Portrait of an engineer - 1954 

Wonderful good old days of steam. As a Metallurgical Engineer I still wonder how British Engineering was marvelous and indepth then when I was a child and thrilled with steam locomotives in 1950s.

The locomotive you see at the end of the video with serial number 5258 is now in the Iranian Railway Museum🙂

Such amazing work. It's unreal to me that people once made such large and intricate machines without automated computer technology. All with their own hands eyes and measurements. Insane!

Ted Wilson a man of many talents. In the NHS there would be 20 senior managers on exorbitant salaries doing his different roles, who would only ever be seen when things go haywire to inform Joe Public that lessons will be learned. Ted Wilson we award you. Pipe man of the year 1954.

Judging by some of these comments these armchair engineers have not worked in any engineering capacity. Chief engineers in those days were a different breed to the uni. lot now. Many still insisted on a drawing board in the office. I was fortunate enough to undergo an engineering training scheme followed by years as a contractor in many differing engineering environments. I remember men like Ted Wilson.

The foundry was opened in 1832, switched over to electric locomotives a few years after this video was made, closed in 2002, was demolished in 2007, and was replaced by housing units in 2010.

Railway station in my town is very close to high school and elementary school close to track. I have seen steam engines very often during my school days ( 1950- 1962). Played game of steam engine with other kids making steam horn sounds. In this video I have seen the making of steam engine and its majestic designer Mr. Ted Wilson. My salutes to him. How can I express my reaction, parts of engine I have seen and their make in factory. Gone are the days of steam locomotion. My admiration to Vulcan Foundry , Lancashire. Later, on the track I have seen diseal engines with name plate some thing like " received under Colombo plan". Big thanks to RU-vid.

Fantastic, starting from the bottom up. No doubt a gentleman and well respected by the workforce.

I am always impressed and in awe of the skills of these men, to create a beautiful locomotive in what were horrendous working conditions.

Ted walks around a hot factory in a three piece suit with an overcoat and never breaks a sweat or dirties his sleeves. I can’t carry in the groceries without needing a change of clothes

Wonderful. This technology and skill in manufacture is hugely impressive. No nasty throw-away junk.

A superb documentary and grateful thanks for making it available.

Ted walks into the design office with his pipe. Pure class! 👍

Wonderful video! I can't help but notice the lack of any safety equipment, eye protection, face shields, ear protection and even gloves at times.

My Grandfather, Robert Binns was an engineer at Vulcan foundry at this time fascinating to see the place working

addicted to this channel

Great video!

The apprentice route at its best. All the way from learning how to use files correctly to supervising production overall. It’s arguable that social mobility has declined since then however you can still become a chief pilot of a chief constable by joining without a degree but with talent and enthusiasm.

Thank you for such a good film

What they're not telling you about Ted, after those years in each shop, is that he's now deaf as a post.

Brilliant British Engineering at its peak. Unfortunate that today, we have next to nothing. No way even with computer aided design, we could build such a scale of Locomotives, that were truly 'built to last'. Those in the film, that have survived from being scrapped, still going strong today.

We do NOT smoke in or about office premises. Thank you.

On the footplate during testing: "His ears can often detect any mechanical faults unaided by any mechanical means" - it's a wonder he has any hearing left after earlier scenes! "By the feel of his hand on the throttle he can tell if the engine is responding correctly" - except that he isn't driving is he?

Very informative video. Cant believe you have such good videos on this channel of British steam locomotive history. I looked into the Vulcan Foundry and its upsetting to know such a great place has no brick left of it now except for Vulcan Village. If only the age of steam never died and steam locomotives alongside electric continued to progress.

Ted is the cleanest hands on guy I've ever seen..

old Ted doesnt know how to use a micrometer, thats for sure

At 14:20, I've never seen a micrometer read from that side of the barrel.

👍 Thank you, BBR. R 😎

It's a sobering thought that none of those locomotives being made for British Railways would see 15 years mainline service...

Thankyou sir. Very good film. Thanks god.

Great film, thanks, and they had proper trousers in those days (5:14) plus belt and braces.

Great Men We Salute You All

what is interesting to me is that there is probably nowhere in England where these engineering skills exist now. this quite frightening really when you consider the skill base our country now rests on and how fragile it is. today we have an economy mostly based on financial 'products' and administration service. our greatest skill set is in a management cult focused on protecting their status and roles but creating nothing of greater substance than steering profits into shareholder bank accounts. one breakdown in the global economy, a conflict between china and the u.s.a. and we could be in the dark ages double quick. on a brighter note, here's bob with the weather!

Are these guys actors? They looked so different ,way better than today .

When Covid is over, or under control, I must travel to the UK and be a passenger on a steam train. I have heard they have over 500 miles of track with vintage railways! Me like!

Watching the pouring of molten metal at 4:55 makes me wonder whether there ever was any danger of any jumping over onto those closely observing, though none wears any protective face shield....Likewise, the hammering of hot metal for any flying splinters...But maybe not after all....

We need 102 Ted Like guys in Washington DC Ted Wilson for President.

all gone to the ruins....oh! those were the days..........

I served an engineering apprenticeship in the 1960s. A totally different industry, but many of the skills were similar. I now have impaired hearing from my time as an apprentice in noisy press shops and machine shops before the 'noise at work regulations' were introduced and ear defenders became mandatory. Pity those poor souls in the boiler shop and the forging shop at the Vulcan works. Not enough people in Britain have ever filed metal and have no clue how things are made. Hence, they call their little gadgets 'tech'.

CLW in India started in 1947 repairing and rebuilding British locos.

👍👍 saya suka dengan film² anda

Seeing the large amount of workers involved i wonder how many man hours went into each loco

a big job for many people

amazing to think all his experience would be unneeded in a few years.

Why would 18 people give this thumbs down?

I've worked in construction and industry for 30 years along with firearms and automotive hobbies.........my ears are hurting from just watching this video, haha.

A wonderful old doco in an age when Britain actually made things instead of importing everything. I found it amusing the good old Ted knew everything from driving a steam loco to telling a blacksmith what to do and how to do it., of course he didn't know itcall, this is just a doco. The only person I know of who could do everything was James Bond. Sad to thing all these loco builders folded like North British did too.

Engineering is one of those activities that cannot realistically be shown with a film portrayal. According to this film Ted "solved" a dozen problems during a walk through the facility. Problems that were the responsibility of much, much lower line supervision to prevent. Anyone who's ever been involved with equipment testing knows it's mostly mind-numbing boredom followed by many hours of reducing the raw data into results. That Ted could wander into a test already underway and "solve" a problem with a locomotive engine is specious nonsense. Heat engines are designed to convert fuel to heat. Not once was it noted that the coal required to produce a certain quantity of steam of a certain temperature and pressure was first carefully graded for size and analyzed for carbon, volatiles and ash. The amount burned was also recorded. Likely more tests were run to determine how the boiler responds to other types and sizes of coal. That alone could easily require days if not more than a week of round the clock testing. Then there's water quality... Ted may well have done all these things but doing them all in a single day? Poppycock and balderdash.

Thank you for working. Greeting for Türkiye

What was the diesel class loco?

6:05> Watch the camera jumping. I seriously doubt that's SFX.

Still designing and building steam locomotives in the fifties? They would certainly have a short life.

وہ یادیں رلا دیتے ہیں کس طرح اسوقت کے گورنمنٹ، ٹیکنیکل یونیورسٹیز ، انجنیئرز نے کتنی خلوصِ دل سے کام کیا اور اس سے بہی زیادہ تحسین کے مستحق ریلویز کے اسٹاف ہیں وہ کتنی جسمانی و ذہنی محنت سے عام لوگوں کے لیئے پر سکون سفر مھیا کرتے تھے

Back when 1 household income would be enough to financially support a family and the house.

what is the steam engine at 15:50?

I wonder what happened to ted, and when he retired,surely somebody knew him?

Looks like Ted has a hell of life. 2.3 kids and a hot blonde at home, and I'm seriously jealous of Ted.

I listened to a talk given by the VR CME and he said they’d look at a blueprint of a steam locomotive and request the weight be reduced by say, 100 pounds. How would you do that with a stack of blueprints? Easy on a CAD.

If only all managers came from this calibre of people who have worked their way up the ladder instead of these useless university idiots we have these days. The country would run a whole lot smoother and efficiently.

one man supervising everything, micromanaging nightmare.

❤

It's all Ted's fault. He taught all the college students for free. Spent the rest of his time at the factory. So no time for his wife,,, so no children for Ted. Then the students went back to there countries and built there own loco's. Leaving Ted a broken, wifeless, homeless, Jobless Shadow of a man . Poor Ted 👍😎 Good film though.

Those locomotives do not look like British outline and at about 17.33 they seem to have plates in Arabic script. I wonder where these engines ended up and if they still exist today,

In the days when we manufactured products and trained the workforce!

Wonderful film, have seen it several time, still it’s a joy to see again. By the way, I think Ted didn’t knew one shit of the whole process, because he was an hired model or actor😂.... have a cigarette sir? Looking at his empty pipe, yes thank you... wonderful!!

Amazed they don't get steam burns

Ted likes those young boys, doesn't he.

Building steam in the 50's, and we wonder why we haven't a locomotives industry

The original steampunks!!

In other words, Ted is a busy-body.

A good film, but the bomb in the firebox wasn't the fact that making steam engines like this was horribly dangerous; but that it was horribly inefficient. A small army of skilled men making tiny numbers of non-standard parts, too many of which depended on just human judgement and crude mechanical measures. For instance: the film says the forgers judged the temperature of the metal "by eye", a notoriously bad way of judging temperature.

I can't find anything on "Ted Wilson"

Yotam Amit❤😊

Micro management at its finest

Notice how there isn't a single bit of paperwork related to lawyers or suing culture

Men in the factory stood on a plank of wood tipping out molten metal. Don't think that would go down to well with H&S nowadays.

Poor Ted, they closed the place 8 years later.

Where has it all gone wrong !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ?? Trains, cars, motorbikes. Once the best in the world at engineering, now just history very sad.

Please tell me you know "Ted" is an actor. Great film though.

The very fabric of what made Britain great is woven throughout this gem of a film. The can do attitude coupled with a lack of government red tape meant that good, honest work could be done unimpeded. Even though I am far to young, I appreciate what my relatives went through to make the world a better place all those years ago. Such a shame its all gone to rat shit now.

Good quality film. These locos are bound for the old Empire, middle east I'd say. Note the lack of health and safety, a steam hammer shaping a block if red hot steel, feet away from shirt sleeved workers. In these days the workers had their own homes and guaranteed jobs. See what successive governments gave done to the security of the working people.

11:54 mark. Successful test. For an engineer - just as good as sex - light up a cigarette.

Critical past too hard but very amazing today looking very strange and unique it's steer of revolution best wishes.Pakistan Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Thoroughly enjoy these films made when I was a young man, sadly the days of a "Great Britain" are long past, now it is just Britain. thanks for nothing to our almost useless and self serving politicians.

Typical engineer,when measuring the wheel axle journal the micrometer is upside down

It was the last gasp of steam traction - Britain's abundant coal resources kept it going down that road after the rest of the world had already turned to diesel-electric & electric traction.

Just Brilliant , no health and safety though.

It's beautiful, isn't it? It's even surreal. How could they do this without a computer? How could they know what kind of metal, what kind of nuts and bolts? The size of the threads? How could they know the wheel sizes, the length of the connecting rods? Even their shape? How could they work in such a furnace with just shirts on their shoulders? Whereas nowadays, you need overalls, and protective gear! Where did the measuring instruments come from to find out whether the machining was good or not? Who trained the first engineer? Who made the first plan of these big machines, without ever having seen them before? No wonder what is happening on this planet without anyone asking the right questions? How did the first men learn about the different alloys that could be used? Who told them all this? Then the tests! How many workers and engineers died in machine explosions during the first tests? Strange to know that suddenly everything is there in the so-called modern man! As for a program. How did we go from the very first small steam engines to big monsters of several tons? With some of them equipped with gas turbines! How did the hunter-gatherer get there? When it seems that he was chasing mammoths to feed his family? Finally the man increased, how long has it been going on? Ah yes! Since the beginning! How does man know what he knows? For example for these steam engines, how did man make all the different elements that make up his machines? Surprised that nobody asks the question under this video? And who invented the machines that make machines? So what was the first machine in the history of the industrial machine? And why was it designed? And by whom? And on the basis of what it observes in nature? So easy to talk about evolution. Animals have existed on this Earth much longer than we have, and where are their machines? Steph. C'est magnifique pas vrai? C'est même surréaliste. Comment pouvaient ils faire cela sans le moindre ordinateur? Comment pouvaient savoir quel type de métaux, d'écrous de boulons? La taille du filetage? Comment pouvaient ils savoir les tailles de roues, la longueur des bielles? Même leur forme? Comment faisaient ils pour travailler dans une telle fournaise avec juste des chemises sur les épaules. Alors que de nos jours, il faut des bleus de travail, et des équipements de protections! D'où sont sorti les instruments de mesures pour savoir sur les usinages étaient bon ou pas? Qui à formé le premier ingénieur? Qui a réalisé le premier plan de ces grosses machines, sans jamais en avoir vue auparavant? Etonnant non ce qu'il se passe sur cette planète sans que personne se pose les bonnes questions? Comment les premiers hommes ont été mis au courant des différents alliages possible? Qui leur a soufflé tout ça? Puis les essais! Combien d'ouvriers et d'ingénieurs sont décédés dans des explosions de machines lors des premiers essais? Etrange quand même tout se savoir qui soudain est là en l'homme dit moderne! Comme pour un programme. Comme est on passé des toutes premières machines à vapeur de petites tailles aux gros monstres de plusieurs tonnes? Avec certaine d'entre elles équipées de turbines à gaz! Comment le chasseur cueilleur en est il arrivé là? Alors qu'il parait qu'il courait après les mammouths pour nourrir sa famille? Finalement l'homme augmenté, ça dure depuis combien de temps? Ah oui! depuis le commencement! Comment l'homme sait ce qu'il sait? Par exemple pour ces machines à vapeur, comment l'homme a t-il fait pour réaliser tous les différents éléments qui composent ses machines? Etonnant que personne ne se pose la question sous cette vidéo? Et qui a inventé les machines qui fabriquent des machines? Donc quelle a été la première machine dans l'histoire de la machine industrielle? Et pour qu'elle raison a t-elle été conçue? Et par qui? Et sur la base de qu'elle observation dans la nature? Tellement facile de parler d'évolution. Les animaux existent sur cette Terre depuis bien plus longtemps que nous, et où sont leurs machines? Stéph.

True engineering at it's highest. All these Uni wallah's .... And yes I've heard it ' I'm an engineer' No ... No you are not..Can you use a lathe, Milling machine, can you weld / electric or gas, braze, solder tin?? The best I have ever had is an inside vernier handed it to the bod and said it's out of cal. the reply ' What am I supposed to be looking at?' The Gentleman here in this film started at the bottom and worked his way up. No brown nosing, no discrimination card. Pure hard work and study. Sadly these days have gone. Even worse we shall never see them again, but in the amazing world of the preserved Railway those Ladies and Gents pull off miracles, my hat is off to them all.

I'm not a fan of one-dimensional nostalgia, but that sure was a cool video. What an amazing operation. All gone now. Oh well, the nature of this world is change.

Such a different country now, As we look around what industry have we left ? Walk around Crewe center it staggers the imagination just how big the locomotive works were. and now just a shadow of its former self. Governments have so much to answer for. They show a political ignorance that is beyond belief. its delinquency on such a large scale. No forethought and investment just close close close.

The HSE killed the Ted's of this world.

Not a pair of goggles or a safety helmet them days. !!!!

Not a bit of PPE to be seen

Obviously this film was staged, rehearsed and choreographed. I wonder did these engineers go deaf in time, as did many mill workers, because no ear defenders visible, no even cotton wool bungs in ears! Very interesting film though.

Vulcan now a frigging houseing estate, buying in loco,s from abroad, criminal.

Ted was probably an experienced and capable engineer but he was a lousy actor😂

i think Ted Wilson is gay