End of steam question - perception

Following on from the 760077 thread.

When did the knowledge that steam was really going to end in a finite time window fully percolate through?

Clearly no one specific answer fits all

 

The publication of 'The Modernisation Plan for British Railways' in 1955?

 

I would wager that Most of the population wouldn t have been aware there was an end date.

 

Most of the population probably did not care.

 

Was thinking slightly more railway-focussed, but thinking of that weld on 77067, did the welder think "sod it, that'll hold for a few years and it'll be scrapped by then"

There's references in the various reminiscences books about the writers talking about colleagues very happy to not come home covered in muck and exhausted. It must have been very unsettling to be working in places that were going to be not only closed, but completely replaced by a different technology.

 

My dad recalls reading about that as a school boy and not putting 2 and 2 together that lots of diesels meant no steam

 

It's probably a bit like asking when petrol engine cars will come to an end.

 

The replacement of steam with diesel was a classic British muddle. How long do you want to talk about it? It's now water under the bridge.

 

That's the whole point of a forum like this. People can go on talking about stuff for as long as they want to.

 

The simple answer to the OP's question is "3 years before I was born", because that's when LT finally got rid of steam.

The more interesting question, coming out of the thread this came out of, is how that consciousness changed. This was the era of the "white heat of technology", yet many pictures suggest a country that still in many ways belonged to the pre-war era. That suggests, a picture I remember my parents and grandparents both shared with me, a society in transition. How that affected peoples' perceptions is genuinely interesting - far more so than the actual transition.

 

It would depend upon which bit of BR we are talking about. For the South Western the announcement of the Bournemouth Electrification (with a planned implementation of Dec 1966) would have done the trick. It's little wonder that some footplatemen started buying cameras. One Guildford driver, Lew Woolridge, went one better and bought a Super 8 movie camera. His footage was eventually issued on DVD by SVS. It it mainly concerned with Guildford Loco. and its men, but worth a watch if you come across it.
Didn't the WR GM announce a finish date for steam on his region (somewhat messed up with his inability to get shot of the S&JR when he had hoped). I don't imagine that he was telling anyone anything that they hadn't worked out for themselves.
Pat

 

The motive power may have changed but the railway didn't change much after the end of steam. These thoughts are based on the post by 35B

All records were completely manual until the early 1970's. In 1974 I started on a steam age railway without steam locos. Records were kept in ledger books and daily freight vehicle returns were read over to the divisional office every day. Many stations, even on minor lines were staffed from the first to last service for penny numbers of passengers. The traditional Station Managers were capable of staffing their ticket offices and doing the weekly returns, shunting a freight train and working the signal boxes in their patch. ( Thank you to SM's Baker, Briggs and Everett for encouraging my interest, and often turning a blind eye.) Many staff only rose one or two grades in their entire career and promotion in the clerical and footplate grades was reliant on "dead mens shoes" promotion.
TOPS was the first nationwide computer system on BR which was introduced between 1973 and 1976 along with payroll input and records which were introduced shortly afterwards. Both were seen as the wonder of the age and some area managers took great delight in showing off the new computer systems to the local business communities.
I retired in 2017 with many data systems and terabytes of data circulating but without enough experienced staff to interpret the information! For all the technology it still needs a driver in the cab and boots on the ballast to fix the track circuit fault or examine the earth slip.

Cheers, Neil

 

Yes, it's amazing looking back how much the railway into the 80s was still a steam railway without the steam.

It's interesting to me as a historian as we have reams of material on what certain self-selecting people thought (prinicipally footplate crew who enjoyed the job), and very little from others.

Mind you "not another bl**dy in that bl**dy filthy shed" wouldn't be a catchy title for a book.

When you hear about Pete Townsend working miracles at KX top shed, the wider context isn't as well-recorded.