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What was the past really like?

Discussion in 'Steam Traction' started by paulhitch, Oct 27, 2016.

  1. pedantic_p

    pedantic_p New Member

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    Unlike today I don't think that there was too much romanticism about working with the tackle we had, both locos and coal. Not everything was brightly polished and lovingly maintained, in fact as most photos taken in that era give a true indication of what the footplate crews had to contend with.
     
  2. flaman

    flaman Well-Known Member

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    That was one area where the Doctor was definitely right! I had the opportunity to visit Stratford MPD several times during the change-over from steam to diesel, between 1957 and 1962. It wasn't difficult to see the problems. Chief among them was a very simple one-dirt! Diesel engines and the associated electrical equipment required a clean environment, particularly during servicing, but the environment at Stratford was about the filthiest imaginable! Even when a proper diesel servicing shed was built, adjacent to the main steam running shed (the "Jubilee") the situation hardly improved.

    Another issue was staff. Most workshop staff transferred from steam to diesel after retraining, but once transferred they couldn't easily be transferred back. This inflexibility led to staff shortages, particularly of skilled men. The combination of poor facilities and inexperienced staff also contributed to the unreliability of the early diesels.
    It became particularly difficult to recruit firemen. When I left school, aged 15 in 1959, BR were advertising extensively for cleaners/trainee firemen, particularly for the LTSR line. You could sign-on as a cleaner straight from school and be on the footplate within a year! Very tempting and many took it up, but for many the novelty soon wore off when faced with the hard physical work, relatively poor pay (compared with, say, the building industry), not to mention having to be at the beck and call of old and unsympathetic drivers! A lot of the lads left the railway fairly quickly or transferred to diesels at the first opportunity, thus forcing the railway to search for more recruits for a job that everyone knew would not last long. So much for the romance of steam!
     
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  3. Matt37401

    Matt37401 Nat Pres stalwart

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    I should imagine the past was grimy and dirty and maybe a bit greasy? I should imagine it had a rather unpleasant smell too. To quote my father 'Saltley on a Sunday? Was bloody awful, there was the smell from the Gasworks, all them loco's being lit up, all that sulphur and yellow smoke, then you throw in the smell from the HP sauce factory, Saltley on a Sunday absolutley bloody stunk'
     
  4. johnofwessex

    johnofwessex Resident of Nat Pres

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    My late mother would no doubt point out how different it was for women
     
  5. Duty Druid

    Duty Druid Resident of Nat Pres

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    I'm sure I read somewhere that it was planned for steam to last into the 80's - OK probably only in Scotland & possibly the Cumbrian coast, before it completely went, but Beeching put the Kibosh on that & the minions pressed the panic button......................

    But the bottom line is, the change over was badly done, with the headlong rush to modernise at any cost.
     
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  6. Duty Druid

    Duty Druid Resident of Nat Pres

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    Well, what else would you expect?............. :rolleyes:

    Nice to splash on Sunday brunch - not so nice to smell it brewing!
     
  7. Reading General

    Reading General Part of the furniture

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    and not only that, but political interference led to many untried designs whilst off the shelf locos could have been bought from the USA
     
  8. Matt37401

    Matt37401 Nat Pres stalwart

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    I don't think brunch existed in my Dads youth!
     
  9. flaman

    flaman Well-Known Member

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    I think that the planned date for the end of steam was 1973- coincidentally about the same as France- but the Beeching cuts and a general decline in traffic meant that by the mid-60s there were too many locos for the available work. Quite a few of the first generation diesels had also gone by 1973.
     
  10. Duty Druid

    Duty Druid Resident of Nat Pres

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    Most of those thankfully only existed in former copper top country!

    Still, thanks to the less than pragmatic approach by the powers that be, it was what can best be described as a "cock up"!
     
  11. Duty Druid

    Duty Druid Resident of Nat Pres

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    You may well be right & what I read may have been written with rose tinted glasses, but I'm sure it mentioned '85 as "the end"................... but '68 it was, for better or worse................ & given the mess they're making of "dragging" the GWML into the present day, I'd say worse - its an abortion fashioned on the whim of some failed coward of a politico................
     
  12. Jimc

    Jimc Part of the furniture

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    The ironic thing about that is that Swindon wanted to build an established German design...
     
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  13. Matt37401

    Matt37401 Nat Pres stalwart

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    I'm sure I read somewhere that ER were planning on the Gresley Pacifics to Soldier on to 1970, this begs the question when would the Peppercorn Pacifics have lasted to? And would we have had those EE/Napier type 5's
     
  14. Martin Perry

    Martin Perry Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Moderator Friend

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    I'm not convinced by the ' years of life left argument'; surely any steam loco only really has the length of its current boiler certificate left? Plus they generally needed more or less complete rebuilds every few years (as did diesel locos but they generally managed several times the mileage between heavy overhauls).
     
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  15. Duty Druid

    Duty Druid Resident of Nat Pres

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    Erm, yes...................... seems they employed "Bodgit, Dodgit & Leggit" in the rush to modernise...... with no aesthetics what so ever............... they say the wheel turns...... & so it does - just look at the Butt ugly muck that the Yanks et al have given us.......... at least EE had an idea of pleasing lines!
     
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  16. Duty Druid

    Duty Druid Resident of Nat Pres

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    I believe you might be right....... no idea what would've become of Peppercorn's finest...............

    Yes the Deltic's & EE type 3's & 4's would've happened regardless - at least they proved reliable unlike the abortions the Western Region chose to got with - bit them right royally on the bum that did!
     
  17. Duty Druid

    Duty Druid Resident of Nat Pres

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    If steam were to have perpetuated into the 80's (for arguements sake) it would've been down to the powers that be as to the "value" of keeping it going................... and lo, come the 80's, after steam had gone - we have had ever since steam on the mainline! :) so the value is there, and I personally know a mainline steam driver who is only 23! Make of that what you will..................
     
  18. Martin Perry

    Martin Perry Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Moderator Friend

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    I would hardly say that the occasional steam railtour somehow makes the economic case for the retention of steam to the present day ...
     
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  19. Martin Perry

    Martin Perry Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Moderator Friend

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    The D10XX were as reliable if not more so than comparable diesel locos and that was without the benefit of constant vendors support and travelling fitters that the Deltics enjoyed for many years.
     
  20. Matt37401

    Matt37401 Nat Pres stalwart

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    As one of my friends says 'the taxpayer has got it's money's worth from EE type one and three' says it all on how many have been 'preserved' and sold back into industry.
     

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