My god, the man hours needed to turn a steam engine around and back in service. Incredibly. I'm a diesel generation, as a kid seeing first HST at Paddington was incredible 🙂

The firebox cleaning sequence really stuck with me — the fitter putting on his dust mask before climbing in says more about the reality of steam than any glamour shot of a speeding express. And the brick arch brushing detail was new to me. These British Transport Films are such a window into the everyday, unglamorous work that stood behind every single departure.

I had no idea these machines were so incredibly complex. Astounding.

And that ladies and gentlemen was why diesels engines were brought in. An enormous force of men to every couple of weeks give a steam engine a huge overhaul...
Diesels just switch on and start up and occasional servicing.

8+ hours from cold to get up enough steam.  All you need to know as to why, despite the romance, steam had to die on the railways.   8 hours vs 10 minutes flicking a switch.

This was the system back then when I travelled by train, hardly adware so much made the speed and success of our happy train journey! Hats off to those who went through the ordeals.. served us happily, God bless their posteriors

A flim showing us just how complex a steam locomotive's maintainance can be. 🚂

I had no idea how much maintenance was required for these beautiful beasts.  No wonder that they went to diesel engines.  Incredible!  🚂

Next time you hear a politician say "we've worked very hard"  remember these guys and think to yourself "no you didn't"

Nice as these steam engines are, I can see why they were replaced with diesels. That's a ferocious amount of maintenance.

I totally understand that tapping the stream pipes with a hammer is probably the only real way to check the pipes for rust, but the amount of anxiety watching him do it gave me could probably provide enough energy to run five stream engines alone.

Detailed step-by-step old school steam engine maintenence. Bravo!

Hats off to all the hard working teams who kept the Steam train alive. It was not easy to maintain the engines. Great care was taken to keep the trains safe.
INCREDIBLE ❤🎉🎉

Very labor-intensive but at least everybody had a job.

I'm one of the few people in this day and age that still works as a steam locomotive fitter for a living, pretty much do the exact same stuff these guys in the video, although we use some different methods to do stuff shown in this video.

Its a hell of a job to do and I cant imagine the turnaround these guys doing it back then had. its very different in this day and age, there isn't an infinite amount of man power like massive workshops used to have so exams and maintenance takes a lot longer. they used to have separate fitters, machinists, welders, tube sweepers, examiners, barmen, washers and dozens of other roles.
Now days you learn to do ALL of it yourself, its a lot more daunting than what it once was

Looking at the amount of downtime and the sheer number of men involved in keeping a steam engine running it's no wonder BR were so keen to go over to diesel locomotives!

Fascinating footage, those old steam engines were very labour intensive to maintain and costly to run, but nonetheless they were an interesting historical engineering development.

Oooh i wish i was born during this period,i love the workmanship.

This film is really a great insight into how labour intensive the steam era was.  It's understandable why the leadership wanted them gone.  Thanks for posting this historic footage.

For me it’s surreal seeing an extinct engine of a surviving class of engine “alive” and well