you for showing this
Thanks a lot. Really enjoyed this.
10.25....£8 per week wages....but.......the average price of a semi-detached house in England in 1946, was about £1000-£1,200; ( about £76,000 today )....... to put it in perspective!
The 2 SR U nits at 11.28 are 2 HAL 2605 [MBS 10723] + 2 BIL 2010 [MBS 10567].
I used to work for a railway, but not like the guys in this film. I was a telecommunications technician for Canadian National and, back in the mid 70s, often rode on freight trains to get to my work location.
Fascinating. Hard life. Hard work, but job security.
Wonderful, and so informative.
Cracking good show!
Associated
Society
Locomotive
Engineers
Firemen
*ASLEF*
Their history is very interesting.
Loved to watch ❤ such a beautiful lovely old steam locomotives & old wagons superb oldy goldy train as i love railways❤❤❤
train
I'm JUST old enough to remember commercial steam (born '61). A steam train pulled into Newbury Station while my Mum and I waited for a diesel, and I remember thinking it was attractive but unusual.
We visited the NW in 67 and travelled from Ormskirk to Preston on the last day of steam.
@@stephenholmes1036: That must've been emotional!
The man at 1.07 is the actor Leonard Sachs.
Good god almighty.
Nearly forced to watch him on the good old days tv programme all those years ago when there were only bbc and itv and they didn’t even have multiple channels 😊ps love the fact the driver and fireman never spoke to each other 😊
Look at the Southern Railway's Station master stepping across the live rails at 660-750v dc. Glad his dog stayed on the platform
Yes you might like hot dogs but not for that lovable station masters dog, who had the best life Im sure.
Ah , a bit of cinematic bollocks , crossing tracks is a regular occurrence , un restrained pets , never saw one ,
That stationmaster looks rather like Blakey: "I 'ate you, Butler."
Live rails, for a steam train?
@@davewolfy2906 Much Southern Region track had a live rail then as far as I know (before my time 🙂)
Brilliant and informative
And all made in Great Britain 🇬🇧
Where are all the dark skinned folk who we are now told are supposedly more capable intelligent and talented than us indigenous folk? We never needed them.
Brilliantly portrayed
£7 per week sounds like nothing, it's nowhere near our present-day minimum wage, but my grandma's housekeeping in those days was 10 shillings, or 50p each week to get all the household food and supplies!
jackie. Sorry, but you have been misinformed - ten bob a week wouldn't be enough, even then. I started work in 1948 as an office junior at 30 bob - 1pound 50p - a week, and my mother took ten bob, just as my contribution to the housekeeping, and I certainly wasn't doubling her weekly allowance!
good old days
Ah..... British steam!👍👏❤️🇬🇧😊
i doubt many kids today could handel this type of work.
My grand father was a fireman before going in the army. It's obvious that so many railwaymen were very proud . It's sad that there is scant evidence of any pride nowadays
The end had me laughing out loud....it is so true....
Absolute steam powered heaven 👍🏻❗️🚂😇
Wow, that lady's singing voice is almost in the ultrasonic range 😂
'Elf and safety' would 'ave a fit!
A fascinating part of past British history of 78 years ago, with those pay rates, hard manual labour, and everyone smoking!
Wonderful movie. I like it.
Bring back all those manufacturing skills, we should never be dependent upon other countries for our infrastructure
Totally agree!
It's a wonder most of those railroad employees could even see, hear or breath after working an entire career in that line of work. OSHA would have a field day with these guys.
Wonderful.
And a couple of years later Nationalisation, Diesels should have been pursued quicker, but poor balance of payments meant oil would have been expensive, coal was Nationalised as well so 999 new steam locos it would be.
Also the expense of renewing war-damaged infrastructure would have been astronomical. But you would have thought post WW2 would have been a good time to make inroads towards dieselisation ; no forward-planning there, & still several loco-factories geared to knocking out more steamers until 1960, inexplicably. The UK still having a large coal-producing sector came into it I guess
15.46 looks like Rugby with the Great Central crossing above.
That's when Britain was great
That's true, we're now in Terminal Decline
@BillSikes. Yes and i wonder why?...
.
Ok boomer.
@@BillSikes.no we’re not.
@@peternagy-im4beI mean, we’re not, but you keep thinking that, boomer.
Great machines of Fire & Water...
For the life of me...i can't understand why British Railway engines never were fitted with Headlamps like the American ones.
Anyone here to elaborate on the above?
Yeah but don't forget they didn't need them then because steam was a truly remarkable way of getting about and there wasn't as much health safety back then and not only that but it was better planned out like take the LNER for example the LNER would have told both the PWay gang and the S and T gang on where there going to be working and they would have told the signal man as well as the driver but also steam were a noisy engine interms of the chunting but also you could here them with the fish plates but the modern railway today.
There are several fine French films made just after the war about the SNCF.
that's the way the railway should be run
As I am from Ceylon saw so many of steam engines and would say about one of the important thing of running the train on the way the person who is the incharge for the signal is so of in concern please.
Now they have train spotters not looking for a number -- just for a train!!!!!!!!
Is the guard looking out at the Birdcage Bridge,Rugby?
Good
If their eyesight did not remain good, were they transferred to other jobs?
Mast gadi hi wo. Chook chook gadi.
Nice old movie
The late 1940s just after the Second World War was a brief period of time when Britain was civilised. most people had a job and access to a new NHS.
By the mid 1960s Britain was becoming over populated and with unemployment and poverty on the rise again as British industry went bust due to lack of post WW2 investment.
LordTantrums. The NHS did not arrive until two years after this film was made.
Whato all,
Was the Victorian lecturer Leonard Sachs?
Nobody speaks in these Shakespearean accents anymore. Jolly good eh, pip pip!
I say!!! You're frightfully candid what!!?? Good Lord!
No, indeed. Today's voice overs often sound like quacking ducks!
Shakespearean accents would be very strange Shakespeare was around in the Stuart Period. People in the 1950s spoke English not American... before the take over by film and tv.?
Shakespearean? We have no record of how people spoke in the 1500's but WS was from the Midlands so possibly spoke in what we now know as a Brummie accent! The voices in this film are largely Received English, or "BBC English."
I wish you could colourise these films
SHOEE! I likem.
🚂🚂🚂❣️❤
WOULD'NT HAV MINDED GIVING MOST OF THESE GRAFTERS PART OF MY WINTER FUEL ALLOWANCE AS A COFFIN DODGER😂 LOL, BUT NOT THE MAJORITY OF IDLE BARSTEWARD TRAIN DRIVERS THATS THEER NOW PLEADING POVERTY,😢😢😊
They did not look very happy did they
I worked on BR , alot of those men were probably tired, shift work etc, also it depended on who you were working with, some of the staff on BR were ignorant morons who didn’t know one end of a train from another, scum, in short, and some were nice blokes, I worked for a short time on the S&Y at Ashford Kent in 1978, the blokes were horrendous scum
1946 my farther was still a German prisoner of war over here in england with large round patch on his back to make it easier to shoot him
And then they all wore hat's
From a time when men were men ,and women wore nylons
They’d be lucky to get nylons in 1946!
@@edwardwilson4974spivs?
Ok boomerc
we were better organised at Saltley
Brfore Nationalisation by the Atlee government.
S&T I should have written, Ashford Kent, the staff were more or less all scum, needless to say I left after 3 months