This vintage railway film, produced in 1952 by British Transport Films as part of their permanent way series, details the various methods of maintaining switches and crossings on the British Railways network.
As a heritage railway volunteer I find these vintage training films enjoyable and invaluable showing us how it should be done. I was quite worried when they disappeared from another channel recently that we would not see them again. My thanks for putting these films up for us all to see.
I agree. These are still interesting to watch. There was a vintage film showing the building of the tunnel under the Severn. I wish I could find that one again.
As a keen abandoned railway explorer this film is amazing. I can see where all of the track furniture and tools are used. I have found and collected many of the things shown. Brilliant
You should donate your finds to railway museums. That’s what I do here in the states. I find things rarely seen today, and I find them at abandoned stations, switches, and sidings.
I did some engineering work for Railtrack. The track workers really knew their stuff, but the managers were useless and disrespected the track workers. That was part of Railtrack's downfall.
I like the way instructional films were made back then, very clear and easy to understand. For a volunteer on a heritage railway track gang this is a good way to make clear what is expected from him. But I was raising my eyebrows a bit when the worker was checking the gauge on the obtuse crossing, he held the gauge correct at a 90° angle to the rails measuring the distance in between, but when measuring the other side he kept the gauge in the same line and thus on an angle to the rails measuring in between, which isn't correct. The gauge always should maintain a square angle to the rails which are checked.
19:59 is the darlington bank top layout facing north viewpoint from footbridge showing coal yard to left platform 5&6 along with signal box just behind gantry very top of pic to left is darlingtons powerstation cooling towers centre of pic haughton road behind that the crossing of the stockton & darlington railway centre right goods & engine sidings carter row(houses)to the right & lastly just out of view darlington railway plant behind houses this film was years before my time & a lot has changed since its making but the mainline & viewpoint is very much the same
This is a bible for any railway enthusiast modeller, a huge amount of information from videos of the era. Absolutely fantastic! Would have a tenth of this here in Italy....
One of the first searches I did when I joined you tube was search for British transport films I certainly wasn’t disappointed but I hoped there would be lots more regarding building steam locomotives, it must be something about us of a certain age who grew up in age of steam
Great watch. Amazing how primitive the railway is, many of these skills and techniques are still relative today, especially where these components are still found on operational railway.
Amazing workmanship and film.. I have a similar problem at 17:00 with my model railway junction double slips , I am rebuilding the worn sections with two part epoxy glue and reshaping.
Blimey , I was a patrolman on the length gang on Wessex and I never got a possession during traffic hours to adjust or change a distance block on a crossing ! 🤣 the S&C on my section was often in bad nick , had nothing to do with manpower , it was the section manager who didn’t look after the job and get the faults done properly, the norm was waiting until the crossing developed a crack on the nose and a ESR went up . BR days people took pride in their section .
Apart from using more resilient fixings to reduce maintenance interventions a lot hasn’t changed. Except that now “Length gangs” are a thing of the past and the local depot staff will cover an entire area.
@@SportyMabamba Thanks for taking the time to reply. I still remember a steam train journey to London with my dad (I'm 76) when I was about 9 years old. I swear sometimes I can still smell it.
I worked on the railway all my life . But I didn't work on the P-way . They still patrol the line every 2 days , checking the track . Lest they did on lines I worked . There was always something that needed fixing.
Very little Shovel and Bar work nowadays,, Tampers, Hobc, high output ballast cleaner, a whole train that removes cleans and replaces the ballast. There are even whole train to completely Re-lay the track. These guys would stand and stare in disbelief !! I used to do it same way as them in the 90s . A lot of men and skills lost . 😎👍
Going to guess, a lot of these chaps were either Ex forces, or BR had a good deal going with Army & Navy stores, check out the Khaki's, Beret's & Boots. Mainly ex military. Either way, true unsung heroes of the railway. Love these films, so informative and shows how this most basic of work used to be done. By hard graft. It would kill us now!!
You seriously think BR provided workwear in those days! The blokes bought it themselves from the army surplus shops, it was cheap and plentiful after the war.
The junction layout featured in this video is the same as the layout at Speke Junction at, for example, Liverpool South Parkway - where the CLC line to Manchester via Warrington Central diverts away from the LNWR main line to Weaver Junction via Runcorn.
I found some old articles describing your track workers as Gandy Dancers, I think the name came from a company making rail equipment/tools..... Over here in the UK they were 'length gangs'.
However, as modern high speed trains can run up to 125mph, modern switches and crossings have to be designed in such a way that it can very fast trains without breaking apart and causing an accident.
On high speed rail the points are different usually longer and the curve is also less but the principles are the same in the 67 years the materials have also improved e.g. the steel, insulating materials also the rail clips and chairs
Must have been in 1960 watching from Clacton recreatio ground Britania pullin out , way across by the Engine shed saw a loco creeping down a sight slope wherre crews were having a fry up, jumped over the fence ran across the track boarded the loco & screwed the brake on , Oiy you what the hell are you doing !!! Wnen they saw I'd saved their lives , had a cuppa & some of their dinner , waited till the track was clear & lead me back , 10 dats in Essex no time to visit wanted to know if the shed & turntable are still there ,
This J94 has an extended bunker, different rear cab spectacles and extra footsteps, so is a BR modified LNER . Looks like the location is in the north east! Does anyone know where?
Dirty, greasy hands were a badge of honor. What supervisor is going to believe a man with nice pink hands at the end of his workday? And if he goes home with pink and soft hands his wife is not going to believe he was at work all day. I recall as a boy holding my father's hand in church, and seeing the scars, the calluses,, the embedded grease and dirt that would never wash out. One can always tell a working man by his hands, and I was proud of my dad.
@MusicalElitist1 Like it or not, this used to be the attitude people had. Some people still have this attitude even though we now know the health consequences of such actions.
The 'Calouses protect your hand, after a week of using a shovel, your hands toughened up. Mine did. Blisters on top of Blisters. Loved every year of it, all 10 of them 😀👍😎
Not a hard hat or high viz vest in sight ah those where the days, liquid lunch and you still got the job done on time. To much crap and red tape today.
@@billpugh58 I made this point to one of these old buffers who make these comments and reminded him that the level of accidents among pw staff was now much lower, and he accused me of using statistics like Josef Goebbels!
@@jimthorne304 because there are a lot Less Pway staff to have an accident lol. Our Pway Engineer from Crewe, came onto our job site asking what was 'that machine's a Tamper I said 'Oh, what does that do'? Clueless. But hed done his time in University,, I had done mine on the Shovel. 🤬😂👍
