A film full of great atmosphere which captures the last years of steam at Carnforth from the Ken Ellwood Film archive. Engines featured include:- 44894; 45390; 45424; 45342; 70021; 70023; 45095; 92004; 44758; 6441; 92069.
I fondly remember those mucky black steam engines.I was 8 years old in 1968 when they finally all went. It seems like a dream now. It's nice to look back with films like this.
@Jack Warner well humans have always been stupid, thats why we have a lot of the safety precautions we have now, along with machines being unpredictable. This is literally survivor bias, yes you survived doing dangerous stuff but what about all those who didn't?
These scenes bring back happy memories of visits I made to engine terminals here in the USA when steam locomotives were still in regular service. Like the 3 boys in this video, I would climb into the cabs of dead engines and would spend many happy hours pretending to be the fireman and the engineer (driver) of all types of engines--yard, freight and passenger. I was 13, 14 and (barely) 15 years old. On a few occasions, I was invited to climb into the cab of a live engine that was still in service. Pure heaven, for the kid I was at the time.
Amazing filming. My late dad ( ex 17B and 15A boiler 'tuber' ) took me there in the early 70s when it first opened as a working museum. Great to see how things looked when it was still a proper working steam depot.
Absolutely brilliant 😄 I just missed out on steam as I was 11 in 68 but saw lots of condemned steam locomotives rusting away at sheds around the north west 😟 Stevie.
Great to see such high quality film. Wonderful stuff. I was there several times, plus trainspotting at nearby Hest Bank. I remember the ominous line of withdrawn, dead engines on the outermost siding at the shed...visible in the background of many of these scenes. I have a scan on flickr (under 'Cliff Bancroft') of my spotting notebook at Carnforth shed around Christmas 1967 which shows 46441 (6441) on shed here in its LMS livery, headed for preservation, so presumably that dates at least some of these scenes. Thanks for uploading this, Peter, and I look forward to any others from you
Beautiful photography. Shame to see "Venus" (70023) in such run down condition. I recall seeing her at Paddington when she was a Cardiff Canton engine sparkling in the sunshine. The golden years.
Brilliant stuff many people myself included travelled extensively to watch the demise of steam in the North west in my case thanks to BR staff privilege ticket my favourites included Rose Grove, Carnforth, Patricroft, 1 visit to Longsight which lasted barely a few minutes before being kicked out. Holbeck Leeds even disguised in our parents old uniform jackets climbing through hole in the . Sometimes getting away with it. these films have brought back the memories of the dieying days of main line steam. many thanks for posting
Wish I could've been there, only sheds I've 'bunked' have been Didcot, York, Barrow Hill and what's left of Swindon. At least, those are the sheds I've properly visited...due to connections I managed to cab a whole load of HSTs, 44871 and Flying Scotsman at Plymouth Laira, whilst she was operating shuttles between there and Par. Was amazing
Really, really enjoyed that. Brought back so many memories of my trainspotting days as a wee lad. I did have to mute the sound though as that music was way too distracting!
The film quality is superb. Sad to see the decline right there on your film. So different from the restored trains today. Different times of course. Thank you for posting. I am now subscribing. Cheers Don.
The 3 small boys reminded me of Sundays when we sneaked round Wellingborough 15Acabbing all the Crosti's and 9f's.The odd namer appeared now and then Jubilee's were sometimes rare visitors.
The Wellingborough crews hated the Crosti engines. Eventually converted to normal draughting and moved to the North West. Patricroft had a few, but the crews preferred the Stanier 2-8-0s.
Great atmospheric vid here. Sad to see 70021 in that state -I remember her in her glory days on the Midland expresses to Manchester Central going through Chorlton.
PI Staker ! Bunch of candy asses running around these days can't even have sex without hardhat , hi visibility vest , safety shoes , goggles , safety harness , seat belt , it's beyond pathetic.
Reminds me of going to the Leeds steam Holbeck Neville hill copper hill and Kevin all the in the sheds not afraid missing and steaming didn't worry us ask kids used to climb the walls to get into Holbeck shed and cross the main lines to get into Neville hill we caught the train from Shipley to Leeds city station then walked to the Central station then off to visit all the sheds what's a happy time of life
@@johnward374 went to farnly shed a long narrow shed.use to walk thru a housing estat red brick dack to back cobbled streets.use to be a cornershop were we use to buy a ice lolly.dontno the other shed you mentioned.i never new the erear of the back to back houses were.i can picture it now.
Never knew shed. But we did visit farnly shed a long narrowshed we used to walk to a housing estate made of red brick back-to-back with cobbled streets they used to be a shop on the corner where we used to buy an ice lolly. I have and had no idea what that housing estate called. I can still picture it now I never knew about the other shed I don't know where it was ok thanks
Apart from the loco,s it all looked topsee Turvey and a bit maintenance and a lick of paint hasn’t been on the menu for some time. Very good images though all the same . Regards
Lovely upload ,and i love steam ,but in reality ,just look at it ,wretched conditions ,the wretched state of the loco's ,yes due to no maintainance ,but my uncle worked as a driver at Holbeck ,he said the best thing that ever happened was not getting up at stupid oclock to prep your engine,you climbed in to a 45 did a few checks ,fired it up ,let pressure build up and off you went in less than 30 min's
Looks like it was filmed on high quality 35mm equipment, but no sound, like the film studios used and sound recorded separately, ..and then the two formates spliced together...
Has anyone worked out the shear economics of loss the railways went thru. 65-68 when they scrapped 10 and 12 yr old locomotives with only 200,000 miles on the clock so they could buy diesels at two to four times the price of a steam locomotive and they seem to only have very short lives before they too are scrapped. It must have cost the taxpayer many millions of pounds for this hasty eradication of steam, Made more sense to at least get your monies worth out of the modern engine and run them into the late 70, s at least. Just a observation from an economic view
I think the speedy eradication of steam in the 1960's was more of British Rail's concern with public image. Mankind was about to land on the moon, Concorde was about to launch, yet there were still machines on the rails that were antiquated and archaic. Despite some of the locomotives being relatively new, steam was still old hat. Of course the locomotives should have had their money's worth, but would the rapid growth of technology and knowledge have appreciated steam hauled trains in the 1990's... something tells me not.
@@1258-Eckhart Most of the replacement diesels didn't because of the haphazard way the British Railways Board acquired them. Mass production without proper testing. A lot of classes of diesels were ordered for work that was rapidly disappearing. Class 15's spring to mind. Though some of those found further use in industry. And yet some of the early classes such as 20's, 37's and 08's are still soldiering on 60 years after they were built.
@@captaindbheadcase1303 That does not in any way negate my point: Steam engines were (/are!) incredibly maintenace-intensive and even your correct (and infamous) example of the Claytons (the Metrovick was another total dud) resulted 1:1 in a huge reduction of overheads. Also please come clean on your accusations (negative --> positive): The only truly professional BR region was the Western, which did engineering research on leading but PROVEN technology and went, with high level engineering representation, to the Verkehrsausstellung here in Munich in 1953 to review the most modern technology. This was the highspeed automotive diesel with the very lightweight transmission, a format which is successful to this day here in Germany. Commercially, you need to balance trackwear against tractive effort. Until the mid-1980's and the advent of power-electronics, this was only achievable via the GWR path: you can always make an engine heavier, but if it's too heavy to start with, you're screwed. The best BRB-inspired effort at the time were the Baby Deltics in 1959 (highspeed diesel, but overweight transmission), which never achieved their target axle load. So the BRB went down the LMS route with a development of the 10.000 prototypes (in one direction the Peaks, in another the EE classes): Marine diesels with bombastically heavy transmissions. This was a triumph of politics over engineering sense. It probably cost BR (and therefore the taypayer) many millions over the years in track maintenance. This is what happens when politics runs the railways and you still have it in the UK to this day.
Theres a difference between nationalisation and the decline of steam locomotives. Steam locomotives on every single railway, private or state-owned, looked like this when the steam era came to an end because they were no longer useful. They were being replaced by much more efficient, cheaper and low maintenance means, E.G: Diesels and Electrics.
