I don't know where to begin on how brilliant this is - engines going up and down the 1 in 20, the steel gantries and tight curves, the atmosphere of smoke and mist, the rails almost buried under rainwater and stray coal, Black Fives taking turns to slip, and archetypal dad with his hat, glasses and moustache. Thank you so much for uploading.

Whoever dubbed the sound onto this vid deserves a special mention

You had the privilege to film this back then and thanks for sharing. Sad to see many 9FS awaiting scrapping.I do not think you could get any where a railway yard today.

Thank you. Historical footage!

Thank you for preserving these films and being lucky enough to have a father who not only shared your love of steam but helped you make these irreplaceable records.

The scene of those class 5s nose to nose slipping away is something special. Overall some truly wonderful footage here, thank you for sharing.

Black 5 44871 is preserved, quite incredible you recorded this in hindsight.

Brilliant footage and very well presented! Honestly some of the best BR steam footage i have ever seen, thanks for sharing :)

I work on a number of steam railways where I live firing locomotives, I still live through this in the 21st century but this film makes me nostalgic for something I'm living, the sound the steam the noise the dirt the grime it leaves me in awe. I can only imagine what the true age of steam would have been like, surrounded by 10 or more Locomotives in steam breathing and pulsating with life. I might be lucky if I saw 4 in one day where I work, I'm thankful I can still experience this to a degree still.

A really interesting and enjoyable film. Thanks to the younger you for taking the photos, the middle aged you for keeping hold of them, and the older you for editing them together and making them available. Excellent!

It's great that you had the foresight to record this for future generations. It's also great that you were allowed to get in close to film, just imagine trying it in todays 'safety' culture.

Wonderful scenes those 9f what a wonderful scene

the way you produce and edit these together is just supurb. Really didnt want it to end. Bravo 👏

As a kid living in Aintree I used to spend all my spare time at Aintree sheds. Many of the drivers used to give me and my mates a little ride up and down on the footplate. Treasured memories indeed.

Nothing like a miserable day in Lancashire. The world was a different planet back then

That was fabulous, thank God for youngsters like you in the 60's for your enthusiasm and your ability to film such a sight. Loved every minute of this.

Absolutely fantastic video, I enjoyed it very much. ❤😊

A compelling watch, and lovely clear explanation of a very complex network of lines

As a 14/15 year old I visited Edgehill -in 1962/3 - a wonderful experience - the fireman showed me how to fry an egg on a coal shovel.in the firebox. Edgehil was on the Liverpool Lime Street line - 4 tracks to Ditton Junction going past Edgehill. and onto Euston via Crewe- which was beginning to be electrified. The Red Rose being the star - racing South. Those were the days. Great video Mr Mancunian. Presumably using your wind up Kodak cine camera.

Tears in my eyes all the way! Thankyou, wonderful footage beautifully presented thankyou! Obviously subbed to your fabulous channel, Nick Redshed

I can only echo what everybody else has already said - that these films and photos and your personal recollections form such an important historical archive of a pivotal point in British railway history 🙏.

Superb video and great quality filming. Thanks for sharing.

I find the THEN more interesting than the NOW. Thanks for sharing your wonderful memories.

Excellent film. Reminds me of my visit to Tyseley steam shed in Birmingham in 1967. More chuffers in one place than you could shake an Ian Allan loco numbers book at. The excitement!

Very different from the pristine heritage railways we see today Thanks for sharing is fantastic and evocative images of a disappearing world.

Absolutely fantastic film

My grandfather worked for British railways, he drove the trains and also worked in the old 12b Carlisle upperby train sheds and retired around the early 1960's.

Remember getting chased by the shed foreman when I was 13 just after we bagged patriot Southport. Day ended well after cabbing the Liverpool exchange pilot the crew took us to Bank Hall shed to collect the coaches for the Glasgow express and take them back to exchange. When we got back to exchange our train taking us back home was double headed with jubilee Orion at the head. What a day for a young lad

This is so good. It brought so many memories of my teenage years visiting the local shed at Lostock Hall.

when i was at school in the late 50's a mate who's name i can not remember got hold of a group pass for a club to visit edge hill sheds , the group was just us 2 . i remember it was dark dusty , but with the beautiful smell of steam , coal and lubricating oil . we spent at least 2 hours wandering around this wonderland until we were spotted and then escorted out as our pass was for a group of twenty , they did not accept there were 18 more invisible people wandering around the sheds , how i wish i could go back and smell again the essence of the steam loco sheds . i also went to speke siding in the 60's and climbed into the cabs of those engines waiting there to be taken for scrap while watching the electrics pulling the trains on the main line to london

Such an important archive, it shows the conditions the footplate and shed staff had to work in.

I lived half a mile away and often went around the sidings as children. I could hear the shunting taking place from my bedroom. Very happy days❤️

Great films and informative commentary. V good then and now for context. Thanks for posting

The demise of steam, captured superbly in this excellent but poignant film.

Very enjoyable really well presented didn't want it to finish so good showing how it used to be in the day of steam.

Really enjoyed your film especially how you fitted it into the present time? Thanks very much for all your hard work. Keep up the great work!

So touching and eloquently filmed and narrated. I'm the son of a locoman, as they were referred to in in the '20s through the early 60s My dad was a mechanical engineer trained by the British at their sheds through the NE (Newcastle, Doncaster Leeds etc). I grew up with the smell of steam and coal in India. I share your delight and nostalgia even now at 80!!

Amazing footage and really lively, exciting commentary!

In my childhood in the 1950s a visit to the local engine shed was including in our roaming around the village. If no movements were planned the foreman would allow us to to search through the shed looking for engines we had not seen before. This film brought back many happy childhood memories.

Wonderful and thank you. Glorious days indeed

2 years later and here I is watching it again !!

excellent film of the good old steam days and well narrated thanks for sharing

Your Stuff Reminds Me Of Railway Roundabout. Its Amazing

Amazing! takes me back to the late 50's when we went almost anywhere on the railways until that is the shed foreman saw us! Crawled under buffers and couplings but always listening out for the tell tale clunk clink as a row of close-coupled locos were edged further down the road!

Its quite surreal watching this and then playing train sim world's spirit of steam pack, also going from liverpool lime street, through edge hill and speke junction, and down to crewe. Almost able to reenact the activities here, although these films capture the magic of steam better

Your films of the steam days really do provide a valuable record of a lost era; you're something of a curator. Thanks for uploading.

What a great film. My Grandfather worked at Speke Shed most of his life and my Dad often mentions the dirt and grime there, this really brings it home. Really excellent.

Oh what memories. In the early sixties I realised what was happening and did all I could to get to as many motive power depots as possible and I did very well. Now I have all of those live memories and no one can take them away of ever equal the over helming experience of my achievements. I will leave this world a contented steam enthusiast!

Great footage for the period. Thanks for the then and now at the end. For those that weren’t around it does help understand the changes as time moves on.

Super atmospheric !! Marvelous.

A fantastic record. In particular I loved how the helper engine and train engines were slipping one after the other.

Fantastic! I'm 72, so remember steam in South London, etc.

Another very fine video,the last time I visited Edge Hill shed was Grand National Day 1961 ,I remember copping Silver Jubilee on shed, we always used to visit all the sheds in the area as on Grand National Day there were many steam hauled trains to Liverpool on that day and they all needed servicing before returning their trains to whence they came ,many thanks again for making a pensioner happy

That was excellent and well put together. That must have been awesome to be so close to 2 Black 5's as they were slipping.

Fantastic!! Sheds and coaling etc are my favourite aspects of the bygone steam era, I just love dirty, hard working locos, all grimy and showing their miles of operation. Extremely well filmed and with sound! Thankyou so much.

Fantastic film. Atmosphere, nostalgia and history all in one. Thank you for sharing.

Great film. The assisting engine then the train engine taking turns to slip was excellent, bet there wasn’t a dry bucket of sand to be had in miles! All those 9s. Waiting to be cut up and barely ten years old. Thanks

Excellent video! Very good quality filming for the time, nice and steady and in colour. A tricky place to negotiate with 1 in 20 gradient, tight curves with check rails and a very greasy track. The video conveys how things were at the end of steam, something that can never be reproduced on preserved railways. I started trainspotting in 1964 but it all disappeared all too quickly. I have never seen a double headed wheel slip like that though! Thanks for posting, have liked a d subscribed.

This has made my week!! Or Month. I researched my ancestors and Edge Hill Works was where one of them a Thomas Scott became a very Early RAILWAY ENGINEER. 1 year Younger than Robert Stevenson the two must have known each other as he moved from Jarrow to take up the position. His Son GEORGE being born in 1833. I do models in 5 inch gauge. Wonderfully having a Black Five Tender sat in our sitting room as you do. David and Lily Reading.

Black 5 44871 was used on the 15 guinea special and survived into preservation.

Excellent film. I got a ride on a black five at Patricroft depot in 66 I was 12 and it was a magical moment in my life. The driver was eastern European and probably a refuge from the second world war, he could only speak broken English but what a nice man.Never went to Edge Hill though the only other sheds I visited were Bolton and Newton Heath.

Absoloutly fantastic. Born in 1970 I missed the steam years. Used to listen to my parents and older brother (13 years older ) tell me of the age and beauty of steam. Live near the bluebell preservation railway in East Sussex. Absolutely love steam engines. 😍😍

Some of the best footage I've seen of the end of steam with a most interesting commentary. You were a very talented young man and your father an excellent photographer. I enjoyed the maps showing the locations and how so much of the railway infrastructure has disappeared. Thank you for sharing.

Brilliant. I was 14 in 1968, I couldn’t take the rundown in steam toward the end of steam, it was so depressing. Fortunately you and people like you kept going.

Well i am 75 today, and how well i remember visiting the sheds in the North West in the sixties, the thing you remember so well is how we youngsters could walk round, in the main nobody bothered in fact at some sheds you felt welcome by the workers,no snowflakes in those days.The shed i liked in Liverpool was Bank Hall with its 3 Jubs and 45517 its unrebuilt Patriot,the entrance was a doorway near Bank Hall station. Seems like yesterday,happy times thanks for the nostalgic film.

Ah those were the days when you could visit sheds and walk the tracks without being stopped. To day you wouldn't stand a chance, the transport police would soon move you on. No such thing as Health and Safety to worry about. My local shed and coaling station were in Goodwick and was part of Fishguard Harbour, which was in Goodwick and as kids we used to wander around at will. Wonderful times. I love the videos, well done.

Thank you for this. As a Wirral lad born in 1969 I missed all this and grew up with my fathers stories of mainline steam. Now we are producing our own Models. Archives like yours are so helpful

I could have 'liked' almost every comment, as they reflected my feelings completely because with my father I had many similar experiences chasing those last days of steam holidays' from our home in East Anglia. Beautiful work, more please.

Such a nostalgic image of steam. The photos of you filming just put the context into it all. Just great. Amacf

I am in ecstasy too. 🙂 I have those memories of steam sheds too. And a solitary 8F pulling about 40 grey mineral wagons through Kidderminster in the snow.

Precious video!! Very good part of history for England and fans of steam locomotive

Well done..!! Thank you for posting this. 👍

Very nice, and yes I was feeling back to the steam time. Looking forward to see more.

Wow, a brilliant video with brilliant narration. I have never seen a railway film like this before that compares the two eras so well.

Lovely narrated old film. Very enjoyable.

We still get a few Steam pulled trains at At Fishguard Harbour and the one think that brings back childhood memories is the smell of steam a engine, wonderful.

Excellent.....so many memories of shed bash's

Some excellent footage of the railway scene around Liverpool. It was a pleasure to view it.

As a spotter in the early/mid 60s I remember 8A Edge Hill - its low level meant even on a dry day it was damp, full of puddles and looked a bit shambolic. The staff, however, knew what they were about. They had a good allocation of Stanier 4-6-2s which were well maintained and huge freight operations. Your video demonstrates the continuous movement around the place.

I remember seeing 45156 at Heaton Mersey and Edgeley sheds...and in 2013 Llangollen railway re-named a black 5 ,Ayrshire Yeomanry, and to complete it, I were given a round trip on the footplate..I know it wasn`t the 45156, but it was good enojugh for me, it rwally did look the part, and filthy too,like many locos were in the 60s..

I grew up with Steam, London Edinbugh, 50's 60's 70's, 68 off to Switzerland to work, They are Mermories I am Proud of.

Brilliant film, reminds of my days at Newton Heath shed. Thanks for posting.

Brilliant stuff. What a great historical record.

so cool. I love this stuff. Thank you kind sir for sharing

Amazing footage - what a slope!! You captured another derailment, you have a gift! Thanks for sharing with the world!

Thank you for this very important historical video. May I query one important point please? I always thought the GridIron was the metal bridge which ran diagionally across the main running lines. You can see it in your plan at 8.15. It runs north of the shed in the diagram and was dismantled at the end of steam. The line you allude to as the GridIron is in fact what we called The Flyover and The Circle. These lines were electrified, then demasted in the late 1960's when the flyover was truncated. In my day the flyover was referred to as The Crack, and was used for stabling coaching stock. If you use Google maps, you can still see the remnants of the flyover, although no longer in use, the lines remain extant. Thank you.

Thanks for filming and sharing this with us all .

Brilliant footage as always! Don't get scenes like this today and it's sad that we won't see them again but at least we have some locos preserved today. Can see how mucky they were and how hard they were worked too. Great footage captured well!

Watching two Black 5`s sharing wheelslip is awesome.

Brilliant doco, shame it wasn’t longer. Thanks

That 1:20 is something else! Thank you for this fantastic upload.

So sorry I was born a few decades too late to see these sights!

Great filming and storytelling of a bygone day. Really enjoyed seeing the footage of you and your Dad. Your love of trains reminds me of your wonderful series, Diner on the Dinner for PBS. Wonderful! Thanks Jon.

Brilliant footage well done!

My grandparents lived not far from the Edge Hill marshalling yard and I remembered the clanks and squeaks of the grid iron and the hoots and wheel slippages. All vanished from 1968 sadly. If only they'd lasted into the 1970s but alas

Fantastic film. Thanks for sharing it

Some of the best shots of steam in the 1960s. I hope you have offered your collection to the National Railway Museum.

Absolutely fascinating video. Many thanks!

Thanks I really enjoyed that, I was a train spotter in London who had family connections in Liverpool and manchester. We once travelled to Liverpool behind 46242 City of Edinburgh and I bunked several sheds in Liverpool and Manchester over the years including Edge Hill, Speke, Birkenhead, Aintree, Newton Heath, Stockport, Heaton Mersey, Springs Branch. Edge Hill was quite a place. nothing like a wet day in an engine shed! I loved Willesden and Crewe South, never forget the smell! and oh the lines of Coronation Pacifics, Britannias, Jubilees and Scots as well as the 8F's, Black Fives and Jinties. I miss them all. A marvellous film!

Better footage than many youtubers today.