Vintage railway film - The Railwaymen - 1946
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 มี.ค. 2020
- A British Ministry of Transport film showing what types of railway industry jobs were available in post World War 2 Britain. An excerpt of this film can be found elsewhere on this channel in the 'vintage films' playlist under the title 'Coaling and oiling a steam loco'.
Thanks to Camden Miniature Steam Services for featuring this video in the Kinema section of their newsletter this month. If you haven't already, check out their website here; www.camdenmin.co.uk/
Thanks
Bennett Brook Railway I will travel back in time to be an signalman and an engine driver and I will be the doctor
@@finnsempire5671 o
Thanks....From Kentucky US
This film makes me appreciate the hard, dirty work my grandfather did working for British Rail driving steam locos from the 30's through the 60's.
The University Degree path is not the universal way to success. Learning on the job is grossly underrated.
@isochest you couldn't be more right.
Agreed; but most companies are not interested in investing in new staff these days. They treat the workforce as disposable assets and wonder why the staff work to the hourly wage but no further; or move elsewhere as soon as they can.
I am the living example of this truth… and I guide those who will listen in these idiotic times
This is an amazing film! It's good that it still exists.
I was five years old when this was filmed. But I will always remember the holidays via the railway.
Proud to be working In Railways,, Love from India🤗♥️
I salute you. You are doing India and all your fellow citizens proud. Best wishes from Manchester UK
My dad fired k4 Baldwin locomotives for the Pennsylvania railroad so steam locomotives have a special meaning to me that is why I enjoy the videos of union pacific steam locomotives on TH-cam they are real class
after 38 years of service with the railways I can say I did about a third of all the jobs depicted here , no regrets !
Hope you got a GOOD pension for 38 years!!!
@@trainsntile yes pretty good bud , free public transport in the state for life too . for 38 years of shift work /weekend work the benefit was worth it at the end .
Nice one! Look back and feel proud of all your hard work:-))
@@midnightteapot5633 Good to hear!
I now have tears in me eyes.... saw /experianced most all of in Bangor and n.wales , where b.r. sent all theire steam engines to before scrapping in, I think, mid sixties , as a young boy!!!! THANK YOU .....
Sad to see all those men and machines gone to dust by gone time never to come again.A big hooray to all those railroad men.
Nice to see you all
I'm 71 and would still be taking my train numbers if the steam trains were running .I loved going to all the different stations and sheds collecting the numbers .only steam gave me the excitement that I craved for
Ps the workers always seemed older in them days
3:22 into this film we see 5051 Earl Bathurst. I saw this loco back in early 1970 at Didcot, shortly after removal from the Woodham Bros scrapyard at Barry. 50 years have flown by! I have also been on the footplate of 5051 in the Didcot yard while the engine was in steam- one of three engines I have had this experience- 5051, 6024 and 7808.
I’m 47 been a machinist in Michigan for 12 years, I love my job!
Great old film
This is a wholesome way of living and earning ones keep and living. This
1946?
This is a wonderful piece of archive which brings back happy memories. The boy who is trainspotting at West Drayton & Yiewsley Station is named Raymond who lived in nearby Feltham. His father was an engine driver on the region. Raymond was born in 1946 and footage of him was probably spliced into the original film.
Thanks for the very interesting information. Do you perhaps know where he stays now, He might have a lot of stories about those days.
I also wondered if the boy was still with us today.
Yes. Happily retired in Scandinavia.
@po3336 That is good to hear 😀
What a world it was. Ive been told by many that Im someone who should have been born in a different century, and personally I think it should have been the last as an Engineer or a Driver eventually. Steam Locomotives made the UK. Everyone show some support for the Trust Funds and Steam Heretige Projects that are still occuring today to keep our locomotives chuffing.
On my visits back to England I take my Children to the Bluebell railway down in Sussex.
The guys who used to run alongside goods trucks I believe applying their brakes with long poles, what a dangerous job! 13:48 refers.
I wish the pathe format of film was done today. Makes you proud to do anything.
I like this old models of manual r/ways very much! What impress me are the designs ! It beats moderns 100 times!!
Love this film.
I worked in the peeway from 1984 until 2004 and as i look back now it was the happiest job i ever had, hard dirty work at times but you were part of a gang who looked after their section of track and you all pulled your weight, they were hardwroking bunch,even the old railway guys who were in the 60s could put you to shame with the work they could do.............such happy times believe it or not, digging out beds and replacing sleepers, replacing rails, changing plates, oiling the points, it was more akin to being part of a army squad than a job to be honest, great days.
Glad to know people who worked then, however menial the job be, they took pride in their work unlike today's highly paid white collar executives. Those were the days and I encountered it first hand the way my father took pride in his job and would rant till 28 years later after even his retirement, till his death. Hats off to you, Sir...
When I started my railway career in 1960 it was a 48 hour working week
love the soundtrack orchestra. nothing like old movies for memories
If you are eagle-eyed, you can see that the driver at about 7:00 is still on engine 5066- you can see the number painted on the cab roof above his head. At 7:08 the number is 5091- he's now in a different engine ! He then pulls out of the shed and he's back in 5066. This is why sad old engine enthusiasts, like me, are called "rivet counters".
I noticed that too. Very strange
I did my apprenticeship in road transport engineering in the '80s and I take my hat off to all these men who worked hard for a living and did not need a computer or electronic device to tell them how to do there job or times of trains, it makes me weep when some idiot says to me, after and I quote buying a ticket online travelling from the middle east back to... Oh say.. Manchester.. and some ahem... person.. after spending time stood at a machine after a 15 hour flight wondering, ' What the ****' ' Oh the machines down, you'll have to get your ticket on the train' Yes I can hear the cries of curse them all..
AND what happened to our railways ?? AND now do we not wish we hadn't devastated those branch lines ? Such a short sighted decision to lay waste to our railways.
@Alexander Challis I think there is one thing that you forget, the railways were lost in 1921. HMG never paid the railways for their service during WWI, the Government did not want to reimburse them, so they created the big four from then on we can see the steady decline of the railways. Plus when the Railways wanted to increase parcel prices HMG interfered and said no. WWII saw the railways finished. So when the Labour Government bought the railways in '48 the Big Four were just glad to take the money and walk away due to a total lack of investment for over thirty years, if wasn't for the pits the LNER would have gone bust that is how close it was. Plus there would be limited investment, as all the Marshall plan money instead of going on infrastructure went primarily on saving what was left of the Empire. Yes Minister gives an wonderful insight to the workings of HMG and should be compulsive viewing in schools to remind people how their Government acts especially the treasury. This classically illustrates why the BR standard class locomotives were a waste of 'our' money since some never even made it to their 10th year of service, despite the Britannia class locomotives been very close in horsepower to the newly introduced diesels. This is why BR Eastern and North Eastern regions waited for the Deltics to come into service due to some early diesel offerings were clearly underpowered compared to the 'Brits' that were running services on the ECML. I do agree with you that the railways were filthy (the old Bradford Exchange station being a classic example plus the surrounding mills didn't help; even I from a railway family wanted to get out of there rather quickly despite my love of steam!) and the timetabling offered pre-65 British Rail was a joke if you were a commuter.
@@billmmckelvie5188The Government created the Grouping which stopped the railways from electrifying in the 1920s which would have protected them from further assaults. But look at Ernest Marples and his road haulage dystopian future.
Bill M McKelvie Totally agree; The Railways were lost after the first world war; One directive from whitehall after grouping was the railway companies must publish their commercial rates of business; absolutely ridiculous! The private road transportation would bid just under where they could and so private bids were not possible for the railways ( Whitehall doesn’t understand commercial transactions) The mistakes made were manifold- I am a free enterprise type ( I know people don’t like change but change is part of life) and am sure the railways should have been completely alone after the first world war
@@MrDodgedollar Yes the RHA have had politicians in their pockets for a very long time. The result is the motorist subsidises the HGV Marples style. HGV drivers are in short supply (due to poor pay and conditions) in the overbloated road haulage sector and rail freight sidings/connections are as common as rocking horse poo. Same goes for sidings/loops that can accommodate an 800 metre train. Investment where it can deliver is not forthcoming (Felixstowe double tracking and electrification for instance). The RHA can rely on their stooges in Parliament whatever flag they wave.
That's the government, Mr. Kennedy. That was their sell sell sell attitude of the 70-80s.
An interesting film of railway history.
Loved every minute of this video. Thanks.
enjoyable watching this. even though 6 years before i was born. i loved the steam train journeys that i was taken on by my parents.
Did you ever travel on the *Isle of Wight* railway from *Ryde* to *Ventnor* line behind steam?
Just like me. However, it was 13 years before I was born.
@@amfar9958 7 years here.
I meant as a reply to sandy1952z6 's comment. He's born in 1952 and I was born in 1959, and we have a common experience of first time train riding!
@@amfar9958 And I was born in 1953 so the movie was made 7 years before I was born. What surprised me is that it was made _at all._
The old *LMS* and *SR* film units had virtually no staff and the *British Transport* film unit didn't yet exist so the *MoT* and the *COI* commissioned this from the *Crown Film Unit* which, for what it is, is very good. I'd like to know who the actual production crew were. The commentary sounds as though it _might_ have been written by *Paul LeSaux* though I doubt it, the camerawork is very clean and the editing is rather good too. But there are few credits on the film and I no longer know who to ask about these things since my father died (he set up both the *LMS* film unit and the *British Transport* film unit).
The plate featured at 5:00 Wardour Castle sold recently for £8000. This engine was retired in 1962 and must have been in the middle of its working life then.
Out standing video, remembering the olden days,
EXCELENTE VÍDEO!!! OBRIGADO PELA POSTAGEM!!!
Liked that GWR castle and I noticed some of the GW coaches painted in the all over chocolate brown Wartime livery.Nice to see Southern Railway electric units too.
The last scene gave me a good chuckle...
I saw an advert for Red Tower Lager there. Even as a youngster in the early 1980s Wrexham Lager was the main one so I'm amazed about Red Tower in 1946 especially just after WW2!!
3:54 the guy crawling into the firebox, took me back to 1957 when I was apprentice machinist on the B&O in Ohio. Lunch time came and Charlie didnt show up. They finally found him. He'd had a heart attack and died in the firebox. RIP Charles.
Let us all have a moment of silence fer Charles.
@@justahillbilly7777 Amen, For Charlie I say thanks.
The working man, a moments silence brother.
:/
So lucky to have died doing what he probably loved doing all his life. May his soul rest in peace...
Very interesting video, thanks 👍
A great film. Thank you. Seeing the workers in the foundry without safety goggles etc. made me wince! But there was pride in working, even if you did it in a suit.
Thank you very much!
How about the guys manually braking the vans in the marshalling yard? Wonder how many of them lost their footing....and then lost their legs.
the end was so lovely
Beautyful film with great music!
Yes indeed and ten years later the yanks came up with rock n roll music porn to lower the tone of everyones day!!!
You really need to have a look at "snowdrift at Bleath Gill" A real classic film from the 1950's... As for romance of the job... when I started on the railway in the UK as a driver's assistant way back in 1978... all you ever heard from the old drivers was "in the old steam days".... and this was 10 years or so after the last steam train ran on British Railways...
You might like to search for "British Steam, the Final Years: extracts from the diaries of Nine Elms driver, Clive Groome" - it's a fascinating read on the theme you describe.
I stated my railway career at Eastleigh, so I know all of the old stomping grounds that Nine Elms men used to work over. The old steam days was an ever recurring theme in the messroom to me as an impressionable 18 year old, just starting out on my footplate career that lasted 40 years... I'm the dinosaur now... the old boys have long gone...
Excellent work. Good experience for us.
When the fools decided to rip the secondary railway lines of smaller country towns, part of my heart also went with it. The only lines that I still love is Puffing Billy. But I miss the Grantville-Wonthaggi line, best seaside trip ever had, million dollar views of the sea.
Yep, they took the lines away, now housing is moving out there and taking away the useful farm land, and guess what? Commuters need trains, but theyre apparently too expensive to re implement... Seems kooweerup, lang lang and so fourth dont need a train, nor a decent road that doesnt ruin your car within the space of 12 months... Guess that means society has progressed to far?
@@Colt45hatchback
Every which way, you lose.
The golden age of steam was change to diesel what a sad story:(
When men were men and worked hard and tirelessly to provide for their families!
Now they say, Asians are working harder. Who will be the next hard workers?
Machines robots and computers, have replaced many of these jobs, thankfully our antiquated technology will be using more manpower than say Japan or France or China who stole Frances technology for their bullet trains.
@@peterwilliamson8721
Exactly. Stolen technology, as in 'copycats'.
@@mickcarson8504 We natives are hard grafters. Just Elites who lie to us to undermine us
You get the PENSION when your "played out" if your lucky.
There're the unsung heros making everything running safe
Era when when there was a respect and value for hardwork,skill and expertise...not to money and consultancy!
Everyone worked for money but took pride in their jobs
Seeing a Routemaster AND a steam train... I'm easily pleased 😊😀 as I grew up in East London in 70s.
I've just got it paused on that magnificent photo of St. Simon
£8 per week then equates to roughly £450 per week today.
Lovely
Chuffing great film thanks
I noted the right nameplate of Wardour Castle the loco at 5:00 assigned to a goods train recently sold for £8000. It's sad the loco was retired in 1962 and cut up a few months after.
Health and Safety? The injuries and worse those people must have faced! But being immediately after the war their mindset would be so different to ours. And they were proud to do the jobs they did, bless 'em.
Dont be fooled. Health and safety is nothing to do with your health or your safety. Its an anti-sue policy. Nothing more. Men in those days had common sense. If you had an accident it was your own stupid fault.
@@ollylewin Absolutely correct. This health and safety bullshit has breed a generation of whinging, cringing, incompetents. In 1961, aged 16, I began flying lessons. Among the first things taught to me was how to "swing" a propeller.
There was no starter motor, it was started by hand. Can you imagine the white knuckled, floor pacing, handkerchief wringing outrage, if that happened today?
@@CaptainSwoop But it does happen today. How do you start a Tiger Moth (for example) without hand swinging? Incidentally, when he was an RAF apprentice, my Grandfather was taught how to swing a prop by a man with no ear. No prizes for guessing how he lost it.
@@ollylewin These assholes now don't take any responsibility for themselves that's why they get hurt. They are so safety equipment outed they can't even fucking move how can they work ?
12:00 the stationmaster hops lithely over the live conductor rails.
That I noted too. The 750v dc "stick to you" feed! They had induction courses but common sense was the order of the day.
Note the dog sensibly runs over the footbridge :)
There's a step under the edge of each platform (you see him using it on each side) and a wooden walkway between them. These were provided at most minor stations long before electrification. When the third rail was installed it was not usual for the rail to be 'gapped' here, but wooden battens or guard boards were installed protecting it so staff can cross the line in relative safety by just stepping over it. Where crossing points for staff or passengers were provided at the platform end, the conductor rail would of course be gapped at a safe distance. I remember seeing a railwayman standing on the live rail, having jumped on to it with both feet, presumably a rather dangerous 'party trick'.
One other thing that`s different now is that if you come in at the bottom you stay there and your new boss is fresh out of university.
Sadly, that is true. It seems that today experience, and age are not appreciated by employers. If you have performed the same job for years you are looked upon as a person without ambition and are considered to be deadwood, instead of being looked upon as an experienced asset to the organisation.
NICE TO SEE YOU ALL
Nice video :)
Err...@BennettBrockRailway Wat song is that on 0:40 and 20:41 ?? Could you please tell me !!!!
Is that Faversham (Kent) Station at approx 2:18?
brilliant film
Did any one else shudder at naked flames/smoking in vicinity of fuel? My heart is racing!!!
See Rugby testing station and a down train crossing above on the GCR at 15.45.
Not much smiling from railways employees is there.?
Many thanks for posting.
In '78 we lived in a little house within sight of the testing station and the GCR bridge. Spent the first night with the window open, head propped up with a pillow watching the trains go by. Had to shut it at 3 ish to get some sleep.
Due to the hard manual labour I wonder if there was less anxiety and depression compared to now
Compared to now, the whole of natural society was much more free. The evils of political correctness and its vilifying of anyone who disagrees with its unnatural ideologies, wasn’t perpetrated on society yet. So there was much less to be depressed about.
@@jazzman1626 Could you be more precise about what you mean by 'political correctness' and 'unnatural ideologies'? Also, you might like to elaborate on the degree of freedom that women, LGBT and BAME, and young people had in the 40's and 50's. You could also discuss the oppressive effects of class discrimination (still with us) on people's lives in those days. I'm 75. I remember it all very well. Possibly differently from you.
@@jazzman1626 so do you want people to get away with casual or any form of racism?
Unless I'm very much mistaken, anxiety and depression were just as common, simply less often talked about, less often given time of day - or hidden, or even simply known under other names. Timid individuals, for instance, tend to suffer from anxiety of one sort or another. Ignoring a problem does not make it go away, as we were slowly forced to learn.
As romantic as it might be to think of it this way, portrayed through the polished, rose-tinted lens of hindsight and nostalgia and highly polished documentaries like this, hard labour itself certainly doesn't take it away, nor prevent its onset, though for many it certainly gives a sense of self worth and certainty in a secure future, which naturally could counterbalance its effects... up to a point. After all, many of the old ways are fraught with calculated risk and danger. Workplace accidents can and did cause lasting scars both physical and mental, even - perhaps especially - back then.
👌👌👌 Video.
What song is on the intro and 20:41
Nice
A "proto-rocker" at 02:12?
wooow.....ouuuuyyyyyeeee
Twenty years later the railways were destroyed such a short sighted decision, but who made money from this ?? I did notice people smoking and of course what health and safety, but that was the norm for those days, this has been a memory trip for me and i say thank you
Clever ending.
my Dream right here
Rip brother
Talk about a dream job, working in a signalbox AND getting a small cottage w/it to live in!
Yes and 4 pounds 10 shillings in to the bargain
THANKS. 22/10/20 MUMBAI INDIA.
If it's from 1946, why is the thumbnail a A3 with smoke deflectors and post-1957 BR insignia?
I think the uploader can use a custom thumbnail - perhaps it's their standard thumbnail.
In Canada & USA, we have an automatic system of coupling engines & cars, and freight cars.
So do we here in the *UK* and it's a similar system to the _buckeye_ coupler. But it wasn't much used here until the 1960s.
@@philaypeephilippotter6532 I believe buckeyes were first used by Gresley on the LNER in the '30s closely followed by the Southern.
@@sapper82 As far as I recall you're _spot on_ but my point was about the more general use of _buckeyes._ Later ones were not quite the same as the *LNER* variety as the *SR* ones were on more stock. And I'll tell you something - *BR* _buckeye_ couplings are *_very_* heavy. I've lifted a few!
@@philaypeephilippotter6532 Tell me about it! I worked 10 year in Eastleigh lift shop, '80 to '90 changing both drophead and longshank couplings on the old slam door EMU stock.
@@sapper82
Hello bruv,
I was a _guard_ at *Guildford* a little earlier. I didn't have to deal with _buckeyes_ often but occasionally, usually in an emergency, I had to either lift or drop the _buckeye._
I remember being told by someone who would _know_ that *British* _buckeyes_ weren't the same as *US* ones and I know that the _buckeyes_ on the 455 stock weren't really compatible with the earlier ones. I had little to do with either screw-link couplings or _Instanter_ couplings as we were exclusively a passenger depot.
Have you seen the *Will Hay* movie *_Oh Mr Porter_* (1937)? In it *Will Hay* gets slammed on the back by an open door on a moving train.
My god, that must have hurt!
If you haven't seen the movie it's here on YT. It was mostly filmed in a disused station just outside *Basingstoke.*
Also I was working a train, 4EPB+4VEP, that slid over 1/4 mile and developed flats over 5/8" long - and _control_ insisted it wasn't serious so they sent us up to *Waterloo* on the fast line. The guy waiting at *Waterloo* was curled up laughing and shouting _"Out of service, out of service!"_
Intense video. I almost wanted to work for £4.10 a week!!
I started at 2 pound 7 shillings and 6 pence as a apprentice
£5 a week would be £210 in today's money www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator
You were lucky. When I were a lad I had to pay t'boss five pounds a week to work at his factory AND I had to get up three hours before I went to bed!
Simpler times when people cared.
Is that Leonard sachs at the beginning, he introduced the good old days on BBC
20 years later all out of work.
Or many of them retired
What’s the name of the a3 in the thumbnail?
LNER 4481/BR 60112 'St Simon' was built in September 1923, rebuilt in August 1946 and scrapped in November 1964.
Oliver The Great Western Engine oh ok
When I was proud of my pure British born heritage - no more.
I am truly sorry to hear about tha latest state of affairs going on in your country due to covid nonsense and refugee replacements. I'm from the states and my heart goes out to everyone dealing with this in the western world. I'm watching these old films to take me back to a better time in which I wish I could have lived instead.
Why were the Drive and Fireman using oil lamps? Didn’t they have flashlights back then?
What's the intro song name ??? Could someone please tell me what was the title !!!!!!!!!
If I knew I would tell you, but I don't have that info. Sorry!
@@BennettBrookRailway well err ......nvm . I didn't care at all because i love that song until i would listen to it for a milion time
All tough jobs.
11:05 is Wycombe North Goods box.
As usual, the sidelining of the real inventor of the railway ie Richrd Trevithick. It's typical of northern English people to take credit. Even in school in Cornwall in the 1960 s no mention was made of Trevithick, only George Stephenson.
They never retire they just lose track 😀
When people were happy and life wasn't mechanical.
Surely every single aspect of running a railway in 1946 was inherently mechanical? From Chief Mechanical Engineer downwards.
The equipments and tools were mechanical, not the men is what he probably meant.
Engeneer of a diesel locomotive lives to 60, steam to 70 electric to 85 steam with hot metal to 110, because it is a meditating locomotive.
14:10 my illustrious forebears! PWay Gang 👏🏻
9:39 When did you last see a train that long?!
Flag Wanker I counted 14 on that train in the video. The MK3 sleeper from London Euston has 16 carriages so I see a train that long nearly every every morning. I could be wrong but I think the new MK5 has the same number of carriages as well.
@@angelsaviation2147 It does, but not all of them are in use at the moment due to the virus
standing next to a water trough with all those dropper toilets! dont breathe in!!
What process / procedure is occurring at 18:38?
It looks like some sort of milling or cutting machine. I believe that the liquid that is being dropped on the machine is a cutting fluid.
I like trains so much they are so cute
When people had work AND wanted to work. We are paid far to much now in comparison. Good film.
Yes, you should be paid less. Totally agree with that.
Very interesting they ware using oil lamps for light.
@@cyrilbenedict6248
Thank you 🙂
@@cyrilbenedict6248
Thank you 🙂
Fayaz Ahmad to mention steam locomotives!
Oil lamps were far brighter than battery lamps then and more reliable.
@@philaypeephilippotter6532
I respect your point of view what I meant that it was 1946 not 1846 they can use electric torches.