"Building a Castle Class Locomotive - Swindon 1950" - from Vintage Trains

[video=youtube_share;-EyCvz60R78]http://youtu.be/-EyCvz60R78[/video]

DVD : Available NOW – Approx running time 48 minutes - £15.00 plus £2.50 post and packing.
Proceeds from the sale of the item above is intended to raise funds for the continuing overhaul of our Castle class locomotive 7029 ‘Clun Castle’.

Order By Telephone paying by Debit or *Credit card:
Tel: 0121 708 4960 (Monday - Friday 09:30 - 16:30)
* Credit card surcharge of £1 applies.

This DVD is a stunning insight into how the Great Western Railway and its successors in BR went about the construction of the Castle class locomotives. Until now few people have been privileged to see this film which has become something of a legend amongst GWR enthusiasts. Filmed in black and white by the Swindon A shop Chief Erecting shop foreman, Stan Millard, and his assistant Perc Jarvis, the film was only able to be made with the permission of the WR CME Kenneth Cook and the assistance of many of those at Swindon responsible for building the Castles.

The film focuses on the activities of building the last 10 Castles, No’s 7028 to 7037, which obviously includes our very own 7029 ‘Clun Castle’. We have been given special permission to release this DVD by Stan Millard’s son Frank as a means of raising money for the restoration of 7029.
The film is accompanied with a short piece by Frank Millard on how the film came to be made and an informative commentary has been added to this previously silent film.

 

What a splendid idea.......although not a GWR man...........being an engineer I love watching historic industrial film like this.......will order now

 

Just ordered a copy.

 

Me too.....did it straight away this morning..........the lady I spoke too was a bit taken aback at my quick response..............she spoke very highly of it too......hope it's a success

 

Getting some very positive feedback from folks that have ordered the DVD.

We will have them for sale on the train on Saturday also!

 

Are any likely to be for sale on the Edinburgh trip Ben ?.

 

We will have a full quota of books and DVD's on ALL our trains at ALL times (untill the sell-out that is!)

 

Just received mine about an hour ago.........could'nt wait had to watch it straight away so put it on the puter. It is absolutely a must this dvd it covers many processes other than the actual assembly. My father was a highly skilled pattern maker so I found that aspect interesting. Having spent all my working life in the machine tool industry it was fascinating to see that side and nice to see the double column frame drill being a locally made one (Halifax) from the Kitchen & Wade company. The wheel lathe I think was Craven Bros, Stockport. The wheel set balancing machine was scary............that would have to placed inside a bullet proof enclosure nowadays. Altogether a fabulous piece of history............

 

A very interesting DVD.

 

Glad you enjoyed it. The team that put it together put a huge amount of effort into it getting it right.

Did you spot which Castle was on the test-bed / rolling road? lol

 

I would like to think what elf 'n' safety would make of the procedures shown then, these days? I think they would probably die of shock.
Unguarded large machine tools, no goggles being worn at said machines, workers hands placed right on the working areas of said tools, ie hands right against the bandsaw blade, no decent protective clothing-some manual workers even wearing collar & tie. As already mentioned, wheel balancing done in an open space. No hard hats or hi-vis jackets in places like the erecting shop. And the list must go on.

Ben, what a coincidence it happened to be 5029. Also noticed 7029 was mentioned by number & shown in the background.

 

Interesting insight in human nature reallly. Collett is on record as having said there were far too many eye injuries iin the works and campaigning to encourage the wearing of eye protection, but clearly they didn't think they could go the extra step and take disciplinary action against staff who didn't use it. But it seems that its only such threats that make people change their behaviour.

 

I'm sure those folk who got all this together worked extremely hard and certainly came up with the goods. Our thanks to them for letting us share a piece of history. Many thanks....

 

Wearing goggles whilst working on machine tools? Dangerous, because they mist up. Safety glasses yes, goggles no.

 

Just a figure of speech, speaking about eye protection in general.

 

Regarding my elf 'n' safety post I forgot to mention about the asbestos openly being applied to the boiler. Without looking I can't remember if the workers were wearing face masks or not. I wonder if it was "blue asbestos"?

 

There are stories about asbestos being freely thrown around - even light-hearted 'snowball fights' as late as the 70s, with no breathing protection or anything.

Regarding the eye protection - there are startling pictures in 'All in a Day's Work' by Tim Bryan of goggles that have been hit by flying metal splinters/swarf. The idea of what would have happened if the workers hadn't been wearing the goggles would be enough to make me put them on!

 

There was probably no urgency to demand safety levels from workers back then because there was no suing culture, if you declined to wear eye protection and got blinded, then it was your own fault.

 

I suspect, more to the point, a) there was no culture of corporate responsibility/duty of care, b) safety gear probably wasn't very good, and c) if you wanted safety equipment, you had to buy it yourself… I doubt 'suing' came into it; most people would rather have an eye, or functioning lungs, than a cheque.

Can't imagine anyone would think the intrusion of 'elf'n'safety', as it's so facetiously referred to, would have been anything but a good thing from the perspective of the poor buggers working there.

Simon

 

How do you know safety gear wasn't provided if requested ?, people took responsibility for their own actions then rather than it always being someone elses fault.

I think you've misunderstood me by believing I think health & safety is a bad thing, far from it, It can only be right to you have to wear the correct protective gear in an enviroment such as Swindon Works, what I meant was it wasn't a legal obligation then.

In any case it's a moot point given it happened in the distant past, we haven't a DeLorian to go back and tell CME that safety standard need to be far stricter.