Wash and brush up - British Transport Films - British Rail steam loco maintenance.

[JCitron]

https://youtu.be/LC1BEc04i-0

This 1950's era British Rail film shows the hard work required to maintain a steam locomotive.

As rail fans and enthusiasts, we love our steam locomotives, however, we don't realize the hard work required to keep them operating. As neat and awesome as they look, we can see why the railroads were quick to drop them from service as better diesels came along. For the railroads, these magnificent beasts that run like clockwork, were not only costly to operate, but also the same to maintain.

This labor intensive maintenance process requires 12 or more hours to clean and inspect each locomotive. This means the railroad needs to stable many more locomotives than it needs for operation due to locomotives being offline for extended periods during the maintenance process.

In addition to the labor intensive process, the job its self was dirty and truly unhealthy with all the coal dust and dirt. Coal its self contains trace amounts of arsenic and lead, and these gents were breathing this stuff in on a daily basis.

 

[KotangaGirl]

I'd watched this video a while ago John, but it was worth seeing it again. These old British Transport Films were very well done and are a great historical record of a past era.

 

[Forester1]

It's amazing to me how much maintenance these take, but they sure are fun to watch!

 

[HotshotJimmy]

You can thank Edgar Anstey for all these wonderful insights into the British Rail network. BFI (British Film Institute) put all the sgorts onto dvd collections. I have volume 1-9 of the 13 or 14 BTFs (British Transport Films) that are out there. Absolutely fantastic look at our history on and off the tracks. Classics like Terminus, Finishing Line (gory) and Overture Intercity 125 to name a few. If we didn't have Edgar I doubt we'd have anything like the film we have today.