LMS Men Of The Footplate 1939, full version.
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- čas přidán 16. 06. 2018
- This film, made in 1939, shows the progression of a young man in the LMS from engine cleaner to fireman and onwards to driver.
Please note that this footage is used on a fair use basis for education and training purposes.
Brilliant film, and young Harry, real name Jack Houghton was a relation of mine. Started at Wellingborough loco shed as an engine cleaner in 1937, retiring slightly early in 1980 from Wellingborough as a diesel electric driver. He passed away about 15 years ago.
It's nice to hear that he made it through the war and had hopefully a great Life
@@stefanmzenhardt2891 Being a footplateman, Jack was in a 'reserved occupation' and as far as I know, served his war service on the railway. Wellingborough was a big railway depot, but fortunately escaped any bombing.
It's lovely to hear that. While watching I was wondering 'what ever became of Harry?'
It's really nice to see people following the rules of .... etiquette for want of a better word.. Taking your hat off in a building and calling people Sir. I'm ex RAF and these things were shouted into you. A different world and sadly one to which we will never see again. That's why I love these films. Thank you..
I agree I also would like more respect in this world
Former RAF. Thank you for your service.
So true, 😂
I wonder if he went of to war
Then in September '39 Germany invaded Poland, which was terribly bad mannered.
In 1960 I was 15 but altered my birth certificate to age 16 in order to work on the footplate at 1A Willesden where I became a fireman. My father when he eventually found out took a dim view but never let on.RIP dad.
That’s the shed where my late uncle was the breakdown crane driver, living close by at Stoke Place
@@FEStanley I worked with The Breakdown and recovery gangs for a few years Peter. Sadly all the 75 ton Cowans & Sheldon Cranes have been with withdrawn. It`s all done with contract lifts now.
These are such great historic videos, I wonder what happened to Jim as WW2 broke out the same year, my dad was 21 and survived i hope jim did.
Being a 1950s kid we grew up saying please and thank you, holding doors open being polite, Now as a 72 year old i look at this once great country brought to its knees by incompetent politicians. How safe are our streets. I think i would swop some of today for these times of yesteryear. Thank you for the video.
I can't help but agree with your post. I too am just 73 and can't help feel a sense of loss for the way things used to be. What happened? We have constantly been betrayed by politicians of all parties and it continues to this day.
These evocative films show a world where pride, self reliance and a sense of community were everywhere, particularly in the work place.
What an enjoyable film.
My great-grandad, coincidentally also called Jim, was born in 1891 and worked his way up through the ranks from cleaner to engine driver on what I think was the LMS. The old boy even won a gallantry award in WW2 for driving an ammo train that was strafed by a German aircraft. His older brother went off to war in 1914, survived four years and died of wounds right near the end. Family legend has it that the telegram arrived on Armistice Day.
He died just short of his century and spent about forty years sat in his shed, or watching rugby league which seems like a = retirement he thoroughly enjoyed. Dad Dad, I don't think we ever had a conversation I understood and you seemed as old as the hills, but I wish I'd known you better.
Oh, and a final, romantic story. His wife was by his bed as he was reaching the end. She asked 'Do you love me, Jim?' and he answered 'Always and forever' and then slipped away. She died about three weeks later, I think because her heart was broken.
Yet in Japan people are polite. Why not the UK? Oh, they don't fly-tip, either, or smear graffiti everywhere.
As a frenchman, I watched this video attentively. It's nice to see the process of working and become an experienced driver. As my grand father was in the french railways before and after the 2nd world war and during, my father and me have got the virus of trains and forcibly the steam locomotives and trains. I try to watch videos of steam trains and locos as much as I can because it is so impressive to see them as full speed or on an uphill grade slippering. Well. Great times are finished and I am 54 now. Almost retired.
For those interested the shed this was shot at is Wellingborough Judging by the locomotive shed plates.
Near me then.
So good to see the full film. My Grandfather was a driver at Crewe up to 1961. He started as a cleaner at 14 years old.
In 1939 Ernest Potter has 45 years of service. So he started in 1894!
My father was a driver at the LMS Saltley depot in Birmingham before during and after WW2.
So awesome to see some real history! Thanks so much for sharing! Happy new year to all!
Brilliant ! Best short video in a long while.
Great video! I was fireman and later driver! On my country! The video explain exactly the “road” to be a driver!
Excellent bit of film, I love watching these old videos, gives you more of a idea and out look how it was back then!
I love this. Harry is amazingly well dressed and super clean for that job. He would be black from head to foot after an hour of cleaning those engines.
I remember 1955 starting as cleaner at 8A edge hill and fitter asked me to go to stores for a LONG STAND ,storeman told me to wait outside and I did until foreman cleaner came and asked me what I was doing , I told him and he grinned and said I think that's long enough get back to your cleaning😂😂😂😂
old school gaffers, hardly any left nowadays mores the pity, they knew the job and how to treat the men as they did it themselves, not like nowadays with the modern manager, with them its computer says no and they dont know shite, old school was best.
hear hear
Thats why apart from this laptop whih is hidden I live my life 50s even drive a 59 Hillman minx. old tv the lot. Im only 35 I hate today's crap.
So what I got from this was you're more likely to get chewed out for stupid reasons with modern trains.
Old school labourers, always complaining about summat :D
@@clifftonicstudios7469 It's weird because I was just thinking about how little everything has changed in the last 80 years
you still have the tool shed man making you sign out your gear, still have the rules and regulations as the first thing to do, still have encouragement to continue learning after working hours in order to secure a better position. I couldn't help but keep thinking about how if anything, all the modern changes are for the best. Watch the one where they show you how to clean and sweep the locomotive and you'll notice the worst job of the operation is saved for the only black guy on the crew lol! The only thing I saw that was better was that the 16 year old got the job first try! he didn't have to go through 3 rounds of interviews only to be told to try again in 4 months during the next hiring sweep.
Love the soundtracks on 1930s documentary movies. Willesden 1A loco shed for us 1960s trainspotters was one of the friendliest.
1939:- : A job for life
2020:- Zero hour contracts
John Donaldson Gold Spike Museum In Bailey Yard North Platte Nebraska USA 🇺🇸! Family History USA 🇺🇸! Railroadies! WhoootWhooooot
Bang on John a job for life what have we got now is exploitation
@@davidgray2653
What's wrong with working for Macca's for $7 p/hr ? About the cost of a big mac.
@@davidgray2653 That's what the sheople of Britain and former Dominions fought Churchill's WWII for. He who sups with the devil.....
@@663rainmaker railway man
Thank you for this film.
My Father started as a cleaner aged 17 in 1940, retired as a driver having driven both steam and diesel main line locos.
Great way to start life good old fashioned hard work with good people!! 👏👏👏
No airline pilot even today will have 800 passengers in their trust. Amazing the responsibility these men had. And very very few accidents ❤
This is strangely comforting Covid lockdown viewing. With a slightly melancholic edge given the impending war. It was uploaded two years ago - why did CZcams recommend it now? Is the sidebar alive?
That scot class loco 6114 ' Coldstream guard' was involved in a serious crash in 1931. Five people lost their lives when the crew failed to notice a go slow warning during engineering works just outside Leighton buzzard. The train derailed. The train was put back into service a year before this documentary was made.
i love old documentaries like this what show are histori from back in the day just love it
I'd been waiting for Harry to have a proper engine-man's hat, and there at 15:25 a nice new shiny one! Very interesting video.
Fascinating series! From the days when people learnt the job from the bottom up unlike most at the top these days!
I work in train maintenance and its annoying how you get cocky upstarts full of themselves coming in as so called "engineers" straight from graduation who cant even use tools properly and are asking me where stuff is located on a train that they shpuld know given they have access to all the same drawings and other tech info i do.
"Those who can do, those who can't teach and those who can't teach teach teachers", did Tony Blair seriously think that 50% of young people were degree level material?@@steveb60879
My grandfather was a drive and my dad was the stoker . They never worked on the same train . Both LMS.
This is a great video!
Cleaners, the modern railways don't know the meaning of a clean engine let alone any rolling stock. Back then the railways took pride in their work and it only started to wain around the '60's when the demise of the steam train was imminent.
Best movie of the year for sure
"Aaaar, young Jim Hawkins, so you be a driver now?"
Young Harry would be 100 years old now! I hope that he had a long and happy career on the railways.
This was a great story
Poor old Trewin was lnvalided out of the railway after his loco suffered flying bomb damage close to Kentish Town mpd in September 1944.
No He wasn't. He was a relation of mine and retired from Wellingborough WO diesel depot in 1980 after a lifetime on the railway. His real name was Jack Houghton, and he only passed away about 15 years ago. He started at Wellingborough loco depot in 1937, a couple of years before the film was made.
@@martinp3018 Sadly that's the way things are now Wish people were respectful and like those portrayed in the film. Good to see Jack had a full life on the railway.
worked at Welly 1957 .. good film
That Locomotive in the end really, AND I MEAN REALLY! Looks like the prototype engine Fury. The engine fitted with a very high pressure boiler and super heaters.
Though it's possible it's unlikely. *_Fury_* was dismantled at *Crewe* a couple of years before this film was shot.
Fury had a similar outline but the locomotive was No. 6114, Coldstream Guardsman, a member of the Royal Scot class. It's shown in the film in its original form with parallel boiler. Under William Stanier the class were later rebuilt including the fitting of taper boilers and the distinctive, powerful shape of these rebuilt Scots can be seen running on the main line today in the form of preserved No. 46100, Royal Scot and 46115, Scots Guardsman. The locomotive Fury was built on a Royal Scot chassis but was withdrawn and put into store in 1930 after a burst firetube killed one and injured another. Stanier later used Fury's chassis to create No. 6170, British Legion, and Stanier used his new type 2 taper boiler. So Fury ultimately survived but as a conventional Scot and the success of the type 2 boiler must have been Stanier's inspiration to rebuild the entire class.
I've recently been behind No. 46115 on the WCML and at 75mph+ her three cylinder beat becomes just a continuous roar. You could see motorists on the parallel M6 glancing across and wondering about this fire breathing beast that was overtaking them. Utterly, utterly fabulous!
Congratulations! You've graduated to top express driver.
Now, the diesel electric shed is over there. Report to Mr. Somes in maintenance to start your training.
what a proud and triumphal into theme, Eargasm!
7:44 - what's in that two 'barrels' on the desk? 8:03 no idea
Excellent brass band music!!
6114 was involved in the 1931 Leighton Buzzard derailment
I want this job. Do they still have any openings? 😄
What’s the music a the Begining of the Film, it sounds great. And is it copyrighted?
captainmorgan757 responded to another query about this, `It's an old sailing song "Don't Forget Your Old Shipmate" and no it was not made especially for this film. The song is at least 150 years old.'
@@beeble2003 Thank you.
@@beeble2003 and sorry to reply two times but i'm having issues finding the instrumental played in the film.
By the 1950s and 60s progress to driver was much quicker as few people wanted to do the job.
WHY
@@doctahoe8663 Because the only light work on the railway was carrying the wage packet home. For every top link driver on an express, there were 50 people crawling into a firebox to knock clinker off the grate. In the final years of steam only new immigrants would do the work.
@@borderlands6606 Exactly, poeple started becoming allergic to hard work and dirty hands.
@@jermainerace4156 it's worse now. Kids are screaming "I don't want to get my hands all black and sooty" what a generation
2:43 Doctor seems to think he's checking a locomotive boiler for fractured tubes. Does that work for people, too?
He’s a well set up lad for 16 years !
Interesting moment. How they work in winter time?
Hi In 1967 i started on the railway Also had 2 pass doctor Our training was very professional Had 2 pass 3 exams
What locomotive yard did truin work at
We can’t appreciate or imagine how dirty and messy that ‘cleaners’ job was, even the fireman’s and even the engineer’s positions were filthy in those days.
Jim Hawkins, the hero from R. L. Stevenson's novel "Treasure Island" from 1883! Now working for the LMS as past fireman and towards driver? Or maybe it is his great-great grandson?!
Joke aside; I know these names are invented, and it doesn't matter. Just a little bit funny, and creative, mind; not like "John Doe", and such like.
As a whole I enjoyed this video immensely, being a snapshot from another time, as well as an interesting view into how the system worked at that time.
Thanks very much! 🙂
17/3 23 ls there a modern-day equivalent of Harry's induction anywhere on film ?
Wonderful
Loved the hard copy of the rules and regulations, well thumbed indeed! A more innocent time.
a better time
I don't always agree with rules and regulations, but a train yard is a dangerous place, with people's lives on the line. Makes sense to have those rules and regulations.
"LMS men of the footplate"
*GWR engine in the thumbnail*
No. It's a LMS loco
In today’s (2022) money, any idea what these different positions paid; either hourly or weekly?
Whats Stan Laurel doing in the Sidings ? 5.14
Was hoping to see Ollie at the top of the ladder 5.50+ .
thanks I loved it
A really important piece of primary evidence, even allowing for it being a LMS advert, with all the issues any advert will have. Most of the comments are fully of praise for a time we never knew; and I too admire the men that made the railways work (my father was one); but it wasn't some kind of paradise. There are things shown that would not have been accepted in any other leading industrialised nation; particularly the waste of human resources.
The start of a career in the railway in the UK was astonishingly perfunctory. The medical examination didn't even test for colour blindness! So you could spend 2 years learning all you could about engines and then fail to make passed cleaner because you were colour blind! That is abysmal! You either then spent you're working life on the lowest grade or you left the railway; but jobs were usually scarce and the railway relied on a massive pool of labour.
The Harry Truman character signs for his rule book, and is asked about it twice more; yet he starts the job without any introduction; and then it's up to him to learn it in his own time; and attend classes in his own time. So what anyone learned regardless depended on the men he worked with, good and bad. The working practises between engine sheds, even after Grouping, could be shockingly varied, and you can see why from watching this film. That is no way to run a railway.
As a few have mentioned, the all this waste of labour did more to kill off steam than any modernisation plan or Act of Parliament.
Nonsense: a man joining a job ought to have done his research, and have some idea of what it entails. No one with any wisdom sets out for something they are going to be bad at by their individual nature. I've met a lot of people who think they can "be anything they want when they grow up". It's a nonsensical idea and I've seen a lot of people waste their time. But the company is not to blame for a person's poor career choice. As far as learning on your own, honestly that's the only way it really happens. The utter failure of education in the present day is evidence that coddling and handholding are not how you teach people anything. You must have never gone to college; good professors only cover the complicated things, you are expected to educate yourself about the rest. It's not like anyone can actually educate someone else, that person must be able to handle the basics (like reading their assigned texts and understanding it) without assistance, or else frankly they are not going to succeed in the real trade if they do get a degree. I've seen it quite a lot, especialy among engineering majors. A great deal of them simply don't have the knack, they just learned how to pass the test, they never learned how to engineer. This is why a bachelor's degree is basically a worhtless piece of paper, and so many bachelors of engineering end up as shop floor supervisors, sales "engineers", and don't get their student loans paid off until their 50, but htat's another matter entirely.
Are eye sight tests done at any time?
Every 3 years now.
Any one got an idea of the name of the piece of music played at the.beginning ?
1939: started working at 16
2020: started working at 20
wow, still literaly a kid and works at the engine shed.
This year is actually the 75th anniversary of Mr.Awdry's Famous Railway engines.
THAT'S HOT
@@doctahoe8663 what do you mean by that?
THAT'S COOL THAT' GREAT YES
@@doctahoe8663 Well it's true. And the engines here on the Mainland all seem really Useful.
@@doctahoe8663 And while I was watching this I just simply imagined most of these locomotives with faces.
At 5:07 just for a moment, it looked like the lad was being introduced to Stan Laurel. That would have been an interesting video!
He be around 100 today, great story!
Love these historic films. Wish I could find the one about the Severn Tunnel. I think it is called Under The River from 1959.
*The British Transport Films Collection Volume One: On and Off the Rails*
It's available from *Amazon.*
Disc one
Blue Pullman (1960)
Elizabethan Express (1954)
Train Time (1952)
Rail 150 (1975)
The Diesel Train Driver (1959)
On Track for the Eighties (1980)
Cybernetica (1972)
Disc two
Under the River (1959)
Snowdrift a Bleath Gill (1955)
This Year London (1951)
This is York (1953)
The Great Highway (1956)
A Day of One's Own (1956)
John Betjeman goes by Train (1962)
Railroad 🛤 History! Love ❤️ these old videogates.... ! GOD Bless you all !
RAILWAY
I thank you on behalf of my late father. He made this film.
I didn't learn my rules and regulations thoroughly, didn't heed the book---So my career there went Off-the-Rails.
-former fireman in Train-ing
working in the raillways is sometime dirty but is amazin at same time and most of worker love working in th raillways
The importance of being Ernest…
11:46 I think a part of the video was skipped by accident. Unfortunately a few scenes were missing.
Probably don't exist anymore.
@@garryferrington811 that's a shame. It really is.
What? No D&A test? No sponsor? And no PTS, with other further requirements? Just pop-in and get the job? That guy was lucky to live in those days. Cause today would be probably facing depression.
😊 I like English steam locomotives👍
Who doesn't
A doctor examines the employee and another dismisses him along with many others.
That was rather good. A bit stiff and formal reflecting the times, but enjoyable nevertheless...
And respect
Great Britain.
I have to be very careful here. During the war, young men who were just starting at a large MOD factory in London were 'initiated' if they ever walked through the machine shop. This had many strong ladies who had, let's just say, an odd sense of fun. I must note that they could pick up a 17pdr shell with one hand before it was machined. They often worked 10-hour days. Hitler never stood a chance.
class
But what was their pension when they retired?
Fantastic film. Can’t imagine today’s 16 year olds going to work on the railway..
They wouldn't
@@Askial_Osial they would be highly unlikely to get the job even if they applied.
@@_Zekken yeah true
@@_Zekken Easier to join the Police. They're not so fussy!
I love your moronic and ignorant view.
good worker
By the end of steam no bugger gave a toss about cleaning engines. Many in my local area, mostly B1's and WD's looked dreadful in the early 60's. Their end was nigh, why bother....
@Aussie Pom wow, thats kind of sad to be honest
He's a real boy now.
2020
Wow
April 2023 👍🇨🇦
Bowler hats and suits on the footplate.
I didn't want to be a train driver when I was young, I wanted to be a clown, but every one laughed at me 🤣🤣
Ten thumbs down from people who like to travel by ox cart.
19 today !
Never understood why British locomotives did not have mechanical stokers ? this engine was a main passenger line one almost every US one by this time had a stoker . Even the older ones had been refitted with them .
keep it simple, reliable and cheap
Quite a few American ones were more powerful and couldn’t be fired by hand. Most, or all of British ones were hand-fired. The only type with mechanical stokers in Europe that I’m aware of was an American (and Canadian) type supplied to the SNCF after WW2 - the class 141R. These had to be supplied with relatively small ‘coal beans’, or ‘charbon criblé’ that could be handled by the stoker. Incidentally, many of those were oil fired, rather than coal.
Well American locomotives are much larger and require more fuel faster and in larger quantities whilst British locos are smaller and don't need as much coal (at high speed they do though) generally British locos don't focus so much on power mainly speed and so they don't need to have a auger (automatic coal shoveler) but some did have some kind of automatic coal shoveler.
When you got larger than 2-8-0's it was a question of whether hand-firing could do the job. The Eries' 0-8-8-0 camelbacks were so hard to fire relief firemen were stationed along the run.
VIDA DIFICÍL
Yes
6:02 - rozhovor mohl být takto: to byl náš nejvyšší starej, toho nesmíš nikdy nasrat - já vím, děkuji pane - to víš, jseš zelenáč, musel jsem ti to říct - ano pane - kdybys ho nasral, to bychom od něj schytali všichni a na lokomotivě by sis pak ani neškrtnul, rozumíš? - ano, jistě, rozumím a dám si na to pozor.
Wah
This would of made a smashing Ripping Yarn, staring Michael Pailin.
Nice! Scrubbing and firing engines with white collar *and* a tie. 🤣
And those shoes had a shine as well!
i wish we could return to everyone dressing smartly for work
Acting and direction and sound a bit iffy, but very interesting nonetheless! We will not see their like again.
Jack Houghton, who was a relative of mine took the part of young Harry. He was a railwayman, not an actor, and he retired, still working at Wellingborough in 1980, after spending his last years driving diesel electrics. The other characters in the shed and office scenes at Wellingborough were all railway folk as well. I have some notes with names of them somewhere, which Jack gave me as we watched the film together some 20 years ago.
😍😍😍☕☕☕👋✌nostálgico
See, this is how employment is supposed to work; by merit. No affirmative action or quota bs.