Brilliant film, and young Harry, real name Jack Houghton was a relation of mine. Started at Wellingborough loco shed as an engine cleaner in 1937, retiring slightly early in 1980 from Wellingborough as a diesel electric driver. He passed away about 15 years ago.

It's really nice to see people following the rules of .... etiquette for want of a better word.. Taking your hat off in a building and calling people Sir. I'm ex RAF and these things were shouted into you. A different world and sadly one to which we will never see again. That's why I love these films. Thank you..

In 1960 I was 15 but altered my birth certificate to age 16 in order to work on the footplate at 1A Willesden where I became a fireman. My father when he eventually found out took a dim view but never let on.RIP dad.

These are such great historic videos, I wonder what happened to Jim as WW2 broke out the same year, my dad was 21 and survived i hope jim did. Being a 1950s kid we grew up saying please and thank you, holding doors open being polite, Now as a 72 year old i look at this once great country brought to its knees by incompetent politicians. How safe are our streets. I think i would swop some of today for these times of yesteryear. Thank you for the video.

For those interested the shed this was shot at is Wellingborough Judging by the locomotive shed plates.

As a frenchman, I watched this video attentively. It's nice to see the process of working and become an experienced driver. As my grand father was in the french railways before and after the 2nd world war and during, my father and me have got the virus of trains and forcibly the steam locomotives and trains. I try to watch videos of steam trains and locos as much as I can because it is so impressive to see them as full speed or on an uphill grade slippering. Well. Great times are finished and I am 54 now. Almost retired.

So good to see the full film. My Grandfather was a driver at Crewe up to 1961. He started as a cleaner at 14 years old.

In 1939 Ernest Potter has 45 years of service. So he started in 1894!

Great video! I was fireman and later driver! On my country! The video explain exactly the “road” to be a driver!

Brilliant ! Best short video in a long while.

So awesome to see some real history! Thanks so much for sharing! Happy new year to all!

Excellent bit of film, I love watching these old videos, gives you more of a idea and out look how it was back then!

Thank you for this film.

I love this. Harry is amazingly well dressed and super clean for that job. He would be black from head to foot after an hour of cleaning those engines.

I remember 1955 starting as cleaner at 8A edge hill and fitter asked me to go to stores for a LONG STAND ,storeman told me to wait outside and I did until foreman cleaner came and asked me what I was doing , I told him and he grinned and said I think that's long enough get back to your cleaning😂😂😂😂

old school gaffers, hardly any left nowadays mores the pity, they knew the job and how to treat the men as they did it themselves, not like nowadays with the modern manager, with them its computer says no and they dont know shite, old school was best.

I'd been waiting for Harry to have a proper engine-man's hat, and there at 15:25 a nice new shiny one! Very interesting video.

My father was a driver at the LMS Saltley depot in Birmingham before during and after WW2.

This is a great video!

My Father started as a cleaner aged 17 in 1940, retired as a driver having driven both steam and diesel main line locos.

Love the soundtracks on 1930s documentary movies. Willesden 1A loco shed for us 1960s trainspotters was one of the friendliest.

Great way to start life good old fashioned hard work with good people!! 👏👏👏

i love old documentaries like this what show are histori from back in the day just love it

1939:- : A job for life 2020:- Zero hour contracts

My grandfather was a drive and my dad was the stoker . They never worked on the same train . Both LMS.

This is strangely comforting Covid lockdown viewing. With a slightly melancholic edge given the impending war. It was uploaded two years ago - why did KZfaq recommend it now? Is the sidebar alive?

Best movie of the year for sure

Poor old Trewin was lnvalided out of the railway after his loco suffered flying bomb damage close to Kentish Town mpd in September 1944.

Fascinating series! From the days when people learnt the job from the bottom up unlike most at the top these days!

No airline pilot even today will have 800 passengers in their trust. Amazing the responsibility these men had. And very very few accidents ❤

Cleaners, the modern railways don't know the meaning of a clean engine let alone any rolling stock. Back then the railways took pride in their work and it only started to wain around the '60's when the demise of the steam train was imminent.

That scot class loco 6114 ' Coldstream guard' was involved in a serious crash in 1931. Five people lost their lives when the crew failed to notice a go slow warning during engineering works just outside Leighton buzzard. The train derailed. The train was put back into service a year before this documentary was made.

Congratulations! You've graduated to top express driver. Now, the diesel electric shed is over there. Report to Mr. Somes in maintenance to start your training.

This was a great story

"Aaaar, young Jim Hawkins, so you be a driver now?"

That Locomotive in the end really, AND I MEAN REALLY! Looks like the prototype engine Fury. The engine fitted with a very high pressure boiler and super heaters.

worked at Welly 1957 .. good film

6114 was involved in the 1931 Leighton Buzzard derailment

what a proud and triumphal into theme, Eargasm!

thanks I loved it

By the 1950s and 60s progress to driver was much quicker as few people wanted to do the job.

Young Harry would be 100 years old now! I hope that he had a long and happy career on the railways.

7:44 - what's in that two 'barrels' on the desk? 8:03 no idea

Hi In 1967 i started on the railway Also had 2 pass doctor Our training was very professional Had 2 pass 3 exams

"LMS men of the footplate" *GWR engine in the thumbnail*

I want this job. Do they still have any openings? 😄

He’s a well set up lad for 16 years !

2:43 Doctor seems to think he's checking a locomotive boiler for fractured tubes. Does that work for people, too?

Wonderful

Jim Hawkins, the hero from R. L. Stevenson's novel "Treasure Island" from 1883! Now working for the LMS as past fireman and towards driver? Or maybe it is his great-great grandson?! Joke aside; I know these names are invented, and it doesn't matter. Just a little bit funny, and creative, mind; not like "John Doe", and such like. As a whole I enjoyed this video immensely, being a snapshot from another time, as well as an interesting view into how the system worked at that time. Thanks very much! 🙂

What’s the music a the Begining of the Film, it sounds great. And is it copyrighted?

Loved the hard copy of the rules and regulations, well thumbed indeed! A more innocent time.

At 5:07 just for a moment, it looked like the lad was being introduced to Stan Laurel. That would have been an interesting video!

We can’t appreciate or imagine how dirty and messy that ‘cleaners’ job was, even the fireman’s and even the engineer’s positions were filthy in those days.

This year is actually the 75th anniversary of Mr.Awdry's Famous Railway engines.

Railroad 🛤 History! Love ❤️ these old videogates.... ! GOD Bless you all !

A doctor examines the employee and another dismisses him along with many others.

Interesting moment. How they work in winter time?

1939: started working at 16 2020: started working at 20 wow, still literaly a kid and works at the engine shed.

working in the raillways is sometime dirty but is amazin at same time and most of worker love working in th raillways

A really important piece of primary evidence, even allowing for it being a LMS advert, with all the issues any advert will have. Most of the comments are fully of praise for a time we never knew; and I too admire the men that made the railways work (my father was one); but it wasn't some kind of paradise. There are things shown that would not have been accepted in any other leading industrialised nation; particularly the waste of human resources. The start of a career in the railway in the UK was astonishingly perfunctory. The medical examination didn't even test for colour blindness! So you could spend 2 years learning all you could about engines and then fail to make passed cleaner because you were colour blind! That is abysmal! You either then spent you're working life on the lowest grade or you left the railway; but jobs were usually scarce and the railway relied on a massive pool of labour. The Harry Truman character signs for his rule book, and is asked about it twice more; yet he starts the job without any introduction; and then it's up to him to learn it in his own time; and attend classes in his own time. So what anyone learned regardless depended on the men he worked with, good and bad. The working practises between engine sheds, even after Grouping, could be shockingly varied, and you can see why from watching this film. That is no way to run a railway. As a few have mentioned, the all this waste of labour did more to kill off steam than any modernisation plan or Act of Parliament.

Any one got an idea of the name of the piece of music played at the.beginning ?

Love these historic films. Wish I could find the one about the Severn Tunnel. I think it is called Under The River from 1959.

He be around 100 today, great story!

What locomotive yard did truin work at

That was rather good. A bit stiff and formal reflecting the times, but enjoyable nevertheless...

😊 I like English steam locomotives👍

Are eye sight tests done at any time?

In today’s (2022) money, any idea what these different positions paid; either hourly or weekly?

Excellent brass band music!!

17/3 23 ls there a modern-day equivalent of Harry's induction anywhere on film ?

class

What? No D&A test? No sponsor? And no PTS, with other further requirements? Just pop-in and get the job? That guy was lucky to live in those days. Cause today would be probably facing depression.

And respect

I have to be very careful here. During the war, young men who were just starting at a large MOD factory in London were 'initiated' if they ever walked through the machine shop. This had many strong ladies who had, let's just say, an odd sense of fun. I must note that they could pick up a 17pdr shell with one hand before it was machined. They often worked 10-hour days. Hitler never stood a chance.

2020

I didn't learn my rules and regulations thoroughly, didn't heed the book---So my career there went Off-the-Rails. -former fireman in Train-ing

Great Britain.

Whats Stan Laurel doing in the Sidings ? 5.14

He's a real boy now.

The importance of being Ernest…

An untold story

good worker

Wow

April 2023 👍🇨🇦

I didn't want to be a train driver when I was young, I wanted to be a clown, but every one laughed at me 🤣🤣

6:02 - rozhovor mohl být takto: to byl náš nejvyšší starej, toho nesmíš nikdy nasrat - já vím, děkuji pane - to víš, jseš zelenáč, musel jsem ti to říct - ano pane - kdybys ho nasral, to bychom od něj schytali všichni a na lokomotivě by sis pak ani neškrtnul, rozumíš? - ano, jistě, rozumím a dám si na to pozor.

By the end of steam no bugger gave a toss about cleaning engines. Many in my local area, mostly B1's and WD's looked dreadful in the early 60's. Their end was nigh, why bother....

11:46 I think a part of the video was skipped by accident. Unfortunately a few scenes were missing.

Wah

But what was their pension when they retired?

VIDA DIFICÍL

Superb film

WOW

Fantastic film. Can’t imagine today’s 16 year olds going to work on the railway..

Ten thumbs down from people who like to travel by ox cart.

Bowler hats and suits on the footplate.

Never understood why British locomotives did not have mechanical stokers ? this engine was a main passenger line one almost every US one by this time had a stoker . Even the older ones had been refitted with them .

😍😍😍☕☕☕👋✌nostálgico

16 years old? He looks at least 30!