Period video showing steam engine shopping on Britain's LMS in the 1930s

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Hi all,

I found this video showing steam engines belonging to Britain’s LMS being disassembled and ready for major shop repairs and overhauls. It also shows just how labor intensive steam engines can be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=HzybtS56l6A

Alvie

2

Thanks for sharing this link, it is amazing to see all the processes involved in keeping these machines maintained, I always enjoy seeing British Steam.

Cheers,

Jim

3

That’s some neat stuff there.

British steam locos always seem to me to have small cylinders, I gues that’s why there are three of them (in that class anyway). Diffrent mission and operating parameters compared to US steam.

–Randy

4

Gidday, I just don’t get it, all that intensive work getting done and not a hard hat or day-glo vest in sight !!! What on earth were they thinking of ?? [(-D][(-D]

Thanks for the great post.

Cheers,the Bear.

5

Thanks Alvie.[tup]

That was quite the cigarette lighter they have. I wonder what the " # of days without an accident " sign reads.[(-D] On second thought they probably didn’t have one.

Brent

6

Common sense goes a long way to preventing injuries when workign around heavy machinery. Lose the common sense, and suddenly people get hurt. Try to make power tools idiot proof, the world invents a betetr idiot.

Notice, for example, how all moves are reported ahead of time,a nd then controlled by the foreman with the whistle? It LOOKS like there is a bunch of random movement goign on in the shop but it’s not, it’s all regulated. ALso notice when they take the rods off - after the group of workers sets it down, they all stand back and ONE guy pushed it over on the floor - avoid it falling on toes or fingers. I wouldn;t doubt mr cigarette lighter got a talking to if he was caught showing off for the camera like that. Shop safety was important even before OSHA (or the Brit equivalent) and while stories abound of greedy companies takign shortcuts and literally killign workers, that was NOT the norm, regardless of what some revisionists would have us believe. Days worked without an accident counters? All OVER the place, even back then, and before. Awards were given out in various industries and many a proud company displayed them prominently on signs visible to the public passing by. The cement plant I am modeling even had a small monument near their office commemorating multiple back to back safety awards.

–Randy

7

Alvie!

That was great! I love that old industrial footage.

Brent - I agree that we have moved too far in favour of the idiots re safety procedures. However I’d bet that most of the workers in that main shop wished they had used ear protection. Most of them would have had serious hearing troubles in later life.

Even hearing protection can be taken to extremes. I work for a big box building supply company (you know the one - orange). We have very strict rules about using ear protection when using the saws, but the hand drying blowers in the recently renovated washrooms make way more noise than the saws do. Funny how no ear protection is required when we go to the john! I’d better not make any comments about the hand dryers at work just in case some bureaucrat overhears![swg]

Dave

8

Very enjoyable to watch that film. [tup]

You’re right, Randy: all the safety equipment in the world can’t protect the idiots from themselves. I worked for almost 40 years in the steel industry, where a moments inattention can have grave consequences. There are few true accidents.

Wayne

9

It was 1938!!!

CZ

10

Yeah Gidday, The “Smilies” are a reasonably good way of putting some expression to what a person is saying, but two I’d really like is one sarcastic and another one cynical.

[soapbox]The OSH nazis in this part of the world basically have this idea that if you are wearing a hard hat and a day-glo vest then you must be safe. Wearing high-vis gear is not silly but my big argument with officialdom is that it does not replace personal responsibility, situational awareness,and common sense.

“When Common Sense fails, Rules will Prevail”.

That said I do agree with Dave’s comments regarding the lack of hearing protection.

Once again thanks to Alvie for a great post.

Cheers,the Bear.