every single aspect of this video blows my mind

This is one of my favorite old BR films.

this is fabulous...how they mapped out and planned it is amazing...thanks for putting up!

Excellent! It's heartening for an old analogue technician to see good reliable electromechanical and proper purpose designed circuitry at work.

Back when we still made our own stuff, instead of ordering it from overseas.

He tunes the reeds with a metal file! Oh the good ol days!

So much of the electronics, racks and cabinets in this film I recognise from GPO (and then BT) SystemX telephone exchanges, which was also converted in the 1970s from analogue to digital - many of which are still in service today. Small world....

They really went out of their way to design and build these systems back then, without the aid of Microprocessors and all the other Hardware, and most importantly the Software we have today. An Age where Mechanic, Electric, Electronic and Computing Sciences were starting to melt together! Very interesting indeed.

Thanks for uploading this... it's absolutely fascinating and quite amazing that the design and build was done with very little computer technology. I can't work out if the music should belong to a crime thriller or porn movie

Love videos like this showing how control and automation was done decades ago and how different it is today nowadays the whole system could be condensed into a few PLC's and one massive SCADA system how times change

What's with the Hammer Horror movie music? I half expected Christopher Lee to start chomping on the technicians! I know progress happens, but I miss the old signalboxes and semaphore gantries. Some of the magic was lost when they were demolished.

9:35 I think that mains connection would fail a PAT test... :) And no wonder dad was so proud to show me carlisle as a child (circa 1979... he was a BR electrician)

Bloody hell that cable laying job looked cold!

Cool to see a Kensington Olympia Motorail running through there at the end, KO ones had open cars where the Euston ones had posh enclosed carriages. Fond memories of the many loco changes on the journey which I seem to remember was London to Crewe, then engine switch, onwards and upwards on electric as far as the overheads allowed then a 47 rest of the journey with Sc region waiting at Carlisle to take up to Carstairs and the motorail split at Carstairs with some coming off for Glasgow, the rest wending its way to Edinburgh then the highlands of Fort William and Inverness with Perth and Stirling engine changes and flats shunted off to the waiting motorail bay. The night my fathers friend was killed at Kensington heralded an absolute nightmare holiday as it turned out my poor father was the ranking railwayman on site so we had to travel to Inverness without me dad who turned up two days later and found BR had unloaded his car at Stirling so had to wait a day whilst he went down and retrieved it. To be fair to BR they did move us 1st class sleeper from Euston and put us all in the railway hotel in Inverness but many rows were had that holiday...

This is a very well put together film, I especially love the music.

I'm amazed at 8:00, angling huge bobbins to get the sector shaped cables to line up.

Love it........ also feels like I am watching an episode of the sweeney.

Thanks!!!

Loved the Hymek music at 0:27!

Addictive stuff !......excellent!

It is fascinating to see just how different that these things had to be before modern computing - the massive relay room filled with individual wires, each one manually laid! And reed switches...

At 26:00 the 50 is moving a full consist without the headlamp (switched on)! You wouldn't get away with that today! Had to edit my comment - it was so dark I couldn't make out the shape properly first time!

My late father ended his career with BR at London Bridge on the infamous "platforms 1-6" panel. His heart went out with BR when being offered the signalling managers job at Edinburgh Waverley the unions refused to endorse his post claiming demarcation etc so the position offer was withdrawn and my father was fairly fed up with the railways and took early retirement. He returned to lever signalling at Swanage where he was happier doing the thing he loved. I went past Glasgow and Motherwell signalling centres a couple weeks back, was saddened to see the old signalboxes around Carlisle gone and the marshalling yard boxes all boarded up as the plan is to now adopt the American system of centralised signalling from Euston house I seem to remember.

Love the old CAD, pencil and ruler.

beautiful!

Makes you wonder however they managed it, where ever they started it all off and how did it all to fit in and link up together too! Very complex work indeed

Awesome hand tattoos 15:43

I was in the RAF at Lossiemouth at this time and used to travel from Inverness to Carlisle along this line at about the time this film was made and I never knew what went on. I only know there was usually a long delay at Carstairs, normally worse at night time.

My uncle was a cable layer back in the 70s.I used to run around my nan's garden wearing his hi-viz vest!!

Listening to the soundtrack reminds me of Captain Scarlet! I was expecting the green Mysteron rings to appear at any moment!

Absolutely amazing. I wonder how much of it is still in use. Someone may tell us.

Whoever knew the manufacture of cables was so fascinating

Really fascinating movie on building signal equipment and layout.

Sound effects library couldn't find Class 20 sound effects for 20:30 and settled for a tractor (not a Class 37) idling?

Great film. Always preferred these more technical BTF productions compared to those poetic travelogues of Wales and Scotland. I really must buy more of the excellent DVDs. And I'd love to know which music library the music at 27:26 is from, groovy!

Ah yes "Arklone P" 3:10 Happy memories.

Train number display with catode tube. I suppose It was very expensive back then. I'm wondering if it was installed on each station or only for some central traffic management.

The chase car is doing well to keep up with the train at the end.....

Where would you get any of the music like the stuff on this video?

18:20 that looks nice and easy to understand 🥺

Worked for the ( lazy W ) Westinghouse at Chippenham on train describes and mass transit.

Wow, this is the craziest wiring porn I have ever come across. Being a computer scientist since the nineties makes me feel lazy and stupid using IT nowadays.

Amazing, beautiful electro mechanical workmanship, all custom built, which all probably ended up in a skip 10 years or less later. thanks for posting.....DA.

all... those... wires... Spaghetti!

Very interesting documentary. Is this system still in use or upgraded to digital ?

On the cusp of digital, the manufacture of the components seems pretty labour intensive.

How did they do all of this in the 1970s is beyond me and what an army of people that were involved in making all of this on time? Martin. (Thailand)

i was 16 or 17 when this was made, i feel old..............i AM old!!!

Way over my head but still very interesting.

I'm about half way thru this video,, I would just like to comment that back when this was all thought up, built and installed with attention to detail, strong hardy solid state electronic, boards, relays, et all,, I'm sure it had a long life window and cost a huge bundle. I keep asking myself if it's still being used or if smaller and smaller computers have been retrofitted to replace the old tech? I hope not, I understand new systems are faster and can be expanded upon with a minimum of trouble but this old stuff should hold up,,, I won't be holding my breath tho , ha ha.

20:42 goodbye old friend 😢

. . . and all we have to do is buy a train ticket. Great video, very Britsh.

“Skilfully carried out by machines”. ??

Good heavens this is complicated stuff, All this is no doubt gone or replaced?

The tune at the end is ace! Anybody know what it is?

Since I commented on this post I went to work for Network Rail and I'm in a signal box with 4 NX panels like those in the film. By 2023 it will be closed and all the signalling controlled via computer screens from a location in Hampshire. Technology marches on.

I wonder how long this system was in use.

11:21 tune, nip

Oooh..dark tunes.

A number of my Colleagues are in this. I am ex Westinghouse Brake and Signal Company. I started in 1978. Mike Donald ex WB&S Co and Ian Worthington ex British Railways LMR and WBSA are in this.

The good ol days when stuff was repeated redesigned everytine it was installed allowing someone to come up with better ideas. Nowdays, Some programmer who has never seen a train comes in on a limited, and insufficient contract and makes changes that affect the whole network. In Sydney, AUS, some bright spark has programmed General otehr, or Trackwork announcements, to simultaneously talk over the station stopping pattern announcements, instead of wait until one has finished.. They haven't fixed it for years.

Crikey! Paging Health & Safety inspector 20:43!

11:47 THAT GUY LOOKS LIKE HARRY HILL WITH HAIR, RESEARCHER TED EGGS FRIED? HARD BOILED? SOFT BOILED? POACHED?

My brain hurts

BICC Cables.. prescot and melling .

Love these vids. My wife is making High end Hifi systems, still with these same methods. Women arent just for washing, cooking, and making babies. Apparently lol. Dont tell her I said that 😂 Another great vid, please keep them coming. Thanks again. 😎👍

The creation of this system is awsome but the destruction of the system which came before it was criminally wasteful. Some of it should have been left standing if only as a testiment to the fantastic engineers who spent there lives developing it.

High-tech back then, obsolete now. Much more interesting though.

I saw hand tattoos at 15:50. so theses arent new :-D

I had forgotten quite how awful 1970s background music could be. Thanks for the reminder!

Modern S&T equals the 'Dark Arts', god knows what it's like now (probably darker).

Still not sure why the British went with such pricy centralized interlocking schemes instead of more flexible CTC systems. Not only is CTC cheaper, it allows for bi-directional operation as well.

wow god jobb done by men & wemen

Just pull those old semiphore signals down, don't save em. Mind you, I went to Collectors Corner (BR surplus) in the late seventies...but that's another story!!

LOOK British Railways then when it worked before £££££ Privatisation. How have we gone so sodding WRONG ?????

Notice they play down the jobs losses. It’s just the ‘closure of hundreds of boxes’ - a total un emotive term.

This was filmed and produced in 1974. No wonder all the technology and details look just so damn dated. I hope they replaced all this stuff since 1974. 😫😫

The women soldering with theses fumes wouldn’t be a loud now

Track Ciruits are not something that terrorist should know about.

Take a softly spoken guy and play lousy music over him.

Is it just me, or has England got massively *worse* in every possible way compared to 1974?

As far as I know, I DON'T CARE

Still not sure why the British went with such pricy centralized interlocking schemes instead of more flexible CTC systems. Not only is CTC cheaper, it allows for bi-directional operation as well.