Swindon Works

[D826]

Some wonderful footage and tales - given when the film was made, almost heartbreaking. ....Go Great Western !!

 

 

enjoy/despair in equal measure. The comments of the old GWR man at the end seem almost prophetic 27 years on.

 

Viva manufacturing - what there is left of it.

 

Matt W [D826]

[Guest 838rapid]

I was a teenager in Swindon when the works closure was announced,and was stood outside M and S when the factory whistle blew for the last time.

 

Everybody stopped still..

 

What do we produce now as a country??

 

"would you like to supersize that "

 

Swindon has had more than its fair share of up's and downs but seems's to survive .

 

I still go there to see friends and family,and all in all it does'nt change

[The Stationmaster]

I'm afraid that Swindon was a victim of the ever shrinking railway system plus increased reliance on outside suppliers and revision of central stores policy. The wagon works, and later the carriage works both went well before the loco works as system contraction and more efficient use of rolling stock allowed both the wagon and coaching stock fleets to be severely reduced.

 

In the end the loco works was basically killed by the decision to end diesel hydraulics and the shrinking of the national dmu fleet which allowed work to be concentrated onto fewer workshops. There was often alleged to be a strong LMS bias in BR's motive power and workshop policy and in some respects the decision to rundown a large factory unit at Swindon did seem strange. But the equally in its later years there was no doubt that the quality of some of the work done at Swindon was declining - for whatever reason - and that might not have helped matters.

[Southernman46]

But the equally in its later years there was no doubt that the quality of some of the work done at Swindon was declining - for whatever reason - and that might not have helped matters.

 

They did a pretty decent job of refurbishing the 4-CEP's (I had some involvement on accepting them back onto the SR via Strawberry Hill) as well as a heck of a lot of time riding in the d*mn things !

[90211]

I'm afraid that Swindon was a victim of the ever shrinking railway system plus increased reliance on outside suppliers and revision of central stores policy. The wagon works, and later the carriage works both went well before the loco works as system contraction and more efficient use of rolling stock allowed both the wagon and coaching stock fleets to be severely reduced.

 

In the end the loco works was basically killed by the decision to end diesel hydraulics and the shrinking of the national dmu fleet which allowed work to be concentrated onto fewer workshops. There was often alleged to be a strong LMS bias in BR's motive power and workshop policy and in some respects the decision to rundown a large factory unit at Swindon did seem strange. But the equally in its later years there was no doubt that the quality of some of the work done at Swindon was declining - for whatever reason - and that might not have helped matters.

On what evidence do you base your statement "there was no doubt that the quality of some of the work done at Swindon was declining" ? This requires some justification surely as otherwise it may be construed as a slur on the workforce many of which might be offended by this.

[The Stationmaster]

On what evidence do you base your statement "there was no doubt that the quality of some of the work done at Swindon was declining" ? This requires some justification surely as otherwise it may be construed as a slur on the workforce many of which might be offended by this.

 

Based on the quality of what was coming out of the works - albeit noted above that they did a pretty good job on the 4 CEPs but alas not always true of other vehicles they outshopped during the period of decline nor of some exchange components. Do not forget that Swindon underwent a period of steady decline in workload with a shrinking workforce which at the same time was firmly getting the message that the town no longer saw its future as occupying a major role in the railway industry and was very visibly following a course of development and seeking new industrial involvement and diversification of employment which took it away from the railway.

 

While it welcomed the arrival of the Western Region's HQ in 1985 and some local politicians made a lot of noise about the closure of the works the sad fact was that Swindon had rundown and the remaining rump of the workforce were becoming increasingly dispirited and in some cases were getting out whenever they had an opportunity to do so. No particular 'slur' on Swindon - it was just a sad fact that closure was inevitable because there was little or no work for what remained of the factory and back indeed to the subtitle of this thread about the decline of manufacturing in the UK; Swindon wasn't unique.

[Guest 838rapid]

As much as I agree with a percentage of what you say in other threads Mike,I am afraid to think you are talking tosh here.

 

It's easy to condem or condone someone/something once they are gone.

.

 

Swindon Works had a Pride in the work they produced right until the end,how do I know this,my Grandfather worked in A Shop right till the end.

 

The moral was portrayed as being low,divide and conquer springs to mind..

 

We are all entitled to our own thoughts and beliefs,however sometimes least said easiest mended..

 

I knew the person that ordered "Glory" to be torched straight away and how it jumped the queue of locos to be torched.

 

It was towed round the back of the A Shop with indecent haste and pushed a part cut 27 out of the way in the process..

[Southernman46]

 

I knew the person that ordered "Glory" to be torched straight away and how it jumped the queue of locos to be torched.

 

 

So why then - don't let that one hang...............

[Guest 838rapid]

D818 was nothing more than a shell,anything reusable had been stripped by the groups involved with D832 and D821.

 

I also understand a transmission set was saved after Glory was torched.

 

The Person that ordered it to be torched was a Mr Sandford,known as Sandy.

 

I have got some pictures of it being cut here somewhere.

 

Also I own a facsmilie nameplate of Glory cast in Swindon worksFoundry,which lived under a desk in his office.

 

There are no holes drilled it,and when I was given it from a mates garage it was still rough cast.

 

It was painted red on first restoration, then painted black afterwards,my mate wanted it repainted red and said it could be black when he died.

 

He passed away 5 years ago but it does'nt seem right now..

 

[JeffP]

Privatisation can be blamed for a lot, but the French had less works than us and smaller ones, for a larger network with more locos.

 

Their major depots took on most of the work on locos that our works were doing.

[Bob Reid]

I don't see anyone blaming Privatisation Jeff? The "rationalisation" (and re-equipment) of the workshops had started in 62? (at least for the BR years) there was without a doubt too little work for too many workshops however even before the "BRE" days there had been considerable reduction in manpower - just short of 20,000 (if I'm remembering correctly) commensurate with a rapidly shrinking fleet. Don't forget though loco's were but a small proportion of the overall workload and we certainly were not blessed with depots capable of handling the majority of works repairs. It was sadly inevitable and it was all but impossible to maintain with the changes in stock procurement policy - It was a sad day when any of them closed - the works where I was apprenticed is 90% supermarket car park now but little could have been done to prevent it.

[cheesysmith]

Remember that the railway.workshops used to make everything the railways used. Also, when. Modernization came along the rolling stock, locos, units were only maintained between works visits to keep em running. Now all the maintenance is done on depot with components replaced as and when. Look at the pendos, they have just had the bogie changed done on depot when that would have been a major works job. Which is ironic as components being changed at depot level was something the WR wanted when it introduced the hydrallics.

[Fat Controller]

Privatisation can be blamed for a lot, but the French had less works than us and smaller ones, for a larger network with more locos.

 

Their major depots took on most of the work on locos that our works were doing.

There was the major difference that the French railways, long before SNCF, bought in most stock, including locomotives, from outside contractors. This immediately removed a lot of the work that would have been done by the workshops elsewhere. It has always seemed to be French policy, for strategic reasons, to maintain a widely dispersed railway manufacturing and heavy repair network.

[Glorious NSE]

What do we produce now as a country??

 

More cars than we did in the 1970s, and 80% of them are exported?

[The Stationmaster]

Remember that the railway.workshops used to make everything the railways used. Also, when. Modernization came along the rolling stock, locos, units were only maintained between works visits to keep em running. Now all the maintenance is done on depot with components replaced as and when. Look at the pendos, they have just had the bogie changed done on depot when that would have been a major works job. Which is ironic as components being changed at depot level was something the WR wanted when it introduced the hydrallics.

It was of course not just what the WR wanted - it was what the Region did. Taking forward the depot level component swapping which went on with dmus to its new mainline loco fleet with the advantage of lighter engines than graced the early large diesel electrics. And in too the way the railway contracted - with the WR alone at one time having, arguably 4 main loco works (although Oswestry seems to have become little more than a main area depot workshop rather than carrying the wider range of skills and manufacturing capability that remained at Swindon, Wolverhampton and Caerphilly) plus the 'heavy workshop capability at the District running sheds such as Old Oak and Ebbw Jcn which were able to do quite heavy work. All of that shrank away as the network and the loco, carriage, and wagon fleets shrank.

[Guest 838rapid]

Where does the steel and fixtures fittings come from???

 

When I worked for Honda all the wiring looms for the cars was imported from Poland and repackaged into production line trays in Swindon by Swifts...

[DavidH]

Where does the steel and fixtures fittings come from???

 

When I worked for Honda all the wiring looms for the cars was imported from Poland and repackaged into production line trays in Swindon by Swifts...

 

But that's just one example in one fairly obvious industry that seems to be constantly in decline because we've all heard the news headlines going back decades, about seemingly endless factory closures... and of course, for most people, and the media, manufacturing is measured solely in terms of employment rather than output.

 

However, although the components come from all over the world, plenty of them are still made in the UK. We make lots of things, but there's also a lot that we don't because we can't compete on price with places like China. But it's not all doom and gloom ...

 

There's a 2009 PWC report available online that I quote just one passage from:

 

"Strip out the facts from the fallacies, and the truth is that the real value of UK manufacturing output has increased in 35 out of the past 50 years, and as the graph below proves, 2007 was a record year for UK manufacturing production"

 

http://www.pwc.co.uk/assets/pdf/ukmanufacturing-300309.pdf

[Guest 838rapid]

We can all produce statistics that seem relevent regarding different things.

 

You only need to look at the modern trains running round the network to see that the funding towards British Railways in enginering,development and production was cut by consistent Governments through from the 1950's.

 

Under which party was the most railway lines closed???

 

The fact of the matter is that GDP was so high during the late 1970's and 1980's,even higher than now that the PM of the time deregulated and sold off all the Family Silver in the effort to clear the debts.

 

BREL formulated the Tilting Train principle during the 1970's only to have the carpet Pulled from under them by the "Daughter of a Grocery shop Owner" in the mid 1980's.

 

If BREL had not been dogmatic in certain area's we might never have seen the HST,Which is still a stalwart of modern operations.

 

Without wishing to imsult you,how many of the modern Locomotives/Trains are built in the UK??

 

The most recent things are class 172's produced at Derby,other than that its mainly a Siemens/Bombardier empire out there.

 

Having had the pleasure - sic - of working the "quality " units it's apparent that these modern trains are not built but produced to a budget..

 

Compare the build of a 185 to a 350 or 450 internally and you will see what I mean.

 

Still back to the op.

 

Railway works in this country lacked the funding which made them unable to compete in the modern world of Railways..

 

Hence these great works vanished one after the other... The only one left building new trains is Derby,now back to the thoughts of the "often alleged to be a strong LMS bias in BR's motive power and workshop policy "

[jjb1970]

There was always going to be carnage in the works sector, regardless of politics. Fewer trains, trains with extended service and maintenance intervals and depots capable of doing more adds up to a lot less work for the traditional works. Take a look at how many trains the UK needs/buys and even if we did not import any trains we would have what, one or two additional manufacturing works, that is still a massive reduction on what went before.

[DavidH]

We can all produce statistics that seem relevent regarding different things.

 

 

True, we can. And it goes without saying that we can also ignore statistics if we don't want to accept their message.

 

All I was trying to say was, it's not all doom and gloom and indeed not as bad as the media like to portray - in certain industries. I also find it sad we're not building all of our own trains. But we've never only just made trains (or cars, or ships, or planes, or any other manufactured goods) in this country, and as some industries decline, others rise.

 

However, I'm not prepared to talk politics on this site (nor am I allowed to), so I shall leave it there!

 

David

[lmsforever]

Years ago I went round Wolverton works when they had an open day,it was amazing to see how much was actualy manufactured on site and the many skills that were used by the ded icated workforce .Of course all this has gone as the world has progressed towards global companies and product sourcing from the cheapest source with unfortortunate consequences for Gret Britain plc ,we can never go back only forward.

[Glorious NSE]

Without wishing to imsult you,how many of the modern Locomotives/Trains are built in the UK??

 

Off the top of my head, I would suggest better than half of them post-privatisation...

 

The most recent things are class 172's produced at Derby,other than that its mainly a Siemens/Bombardier empire out there.

 

Most recent is probably LT's S-stock which I think are still being delivered and are currently keeping Derby busy - before that class 379s, 172s, 378s....

 

(plus even a nice export or two in recent years, ISTR trams to somewhere on mainland Europe, plus Electrostars to South Africa!)

 

P.S. - Bombardier are the company that build trains in Derby.

 

Compare the build of a 185 to a 350 or 450 internally and you will see what I mean.

 

All three of those are built by the same company, what is comparing a 185 to a 350 or 450 supposed to demonstrate?

 

Railway works in this country lacked the funding which made them unable to compete in the modern world of Railways..

 

Railways designing and building all their own stock isn't the way it's done across most of the Western world these days, that's not especially a sign of British decline...

 

Take a look at how many trains the UK needs/buys and even if we did not import any trains we would have what, one or two additional manufacturing works, that is still a massive reduction on what went before.

 

Absolutely - and that shows up in some of the discussion over IEP, there's serious doubts about whether a new train building factory they are building in the North East is viable long-term given the potential level of UK orders.

 

And some British losses have been down to well aimed foot-shots. I can quite believe Alstom would still be building trains in Birmingham had they not initially been atrocious at product support, as it seems very likely that no Siemens units would be running on SWT (which was Siemens' big breakthrough in the UK market) if Alstom had made the 458s run as reliably as they later managed to do...

 

Instead Alstom lost their product base in the UK as they gained a reputation for building stuff that didn't work reliably, and Siemens was only too happy to fill that void with something that did.

[Guest 838rapid]

The Pendo were imported from Alstom in Italy.

 

The history of the Pendolino can be followed back to the technology gained by the APT under BR.

 

The Electrostar family of trains granted are built in the UK by Bombardier.

 

Constructed as you say at the Lichfield Lane Works in Derby.

 

However many of these incl class 172 and S stock that have had to be returned to works to correct Build issues??

 

All the voyager/meridian family are imported complete from works in Brugge.

 

Yes I agree the 185/350/450 are built by the Seimans,this was why I used them as a compare.

 

The 185 was built to a lower budget than the others look at this from operations side,They are regulary run on 2 out of 3 engines as they are fuel hungry,this then causes issues with air con and heating.

 

The 185 was built to show Siemens DMU version of the same body style.

 

The ride quality of a 185 is to say the least sometimes lively,having worked on them since release until recently.

 

I rode a 350 from Lime street to Crewe and a 450 from Southampton to Weymouth.On both unit types the ride was far superior,

even allowing for the fact that they wern't lumbered with 750 hp power units under slung.

 

This showed the differences in the ride Quality.

 

Yes I agree that funding is done differently nowadays,However we as a country were world leaders on Tilting Trains until Funding was pulled.

 

The class 60 is the last Diesel mainline Freight to be produced in this country,now if we look at the last mainline Diesel passenger locomotive we go all the way back to the Class 50's,when you look at electric versions it would be class 92 and class 91's. .

 

Since then we have only imported to date 66's67's and now 70's.the oldest 66's are now 14 years old..

 

I appreciate that the amount of Railway works in the country out weighed the amount that was required then let alone now,this is something I have never raised as a point.

[The Stationmaster]

 

And some British losses have been down to well aimed foot-shots. I can quite believe Alstom would still be building trains in Birmingham had they not initially been atrocious at product support, as it seems very likely that no Siemens units would be running on SWT (which was Siemens' big breakthrough in the UK market) if Alstom had made the 458s run as reliably as they later managed to do...

 

Instead Alstom lost their product base in the UK as they gained a reputation for building stuff that didn't work reliably, and Siemens was only too happy to fill that void with something that did.

 

And that's not the only reason Alstom Birmingham lost out. Alstom caught the former Met-Camm habit of putting in low quotes and charging high on Variation Orders. They knew full well that their clients were the sort of folk - in many cases - who put in a string of VOs for all sorts of reasons and they worked out that they could charge something akin to US aerospace contractor prices for fiddly bits & pieces because they had the client over a barrel, so they did. That did not enamour them to customers and added to poor build quality (probably due in some respects to using a low skill labour force in their final years) did their reputation no good. A walk around their factory could be quite an eye opener, as were some of the VOs.

[Ozexpatriate]

As traumatic as I'm sure it must have been for the Swindon Works to close, how is this experience any different for the great steam locomotive erection shops of the world?

 

An analogue to Swindon is the Sacramento Locomotive Works. The works in Sacramento were owned by the Southern Pacific Railroad and occupied a 200 acre site. Evidence of their railway purpose (like the transfer table between the boiler shop and the machine shop, plus the turn table for the big roundhouse) are still evident in Google images. This drawing illustrates how much of the rail infrastructure (notably the big roundhouse, demolished in the 1950s) is gone.

 

The big roundhouse for the SP in Sacramento housed cab forwards. You can see what it looked like here.

 

While some buildings, including an engine shed (across the freeway from the main works) house the excellent California Railroad Museum and there are plans to preserve/repurpose some of the remaining buildings as a Railroad Technology Museum, much of the site has deteriorated or been demolished in the last ten years. Sacramento is the birthplace of railroads on the west coast of the US.

 

Workplaces designed for the erection of steam locomotives were an intrinsic part of the steam locomotive ecosystem. With the extinction of steam locomotives as the prime movers on railways their futures were doomed. You can't build a 737 in a ex-boiler shop and it's far cheaper to build a new factory for modern 'clean' assembly work than re-purpose steam-age relics no matter how much nostalgia we may feel for them. Museums are the best outcome.

 

This story is no different for Lima and Baldwin. There are some nice photographs of the Lima and Baldwin facilities here. Of the Lima and Baldwin shops, nothing remains.