P Way Junction renewal - the old way 

@Anne Frank Vape Pen sad to say that you are probably telling facts.

@Anne Frank Vape Pen Really? Think pyramids. I still think no, lol. Roman aqueducts, roads, buildings, The Great Wall and the Pyramids. Now those have lasted... Civilizations rise and fall. As an Italian, modern Italy may not be much anymore, but my ancestors really changed the world. Roman Empire may not be around but it's legacy (along with various Chinese Dynasties) will outlast that of the British Empire/UK. The Hoover Dam will probably be the only structure from the modern era that will be present for thousands of years. Now, when it comes to something like the industrial revolution, then the world should thank you Brits, lol, as it's an important step in human progress.

At least they weren't made in China 😅

Dry climate?

Nonsense. Unless it’s never used it will have been renewed, replaced or refurbished

Enjoyed my 26 years working on the p way Happy days.

True to this day I work with a couple of 60-70 year old trackmen and they honestly put the 20 year olds to shame

Hard to argue those young boys had it rough. I am sure they grew up probably scaling a mountainside in southern France.

Not a hard hat in sight

My wife's got one of those.

@@rogerking7258, my wife doesn't need one.......

“Elect-tric-ally” !

The stinky government has now become an "electrically-driven screwing machine".

"Screwing Machine."

Suit coat and tie work clothes no less. wow!

Yep, no winging it.

Like 13:20 "Not with a hammer please" LOL :)

Gordon Urquhart Ah, but he is The Surveyor !

I saw more than just the surveyor wearing a suit. I'd guess they were told this was going to be filmed for a documentary and when the wives heard about it they told their men they had to look nice since they were going to be in a documentary. Probably one of the more exciting events in their lives.

@@scottwright8354 "Laying the frog, take two!!"

I was wondering where it was. Thanks.

That's engineering at its finest. Indeed, it'd be great to see all that heavy work done. Then, I'd have to go the chemist to buy aspirins.

@Tim Moran - don't forget the slide rules, Tim; tricky to learn how to use them, but saving a huge amount of time once you got the hang of it; and, of course, log tables (another lost art!). Up till 50 years ago, no engineer or draughtsman would be without them.

Yeah. I also noticed that. Thanks for pointing that out.

There is nothing inherently wrong with having boys (they looked to be around 10-14 years) work, so long as the workplace adheres to basic safety standards and they are paid a fair wage. There are arguments that having a large percentage of your adolescent youth engaged in some form of labor teaches discipline, time management, money management, imparts a (theoretically) valuable skill earlier in life resulting in a longer productivity period in their life, thus more (comparative) wealth accrued. One of the largest hurdles that modern male youth (in general, there are exceptions of course) faces is the fact that upon reaching their majority (usually considered around 18 years or so in most places) is that they have no actual value to society when compared to older males. They have little to no accrued wealth or property. They have limited, if any, institutional knowledge or understanding of their chosen field of labor, and little to no practical experience as well. What practical skills they may have are very limited or untested (for the most part) and hiring them for a trained position is often a relative crapshoot (far more so than hiring an established male) that many employers would rather not make if given any alternative. Starting boys on a career path earlier in life is a fairly tried and true method of giving them what amounts to a "leg up" on life. I cannot imagine what I would have done without the experience imparted to me by my Grandfather and brothers growing up. When I tell modern fellows about my own youth and early adulthood, the most common comment is that they think my Grandfather was some sort of greedy monster using us for "child labor", which he (the "child labor" part, not the rest of it) was. But unlike them, by the time I was 18 I knew how to (and even more importantly HAD EXPERIENCE WITH) lay masonry, plumb a wall, build the wall, lay and repair plumbing, take up and put down a shingled roof, install plumbing fixtures, and some basics of electrical wiring. These skills allowed me to get a fairly decent job with a contractor immediately after leaving high school, and paid my bills when I went to school to be certified in the things I already knew. It also helped immensely with the classwork as I not only knew what the instructor was speaking about, but had several years of experience with putting the instructions into practice. Today, I have my degree in mechanical engineering and own my own general contracting company. I will never be rich, but I have my own home that I even helped build, my son and daughter work with me both in the office and on-site, and they themselves will have a rich foundation of experience upon which to build their lives. They will have the tools they need for both survival and success when they reach their majority, and should something unforeseen happen to me as it did my father, I will know that they will have at least the same chances I did in their position.

@@taunteratwill1787 Child labor never "went away", it is still very much the norm in the world outside the bubble-wrapped (First World) communities most of us live in. I would hope that you are not one of those silly fellows that fantasizes that happiness and leisure is a right, or that childhood is supposed to be some kind of journey of innocence, but for the vast majority of the world, the privileges that you enjoy as a result of outsourcing your problems is not shared by those that have to produce the goods you use and purchase each day. From the sweatshops of India and China to the fields of coffee and tea in Central and South America and Southeast Asia, children daily take their place next to their parents in the long lines of humans grinding out their lives in an effort to fill their bowl with just enough food to survive till tomorrow. The conditions are horrendous and often lack even the most basic of health and safety regulations. All of this is done to ensure that the plentitude of goods and services produced are available for a very cheap and accessible price for you and I. The poorest and most downtrodden person living in the First World is far better off, with an availability of resources that is unfathomable to the majority of humanity. One of the factors that brings this situation about is the foolish modern ideology that places emphasis on the emotional enjoyment of life and the drive to preserve that enjoyment at any cost above the need to engage in work that is dull or dangerous, but necessary to the society. I cannot tell you how many times I've seen the Mexicans out in the fields picking strawberries or peppers or green beans with their kids, and that's in California, in a supposedly First World nation, with laws against the very things I'm looking at. The Mexicans do it because they make more money doing this than they'd ever make in Mexico or Guatemala, the kids do it because they know that their families need the income, and the farmers do it because cheap labor is necessary to produce foodstuffs with a marketable price point and still turn a profit. The point is, that "child labor" still exists, has always existed, and will always exist. Much like prostitution, alcohol consumption, and drug use. Making silly laws against it still will not address the underlying economic and societal pressures that drive it. Instead of driving it underground, making it the realm of criminals and tyrants, why not regulate it? Ensure that the working conditions are safe and equitable for them. Make sure they are being paid a fair wage, like the adults. Ensure that working hours and job requirements are fair and non-exploitative. Personally, I'd set the cut-off at 12-14 years, perhaps 6-8 hours a day, 4 days a week, schooling availability permitting.

@@vishnu79 Stop writing already!! You bore the flying shit out of everyone! Do you really believe there's anything new in your comment? Anything we don't know yet? You want to make a difference? Go to these fucked up areas and be an activist over there and stop playing the blabla goeroe over here where it save to be against these practises. Wannabe world healer!

@@taunteratwill1787 Vishnu79 spends time explaining from his own experience what is happening outside the first world bubble where you no doubt live. He shares some pragmatic views on child labour outside that bubble, in a world where the urgent need for food and clothes ends up taking priority over the need for education. Then suddenly you arrive on the scene with nothing meaningful to say, have a fit of pique and insult him. Are you arrogant, rude and foul-mouthed like this all the time?

hffp1 Unfortunately H+S Nazis are needed because workers have a tendency to do stupid things and get injured.

hffp1 , you do seem to have a bee in your bonnet about white collar workers , bit of a lefty eh ?

What do you mean? I was admiring all the effort and planning i evolved all done witness no modern technology!

@@TERRYBIGGENDEN it was modern technology when this was filmed.

@@TERRYBIGGENDEN I think he was replying to the other poster.

Don't forget the vest!

...and the flat caps!

British gotta be properly dressed as gentleman at any point in their lives.

They all probably knew they'd be on camera at work that day. I doubt they usually dressed like this.

@@dansw0rkshop They did always dress like shown.

bigkiwimike me too! In HO scale.

Did you get to do the latest ones, where one lever slipped all of the points at one time? It was interesting to see half moving the other way, but at least the were no more derailments!

@@danieljones317 Hi. Are you referring to a double slip where one lever each end moves four blades instead of two?

@@bigkiwimike the last one I saw had one really long lever, and it moved all eight blades, or points. It was away from the yard on a really long siding lead. I was 14, I think, and I actually worked that lever several times. It didn't take a lot of effort, and I saw that either way, any traffic would not derail, as in the older ones. The train either went straight through, or it slipped to the other track, on both routes, and both routes were the same, very safe arrangement.

Worked Pleck Junction as part of the S&T years back. Was quite something to be involved in.

Still be wood s&c timbers today

Yes they still pre-build all junctions away from the line. Nowdays they are shipped in huge chunks and craned into position to make renewal really fast.

@@andthenightcame8959 what wood is most commonly used for rail tracks?

@@andthenightcame8959 Both are still in use with more emphasis on concrete.

I don't know if this is an international phenomenon but in South Africa, they manufacture magnificent furniture from recovered sleepers. Google railway sleeper furniture.

I have a fence made out of Duglas Fir and its 40 years old and no rot and hard now to drive a nail into. Here in Ireland you cannot use anything treated with creosote in children's play grounds or schools etc. You can but sleepers made from Yarra sometimes called Rhodesian teak, and Yarra was also found in Australia, I understood theses came in up to 22 foot lengths for junctions etc and this stuff never seems to rot and wasn't treated (am I wright) I bought some German pine sleepers for a raised bed and they rotted in no time! The (wonder full) EU decreed a few years back all sleepers on passanger lines had to be concrete, thus the line near me was torn up and the 1 year old creosoted oak sleepers were shipped off to Germany (we weren't left buy them) to be incinerated, what a waste.

Over here in continental Europe selling wooden impregnated sleepers is forbidden and they have to be treated as toxic waste which costs a lot to dispose them.

Peter Perigoe jarrah is a fantastic tough timber,and a beautiful color too.🇩🇰

I live in sth Aus near Port Augusta. A mate of mine works on the railways up north. He's been bringing sleepers back with him from work for years now. He would have hundreds of them. Im not sure what he plans to do with them, i think he just takes them because he can... Probably end up as fire wood.

no millinials there

Abom79 would like the shaper segment.

@@tonymartin4255 what are you insinuating?

The lads would have been about 15 , the same age as me when I started at Beyer and Peacock in 1963

Wearing a coat and tie, too!

Priceless! only the British could do that (and perhaps the Belgians?). :-)

The bowler hat was a status symbol, worn by the foreman. Ordinary workers wore a flat cap.

Love that theodolite work. Surveying sure has changed a lot :D

Or maybe his girl friend's husband!

"I'll pay you Tuesday, for a hamburger today!"

Especially the total lack of gloves..

Imagine the working conditions for those who did the same work without machines.

My great grandfather was in a panel gang in 19th century Cheshire. Fascinating to see these films. For those who survived, WW1 was a chance for men like my grandfather to get away from it. Life expectancy not great. Welfare state began when people worked from 14 to 60ish then died about 68

@@cuebj Men went to war for the elite ruling class then came home if they were lucky and did back breaking work for them. Still goes on to this day just different work.

You are absolutely right my friend how very astute you are for seeing that. That kind of work if you survived it put you in a casket.

Interesting to see the mass production of the basic sleeper units though - chairs onto sleepers - at one time that would have been done by hand and on site.

back then, the lack of ... Ahem. Elf and Sayftee, meant that there was more time getting the job done, and with more work, meant more back-breaking labor so you had it done right because fuck if you got it wrong theylll make YOU move it to the right place. now it's mostly meetings (I've had big jobs done quicker - including the rig and derig of my crane - than it took to do the 'Induction', which didn't even tell us WHAT we were doing. there was a whole sixty-page document for THAT. Of which only two pages were useful - the drawing (if there was one) of where the crane would go (that probably wasn't even of a accurate detail level to actually tell me when looking at the actual site 'oh thats where I'm going, next to x y detail on picture that exists for real' too often the 'drawing' was like what a two year old would do with just the box and line functions in MS Paint in less than a minute. leaving one page - that says what I'm lifting. Except too often it'd have "and miscellaneous lifts of weights not to exceed crane lifting capacity". Like. DUH. I've been sent OFF SITE for not wearing a helmet... on a site where the only 'heavy machinery' was my crane which wasn't even rigged, and the only works going on at head height or higher was the thought process of "BUT HAT!" . there wasn't even a building. (I was there to lay the GROUND FLOOR slabs, which were laid on the ground no more than two layers deep so didn't even reach above knee height, no hammer-and-nails, nothing that would necessitate head protection). Yet I've also seen "Put your hat on" site managers not wear them in places where they'd actually DO something. like say, indoors, when someone's on a step ladder doing stuff in the ceiling space. not wearing them because 'but, I'm INSIDE". There are situations where indoors is helmets OFF and situations where its HELMETS ON. Then there's sites were I've walked past, not as a contractor but IM ON MY DAY OFF GOING TO THE BANK and shit's constantly dropping from the scaffolding above the public-footpath-that's not "on site"- and its repair works to the TOWN HALL like FOR FUCKS SAKE THE ONE PLACE YOU THINK HSE WOULD BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY. This is why I prefer getting paid a third of the wage as a PIZZA DELIVERY DRIVER to being a crane operator. It's too stressful and I spent too much time in my childhood being driven insane by shitheads at school to accept being driven insane in the workplace. The money was NOT worth it, especially because it actually has monetary costs in the long run that negate that cost - like FUCKING RED LIGHT RUN CAMERAS RUN BY COUNCILS THAT SAY OH THE LIGHTS CHANGED TWICE WHILST YOU WERE ON THE JUNCTION THATS TWO FUCKING RED LIGHT RUN FINES. So... just so you know, WINSFORD, CHESHIRE CAN GET FUCKED. after that I drove the crane down the DANGEROUS ROAD to avoid A FUCKING CAMERA whenever I had a job that way. SIX TRUCKS ended off the road having to swerve out of the way of the wider-than-a-truck mobile crane that was driving with its own left-side-mirror in the bushes but the right side wheels where ON and not inside of the white line. a crane that, at the speed limit of the road the camera is on DOESNT EVEN TRAVEL ITS OWN LENGTH in one second. (30mph). and 30mph was TOO FAST for that road given the VEHICLE and design and layout and shit of that road - so 20mph would have been more suitable but I didn't want to get THREE red-run tickets. Sorry these things get me RILED UP so fucking much I'm 32 and need a goddamn chill pill because of shit like that and already 'retired' from the job because its so fucking stupid and NOT FUCKING WORTH IT... SIGH.

@@AlMcpherson79 been there, done that. I was the laborer for a small company one time, and wore a ton of different hats, so to speak. For the jobsites, I wore a WHITE helmet, because half the time I was running more than what crew we had. Also, I have a knack for building things, so I was also the guy that did the bids, and had to do all the measuring and surveying. Toughbjob, but I always loved operating the equipment, and I can thread a needle with a 600 size excavator, and shave fingerprints from a sheet of paper with a D12. Too effective on the ground, so never got an operator's card... One good look at a print, and a year later, I could fine grade a ten acre area with a 650 Deere, and all they did was run a rock rake over it, and throw seed down... Yea, did so well that the boss cut my throat for $25 bucks an hour on prevailing wage work. Went over the road for a decade, the employers there are just as bad. No more big companies for me. I'd rather die penniless than be some minimum wage slave doing work that commands $30 per hour. You want fries with that?

A dolly cup is essential! (12:57)

I'd fettle til I went blind.

Beyond amazing, people think the pyramid builders were unbelievable and all they did was stack rocks.

@@3superpar someone has speculated that the outer stones were poured... I heard something of that about a decade ago, it's just starting to hit mainstream. Maybe that's why the Egyptians didn't want anyone on the pyramids?

I absolutely concur with you, old chap. Engineering at its finest. I'm sure all the blokes went to the local pub for a few rounds of good Guinness and dartboard matches. The good ol days.

And NO protective ear muffs or leather gloves. Them Wuz REAL MEN.

Workplace accidents were exceedingly common in industries such as this in those days. You can do amazing things if you disregard safety measures, but good ethics forbids this method of improving productivity and profets.

Good ol days when they didn't rainbow flags and crosswalks...

Bullhead has been gone for many years. Though I'm sure there are still some sidings using it. Not to mention some preserved lines.

I bet in the 40s they knew how to use apostrophes correctly too!

they did everything in suits. It is what men wore. Boys wore suits too, perhaps if under thirteen in short trousers, but suits just the same. My great uncle stubbornly wore his three piece brown woolen serge suit whilst sitting in his deck-chair on the beach at Weston-super-Mare. It was blazingly hot, and we were all in swimsuits. It was 1960, that's what happened.

He also said, "did ye like that?"

I've operated one. The winch drum brake is only a 3-inch wide band of steel-backed wood or compact fibre (like a car clutch-plate) and operates via a foot pedal. It works well enough at lighter loads but when you're lifting heavy stuff and the brake is either 'On' or 'Off' then controlling the drop can get a bit fraught . . .

Those were the days when you could tell who the "new guy" was by looking for the one who still had ten fingers...

Tyne Yard is a classic example, it was redundant before it was completed.

It's a Tanalising pressure chamber.

If you've ever been to a place that has them, the stink to high heaven. Handling brand new ties is an exercise in trying to stay clean!

LIke toxic and dangerous???

I'm surprised the British didn't steal people from other countries ,to fo their dirty work oh my bag they stole people and they did all their dirty work and never pay them a freaking dime.

Just your intelligence level

I will work for free doing it.

no helmets, no gloves, nothing xddafsfa

I seem to recall that the formulation for creosote in those days has been found to be carcinogenic. Those men handled it and breathed it all day every day.

There is another LMS film You Tube showing the building of an engine. Making the rods and motion is amazing. And yes, not even a pair of goggles in sight! From what I remember anyway.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NPACAt8aE4U.html

Nothing is safe we all die of something. So be safe. Trust Jesus and work hard.

Thanks!

Armstrong Addison at Sunderland dock had a small vertical boiler crane in the yard, when it closed I tried to buy it but they chose to send it to the scrap yard, I heard later it had been rescued but cant verify that.