Researching Railway Workers, Film Clips esp GWR Swindon (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Thursday, September 13, 2012, 22:47 (4456 days ago) @ m p griffiths

Hi again North Star, welcome back !
First, and as demonstrated above so efficiently as is the wonderfull MPG's usual everhelpfull way, no you don't need to reply individually. In fact in my opinion it's best not to, so as to minimise the number of posts on a thread, or a thread maybe automatically locked earlier than one might like. For this reason wherever possible I will revisit one of my earlier existing posts and edit it to add more info where appropriate, I know other users do too.
Second, the turn of this thread into a GWR Swindon one has amused me, in so much as when I first saw your username a few weeks ago I immediately thought of the early GWR loco "North Star" designed by the great Robert Stephenson, son of George of "Rocket" fame. Little did I realise a thread abt Mitcheldean blacksmiths would actually lead to this loco, hopefully you'll see it heavily "restored" at the Swindon Works Museum. Is this choice of username a coincidence I wonder ??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GWR_Star_Class

Re the Works thanks MPG for the great links, very interesting. For my sins, altho I'm a very proud man of Dean I'm not a particular fan of the Great Western, more an LMS man myself (they did run into Gloster). However I do know the Swindon Works particularly under Daniel Gooch was a true centre of engineering excellence. This was partly as the company also made great efforts to care for the welfare of it's workforce, just a shame such things as riveter's deafness were considered "the norm" in those days. Indeed some say the NHS grew out of the GWR's hospital at Swindon.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/content/articles/2008/06/27/nhs_swindon_60th_feature.shtml

This BBC Swindon webpage has links to some excellent archive railway films that show the GWR and Swindon Works in fascinating detail.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/content/articles/2008/05/21/requiem_for_a_railway_swindo...

This British movie from the 1930s, made to celebrate the GWR's centenary, contains superb archive footage of the Swindon works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4WeXq3VPh4&feature=related

Whereas sadly this BBC programme from 1984 discussed the proposed closure of the Works, very interesting listening to the old workers chat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATwKqdpH4Mw&feature=related

Re hammers and deafness, this clip of the Southern Railway's Ashford works from as recently# as 1947 shows a general lack of basic "modern" Health and Safety such as ear defenders, sadly its a silent film but you can still almost feel the din.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrVO0-0S_Ng
(# recently compared to the Victorians that is)

And don't forget we had our own slightly smaller but no less skilled railway industry at the Gloster Wagon Works
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Sja4UkZ8T0

Despite it's rolling stock being somewhat antiquated in the 1950s after the ravages of WW2, the "new" British Railways were excellent at producing professional-standard "educational" documentary films about all aspects of railway life throughout the country, their British Transport Films are still worth viewing methinks, such as
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=british+transport+films+collection

Lastly, it seems that the 1915 book "Life In A Railway Factory" by Alfred Williams is a must-read for anyone interested in the Swindon works, I'll be looking it up in my local library. I see he wrote it after 23 years as a steamhammer operator, so no doubt he was deaf too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Williams_(Poet)

PS Ooops forgot another great source of old film clips, the British Pathe site.
This fascinating film from 1934 shows some of the odd job titles being performed at the Swindon works, great clip and educational too for when the 1931 Census is released and we find a "boshman" in the family...
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/queer-jobs
This site deserves very thorough & carefull searching, but note that sometimes the films were never finished for public cinema viewing so maybe silent etc.