Vintage railway film - John Betjeman - Men of Steam - 1962

In this vintage railway film, produced in 1962, John Betjeman looks at the effect that the switch from steam to diesel will have on the lives of railwaymen who have been brought up with steam in their blood on the Great Western Railway.

[@morganrees6807]

I still remember, when I was 8, in 1959, we were returning to London on the Cornish Riviera express. The Warship D/Hydraulic loco failed near Plymouth (I think), and eventually a King class 4-6-0 was coupled up to continue - that driver and fireman were superstars - made up a lot of the time into Paddington - we absolutely flew!!! They both had grins from ear to ear when we passed by - and said our thanks - a little boy's dream come true.

[@howardgoy9568]

Betjeman and railways, the perfect combination. A haunting elegy not only for steam, but for the way our railways used to be.

[@KevinDavies-j4b]

Great film , John Betejman shows his love of railways in every phrase.

[@bigcasey4143]

As a retired train driver (I retired 6 years ago) with over 40 years service, 30 of those years spent on the Western Region in South Wales, I can safely say that times have most definitely changed, and mostly for the worse. I'm sure Mr Betjeman would turn in his grave if he could see how the railways are run today. One thing that has not changed is that the job of being a train driver is still a very responsible one and the job it is still highly skilled, and most drivers still take great pride in the job... I most certainly did.

[@milepost326]

You'll be MP12 trained then?

[@bigcasey4143]

@@milepost326 Yes, I was indeed MP12 trained in the old Training School at London Waterloo South Side... on the Class 33+TC stock to become a Relief Driver (later to become a driver). The older drivers at Eastleigh, where I was then based talked ad nauseum about steam locomotives as if they had been scrapped only the day before, and this was over 10 years after the end of steam. "In the old steam days" was a phrase heard very often... a bit like "during the war" by Uncle Albert from only fools and horses. I for one will definitely not be looking back with nostalgia at the Class 116DMMU/142/143/150/153/158, class 33/37/47/50 locomotives, or the utilitarian 1951/1957/1963, class 455/508 EMU's that I drove during my long career... I'm just happy to be retired and not be pushing up the daisies

[@milepost326]

@@bigcasey4143 I did my MP12 at Stainer house during 1980. Class 47 was our main traction but we were immediately trained on class 45/46s Those old Saltley drivers were dyed in the wool steam men, but loved their class 45s on the main line, class 24 and 25 for trippers. And not forgetting DMUs... cold and draughty in the winter. As a secondman man starting early 1977, steam was still very much in the working memory at Saltley and it was very much a steam mentality but with diesels. Too many of those old hands passed on soon after retiring, but the likes of us were lucky. The job didn't make old men of us and put us in an early grave!

[@bigcasey4143]

@@milepost326 I started in 1978 as a Traction Trainee & finished in 2018 just shy of my 59th birthday. Most of the old hands are now long gone... I'm the same decrepit age now as they were when I started as a spotty 18 year old!.... So many went to their graves from cancer caused by the asbestos lagging of the boilers... I knew so many that went to the Top Link way before their time... Sadly, the Eastleigh BRSA club & institute, where reunions used to be held served it's last ever customers after 130 years shortly after the last reunion in March of this year, which I was unable to attend due to illness... I wonder if that was the last one...

[@paulbarber1960]

Most drivers are still highly trained, but since privatisation, most are in it for the money, I was!!! 1977-2022 and after 1997 ££££££ money thrown about everywhere if you were a driver. Those old boys on the job when I started could never dream of how it would become.

[@BibTheBoulderTheOriginalOne]

I am a retired high speed train driver. These old-hands were a breed apart. Respect.

[@Mounhas]

As a child we went everywhere by buses & trains, I was fortunate in that with a Red Rover bus ticket I could visit every mainline station and shed in the London area. Like many I wish that steam had been given more time but glad I was able to see, touch & smell the locos & the memorable coaching stock.

[@PaulMann8666]

In the 1950s Manchester Victoria station was our gateway to adventure, to holidays by the sea. You could feel the great noble weight of the locomotives rumbling the ground as they chuffed and snorted into the platforms, and hissed majestically to a stop. A huge living creature resting its muscular power for a brief spell. The air was alive with the smell of steam-drenched smoke, the smell of motion, freedom, excitement. When I hobble my old body down to a heritage railway event today (all the way from the car park and my great petrol car), it brings that boy back alive inside me, with all his sense of wonder and hope and expectations. Betjeman was a great wordsmith, a servant of the soul of lost England. I am grateful to have been young then.

[@kenh3344]

What an insight, who ever made the film top Mark's. Who ever put it up top Mark's what a insight . Into the great western railway . 😊 thank you . I am very blessed to have watched this information . Of what was . Thank you very much . 😊

[@chrisowen8664]

Hi Thanks for this film ,what great days made a 7 6 year old tain spotter very happy .From the age of six and being born in London and train spotting in all the main station in London and engine sheds ,i was lucky enough to go to Swindon works which then was the biggest works in the world .Shame how the railways are run know and how exspensive they are .Regards Chris 👍😄

[@eliotreader8220]

earlier this year I had a footplate ride on a GWR tank engine the driver had worked on BR during the days of steam

[@andrewoliver7991]

I'm not a railway man, I'm an Australian man and that was delightful.

[@paulrounding5260]

I was 6 when this film was made, in the 62 years that has followed this country has been ruined by mismanagement and a succession of unqualified shortsighted MPs and councillors.

[@xr6lad]

I’d say it’s been ruined by people voting for the same party they have always voted for time after time even when given a chance of alternatives.

[@bigcasey4143]

The last lot in power tried exceedingly hard to deskill what is a highly skilled job in a vain attempt to cut costs at the expense of driver's terms and conditions of employment... Fortunately, they failed...

[@tangerinedream7211]

Another four and a half years of mismanagement to come now . We're all doomed Manwairing, Doomed. 😬🤣🤣🤣

[@pokemontrainermichael5551]

I love watching these vids

[@nancysalerno7036]

Always glad when there is a new movie with steam locomotives in them. Harry Potter, Paddington, really love all movies with trains.

[@davidquirk8097]

I bought a piece of land from my neighbour a few years ago. Recently the Law firm I was using went bust and I requested the return of any paperwork of mine that they're been holding. Part of that paperwork gave details of the purchase of land behind my house, the construction of a terrace of ten houses and subsequent mortgage details of two of the houses. Both houses are occupied by Railwaymen and I have the original mortgage details between one of the men and GWR who were the mortgage holder having bought the property on the Driver's behalf. I can't imagine any of the companies I've worked for being that helpful! My own house, built around 1910, was actually built by GWR and was the residence of one of their Senior Drivers, a man called George Coffey. (My plasterer, a keen local historian, told me this).

[@JayStapley]

The current state of the GWr with its myriad delays and cancellation, it’s indifferent call centre staff, would shock both Betjeman and indeed Brunel

[@NickRatnieks]

At the start we see the last Castle Class engine- named "Swindon" by Princess Elizabeth when completed at Swindon Works in 1950 and it is quite shocking to think that this was condemned in 1963- the very next year, as change became so rapid in 1962 and 1963.

[@KeynshamBoy]

Brilliant memories of a wonderful railway and especially of the people who ran it so well.

[@headsup2433]

John Betjeman is a legend when it is about the railways. Also in this video is a very rare film of the prototype diesel "Lion".

[@owencarlstrand1945]

Brilliant I wonder what JB would think of today’s privatised and franchised railway.

[@xr6lad]

Given he would have grown up in the era of the Big 4 not sure he would have worried about privatised rail per se. He might have had an opinion on the standard of service.

[@owencarlstrand1945]

@ interesting thought. However given his interest in the professionalism and camaraderie of railwaymen plus his views on the paternalism of the railway companies, I think he might have regretted the loss of both of those as well as the splitting of infrastructure from operations. He would have probably understood the complicated inter company compensation arrangements similar to the old Railway Clearing House arrangements. I suspect he would have thought it was all too complicated and disjointed nowadays.

[@ingosippel9653]

Very beautyful thank you very much from Germany

[@haroldhorseposture9435]

Things haven't changed in a lot of respects. The job is still in your blood, still dominates your approach to life, and on social occasions, still a litany of names, places , events , some revered, some of legend , some despised ,or held in great affection. It never leaves you, if you are a true man of the rail. And the machines.....we of later generations have our own lost and loved , living , breathing monsters. It's a grand life .

[@bigcasey4143]

I agree, the ethos job hasn't changed one bit, except that there are no "double home" turns (that I'm aware of). The railway owned me for the whole of my 40 years service.... My life revolved around my shift patterns, whether I was on duty or off; going out for an evening drink if you were early shift was a big no-no, as you always had to turn up for duty 100% sober and well rested in order to concentrate fully on the job. There is/was no place on the railway for those who who drank alcohol to excess or took recreational drugs. Becoming retired was both a wrench and a relief rolled into one. I had no real social life... The job killed many relationships because of the unsocial hours, the weekend shifts and the fact that you could never guarantee that your annual leave or weekends off duty would suit you your partner or your kids...

[@ianpark1906]

Wonderful shot of Falcon 👍

[@garyskellon2059]

Think it’s lion not falcon

[@ianpark1906]

@garyskellon2059 yes, I think you're right. My mistake

[@garyskellon2059]

@@ianpark1906. No worries Ian easy mistake .

[@andrewcowling5804]

Not just Lion. But film of The Blur Pullman. Then anew train and it’s film I’ve never seen before. An iconic train that I was once privileged to go on. What an expedience

[@johnspurgeon9083]

I was hoping to see the late Bob Cannings in the Bath Spa box. He had so many stories to tell including riding out an air raid in that high and vulnerable place.

[@XxBec3509]

Great video. Greetings from Bath

[@RussellJamesStevens]

England, my beloved England...❤❤❤❤

[@TheRailwayTourManager]

Weird. I just woke up in the U.K. and an email from Bennett Brook has dropped into my inbox. Hoping to run a charter there in the future. Coupled with the Great Sir John made my day!

[@alisonlee3314]

Oh how Betjeman would be appalled by the state of Britain now 😞

[@kenstevens5065]

Not the cheapest I K B said just the best. I don't think many would say that of GWR express passenger trains today.

[@anth5122]

Great Britain, what a sorry state you’ve become 😢

[@rayrandall5680]

First timei`ve seen Lion in service,the forerunner of Cl.47.

[@llwyde1104]

Its actually nostalgia even back then...Betjeman is lamenting change, no doubt in 1830 he would have opposed railways. People are so @#£%. Everything stays the same as everything changes...he is advocating privatisation 😮 how's that going 😅

[@dovetonsturdee7033]

Of course, the detestable Ernest Marples put a stop to all this.

[@danielcobbins8861]

Let's not forget Dr. Beeching.

[@NicholasHolmes-bf5gi]

Beeching wrote the report, and the politicians of the day acted upon it!! All Beeching did was do the job that he was asked to do by the politicians......

[@dovetonsturdee7033]

@@NicholasHolmes-bf5gi Beeching was commissioned by Ernie Marples, the Minister of Transport. Look into Marples' business interests for a hint about what was actually going on at the time.

[@geoffreylaverne7859]

Beechin failed to do the utmost in his duty. He was not a railwayman in any shape or form. He should have resigned after six months, explaining thar the government of the day was making conflicting - indeed impossible - requirements.

[@BillMalcolm-tn3kq]

I don't mind a ride or three on old steam locomotive drawn trains. Have done so in Britain, Canada and the US. But one must remember the thermal efficiency of a steam locomotive was in the 5 to 7 per cent range. Absolutely bloody awful. Nevertheless, forests were cut down and coal mines mined for fuel, just to chuck 95% of the potential energy away as lost heat, not to mention the vast clouds of pollution. At least in many parts of Canada they jettisoned coal for locos by the 1920s and used oil burners and retrofitted superheaters. Those were the 7% efficient ones. It's much easier to design a thermal power station to produce electricity with decent efficiency. Closed water circuits, proper condensers, attention to heat retention instead of just chucking almost everything away, and you can get 35 to 40 %. No wonder electric trains using coal-fired electrical energy made this way made sense. Even a dope can make electric motors 90% efficient, and electric wires lose only 5 to 10% transmitting the electricity. Probably get 30% efficiency out of the coal instead of 5. Just a wee bit better for all concerned. Most people haven't got the faintest clue how inefficient steam engines were. Never entered their heads. All we hear is the "romance" side of things. No doubt at all it exists, but it turned the world into a CO2-filled grimy cesspit. Doesn't anyone remember London or any big city in the '50s? Grimy doesn't begin to describe it. Even into the '90s diesel lorries and buses emitted vast clouds of black diesel smoke and stank up cities and even the M62 when air conditions were just right, er, wrong. But the films made about trains and gallant drivers and firemen are focused in the main on the countryside, and dreamy and not sooty. A bit like this Betjeman advertorial, which is pure advertising nonsense really, justifying what the money men did. So the GWR was a great place to work. Well, they could afford to be that way -- it was a clever part of the modus operandi to generate loyal employees who'd defend the company to the death, while not asking for a bit more pay. Where other railway companies faced, shall we say, financial difficulties, neither employees nor customers got much of a deal. Lines closed, employees let go. But let us regard the past through rose-coloured glasses even as we forget we gassed ourselves to death and covered everything in soot. Such are the foibles of man.

[@anth5122]

Civic pride… enough said

[@theoccupier1652]

Back when England was Beautiful