The good old days

A bit of how it used to be nostalgia, craftsmanship and muscle power at work. A fascinating (to me anyway) glimpse of how things were done pre WW2, the clothing, very few overalls or other protective clothing, note one of the carpenters with a long apron, typical of the period. Mostly hand tools and only really heavy items getting lifting gear.


This dates from about 1936/7. These units remained in daily service until September 1972, some are being preserved and restored although there are at present no electrified lines on the prerserved railways (no thanks to the elf 'n safety nannies)

Fastinating Mike. Not much made like that these days except maybe one or two classic cars such as Morgan. Is it possible to run one of those with a diesel electric to provide the power?

teddy

No easy way of feeding electrical power between them, even if the voltages were the same or similar. Imagine the size of cables needed to carry a few hundred amps at about 650 volts, and they need to be flexible too.

They can and do sometimes use diesel electrics to pull or push them

Gawd - just looking at that footage makes me think "just how many poor men lost thier hands to vicious equipment biting them off"? eeeiiikkk.

No elf and safety in those days David. No hard hats, no machine guards etc.

teddy

And probably a lot less accidents 'cos they were properly trained, knew what they were doing, knew what they were capable of and didn't rely on many machines plus they were not hampered by loads of nonsensical rules and regulations.

I am always intrigued by nostalgic things like this ... sometimes I think we have digressed in technology since the 30's ... we do the same things today, but it's much more complicated that it has to be. Back then, it was simple logic, and everyone knew what they had to do and got it done.

Another bit of 1930s film to intrigue Lars (and others I hope!)

[video]http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=73104[/video]

Picture quality on full screen is not too good, but adequate to see the fashions and transport of the era. plus a few clips from earlier days.

I can reliably date the film to sometime between July 1931 and August 1934 (I have a model of the loco hauling the train in the early part of the film and have researched its history so I know the dates when it ran in that livery and with that pattern of chimney - what a mine of, usually, useless information I have!)

Great film Mike. I have some pictures in my office from about the same period of the road outside when there were trams here. A more gentile time

teddy

the good old days indeed