British Rail Snow 1963

[smash]

Found this video of British Rail in snow. The Video description says 1963 but I have no knowledge. Wrong counrty and wasn't born yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl4pJwcE7JI
Kenny

 

[ray_whiley]

I can well believe this film is from 1963 as that year was a very bad winter with temperatures below freezing for several weeks. I remember my elder son starting school in January 1963 at the age of 5 and the road from our house to the school was a sheet of ice. My younger son was still in his pram (baby carriage in the States?) and my wife had great difficulty pushing it up the slope from the local shop to the road.

The great freeze and snow arrived with east winds on Boxing Night, 26th December and for the next 60 days "Britain became Siberia" (The Wrong Kind of Snow, Woodward and Penn.) The river Thames froze over. Millions of gallons of milk were wasted as tankers could not get to farms, some of which were cut off for two months. Diesel fuel froze. Snow drifted in some areas to depths of 43 feet/13 metres. Trains were stranded. The army used explosives to free ships from sea ice. (Facts from my own memories of that year and confirmed by the work cited above.)

 

[Saxham_Market]

One of dozens, if not hundreds, of short documentaries produced by British Transport Films during (mostly) the 1950s and 1960s, and following on from similar films made in the 1930s on behalf of bodies such as the Post Office.

Although I can't remember much about that year (except for the weeks of snow, which I rather enjoyed - well, I was only five, after all!), the British Film Institute website confirms that this film does indeed date from 1963 (see http://filmstore.bfi.org.uk/acatalog/info_59.html.)

Eight years earlier another short film had shown what happened when a train got stuck in the snow... and how they got it out again, in Snowdrift at Bleath Gill.

I really can't see some of the techniques being permissible under health and safety laws these days. For example, to remove ice from coupling rod bearings:

1. Wrap affected area in rags.
2. Soak rags in paraffin (kerosene).
3. Set light to rags!

 

[ray_whiley]

Pleased to hear you enjoyed the snow! I was less happy after pushing my autocycle (anyone remember them? - a very heavy 98cc moped, as they were called later, which could be pedalled when the engine failed and had to be pedalled to start it! - several miles behind the local snowplough on my way to my then teaching job. I remember too that on arrival a helpful pupil with good mechanical knowledge stripped the engine down to make sure it would work - I met him again years later when he was a nurse in a hospital where I was an in-patient.