Beating Beeching: Part 2 Welsh Railways


Beating Beeching: Part 2

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50 years ago, almost every part of Wales

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reverberated to the sound of steam hauled freight trains.

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The livelihoods of hundreds of Welsh communities

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depended on the men who ran the railways.

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Then, in the 1960s, Chairman of British Railways, Dr Richard Beeching

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took an axe to the rail system of Wales.

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Depots were closed and jobs were lost as freight was transferred from rail to road

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and steam power was scrapped, in favour of diesel.

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What could not be erased were the memories of the men who worked the railways of Wales

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in the age of steam.

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They used to have a code that once the banker got up behind the train,

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he would tell the front train by going, beep, beep, beep

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and the front one would do the same and off you'd go.

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Well, when you look at a steam engine and the men working on it,

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there was more to it, especially on the firing side.

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Straight away, there was one behind the other, there was no stopping in them days.

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You were lucky if you got a bite of your butty because you were that busy.

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With the enthusiasm of volunteers, heritage railways have done much

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to bring back the joys of steam trains to the people of Wales over the past 40 years.

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Enthusiasts like Jim Clemens filmed coal trains and engine sheds before they disappeared.

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Much of this invaluable footage has never been seen on television before.

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This is a celebration of the glory days of steam, past and present,

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and the memories of the last generation of men to work steam hauled freight in Wales.

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It's the story of Beating Beeching.

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Early morning on a steam gala day at Llangollen Railway

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finds staff and volunteers busy preparing the engines for the work ahead.

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There is immense pride that all six locomotives have been rebuilt and maintained at the shed.

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The engines are an important part of what has made the railway a major tourist attraction.

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Many of the people who work here were smitten with steam in their childhoods

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simply because their father worked on the railways,

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like Dave Owen, chief of engineering.

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Well, my father worked on the railways as a fireman and driver in the days of steam.

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He worked out of Cloes Newydd at Wrexham.

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I obviously, as a youngster, got hooked on steam locos.

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Didn't bother collecting numbers, just had to be by a steam engine

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whether in was in a shed, on a footplate, just got addicted at an early age.

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Just the smell, the feeling of power, the heat,

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just became a fascination with the steam loco.

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The scene at Llangollen today is the nearest one can get to a lost world of skills

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and know-how of steam engines.

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A world of experience from engine sheds across Wales before the Beeching cuts of the 1960s.

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Then, thousands of men worked on the railways,

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many based at sheds like Croes Newydd, Denbigh, Carmarthen,

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Newport, Aberbeeg or Swansea.

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The shed at Pontypool Road was one of the busiest in the Valleys

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and many a young Welshman started work on the railways here.

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This film brings back fond memories for Tony Morgan

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who worked at Pontypool Road in the 1950s.

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We're now at Pontypool Road where I worked as a young lad.

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There is Jimmy Watkins, an old engine driver that I knew quite well

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with his oil can doing his preparation before he goes out on a train.

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There's a small tanky engine which works in the sidings.

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I think that's Len Hoff and his driver on one of the sidings.

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That's Bill Harris.

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That's Ted Ashman, he was one of the good drivers.

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This rare footage of Welsh drivers belies the hard life on the railways.

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Young lads started their working day at 3am

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if they were assigned as a caller to make sure

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crews were at the sheds for the first trains of the day.

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Early in the morning, they used to send you out

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on an old-fashioned bike, a great big sit-up-and-beg thing,

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around Griffiths Town and Sebastopol

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where most of the engine drivers lived, to call them out,

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to make sure they wasn't late to get into work,

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two, three o'clock in the morning.

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And you'd be no lights, it'd be pitched black

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and you'd be walking up the garden path and you'd get to the door

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and you'd just go to go on the knocker and the door would open

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and the driver would say, "Don't you dare knock this door, wake my wife.

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"I'm awake, I'll be in." I said, "Thank you very much," and run off.

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Working the coal trains of South Wales was tough.

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Railwaymen drew on skills developed over 100 years since the first locomotives of the 1850s.

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Firemen had to build the engine's fire to provide sufficient steam power at the right moment

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to haul heavy wagons up the steep gradients common throughout the Valleys.

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Driver Dennis Jones was a fireman at Abercynon in the 1950s.

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You built your fire towards the firebox door

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and you built a good platform there so you slide the shovel

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and you could direct your coal to any part of the firebox.

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Different engines needed different fires

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and you'd obviously got to learn about this.

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You had the haystack fire, the saucer fire, the hill fire,

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each corner fire, each one had a different way and they would steam better.

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Here at Llangollen, firemen carefully build their fires in readiness for another gala day.

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They use the best coal available but it is prone to creating clinker,

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a stony residue made of impurities produced when coal burns.

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The quality of coal has always been an issue for firemen.

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The goods sheds used to get rubbish coal, really.

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They used to mix it with good coal and bad coal

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and we used to have to put up with it and you'd get a lot of clinker.

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I think the best coal was kept for the passenger turns, from Llandawr.

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They used to get the best coal on the London runs.

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But the goods sheds used to get a bit of good stuff and rubbish mixed

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and we had to clean the fire more often.

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The main thing, of course, is to keep steam

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and you had to learn the best way to keep steam

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because there's different types of coal

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Now with the Welsh coal that was great stuff, that was,

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because it would just expand and keep the heat going all the time.

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When you had coal coming down from Derby Brights, they called them,

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you put a shovel full in and it was gone in no time

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and it wouldn't maintain the bed of the fire.

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Before the Beeching cuts, Welsh railways carried all kinds of freight,

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be it coal, cattle or food.

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Alongside sheds like Pontypool Road, were vast shunting yards

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where the assembly and sorting of wagon loads into freight trains took place.

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At the Neath Railway Club, retired railwaymen meet to talk over old times.

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Among them is Ray Stephens who worked as a shunter at Neath Yard.

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He had his own way of keeping track of the work.

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All up here, all in your head.

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Neath Yard was on a gradient so once you take the brake up,

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the wagon was gone. So you had to take them down carefully

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up to the upside where the shunters were forming the trains then ready

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to get all the loaded out going up to Margam first

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and then going from there further up to London.

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Shunting yards were notoriously hazardous places where all sorts of tricks were used.

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I remember one day, Griff John, he was from Port Albert, I think.

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Griff John, he was about six foot two and about 17 stone

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and he put his, he put the brakes down with his behind.

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He'd sit on the brake and it took two of us to get the brake back up,

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because it would go into the last hole.

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But Griff used to sit on them and you could hear him laughing as he was doing it.

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He knew we couldn't get the brakes up for the wagon.

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The movement of freight trains up and down the lines of Wales

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was kept under control by the signalmen.

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Many of the enthusiasts' films show engine crews and signalmen

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exchanging tokens just as they do today at Llangollen.

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Harry Loundes, who worked as a signalman in North Wales in the '50s and '60s,

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remembers it well.

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The token system was a machine you had and there was 3, 4 or 5 tokens in the machine

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and they covered single track where there was only one...

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one engine in steam allowed along that track at one time.

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When the train come to the signalbox, you'd take the token out of the machine

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and hand it to the driver.

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These films of the axed lines to Brecon capture the atmosphere of a vanished world of branch railways

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as crews and signalmen exchange tokens.

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No matter how many single track sections there were on a line,

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the token system ensured trains would never collide.

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Bryan King worked the Neath & Brecon line.

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The system we worked on the N&B was that the signalman had a little frame outside he'd stand in

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and you give him yours with one hand and grab his with the other, you know.

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You used to be pretty quick at changing and it was a bit hairy,

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and I have dropped them on occasion and you have to stop and go back for 'em.

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The driver wasn't too pleased then.

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Many of the signal boxes along the Ruabon to Barmouth line

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oversaw single track sections.

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One of these was near Bala Lake at Llanuchlyn.

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There's been a signal box here since the line was built in the 1860s

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and although this line was axed by Beeching in 1965,

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the box still survives as part of the restored Bala Lake Railway.

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John Roberts is returning to Llanuchlyn where he first started as a signalman in 1955.

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Now we're entering the signalbox,

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pretty much the same as it was within my time here.

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There was the two instruments, the token instruments for through to St Anne's there

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and the token instrument for Bala junction there.

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The frame's pretty much, well, it's exactly the same

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but it has a number of white levers now which are not operated with what it is today.

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John Roberts is pictured with the station master in 1964

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a few months before the line closed.

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The mostly Welsh-speaking signalmen would talk to one another by the wall phone

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that connected every box along the line.

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During the years of steam hauled freight,

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the signal boxes of Wales handled far more traffic than at any time since.

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And for signalmen, the work was hard and more dangerous than it seemed.

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Some levers they operated pulled a cable

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that could be connected to a distant signal several miles away.

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When you're looking at levers and you're thinking, "Now where is the signal positioned?"

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If it's close to the box, quite easy to pull off

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but if you're pulling three mile of wire, that's a different kettle of fish.

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It gets very, very heavy to pull the wire.

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I've known that you put your foot up to get hold of the lever and give it a good tug over

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and many a time I've had it that the wire snapped and you put your foot against the thing

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and you'd be pulling and it just snapped and I went back straight in to the glass windows

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that was at the back of me.

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When the steam trains were going,

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there was a lot more steam trains about in goods

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and you had to regulate what to let go and what to hold back.

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Straight away, there was one behind the other. There was no stopping in them days.

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You was on the go from when you got there till you went home.

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You were lucky if you got a bite of your butty because you were that busy.

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On steam gala days at Llangollen Railway,

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they like to simulate the working activity of stations in North Wales before the Beeching cuts.

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After the axe fell on the Ruabon to Barmouth line,

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goods trains once again steam back and forth along the eight miles

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between Carrog and here at Llangollen station.

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The revived railway has come a long way since it was started by a few enthusiasts in 1975.

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Dave Owen joined them the same year.

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We used to have the workshops under the signalbox in the platform.

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There was no track here, just a few lengths of line on the station.

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Bit by bit, it just became a desire to move the thing forward

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and try to replace something that had been taken away.

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Freight such as slate, stone and cattle was transported through here originally

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but in the new age of steam at Llangollen,

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the station is busier than ever, beating Beeching at its best.

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John Roberts also worked at the signal box here in the 1960s.

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-Hello, Charles.

-Hello, John, how are you, nice to see you.

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-Ah, nice to see you.

-Nice morning.

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John Roberts has popped into see his friend, Charles Wilson,

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signalling inspector at the revived railway.

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We're dealing with probably more engine movements here now

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than what John was when the line was open

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because this box was normally switched out and they only used to open it for excursion traffic

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or dropping goods wagons off into the sidings behind the signal box,

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or putting a locomotive in the spur at the other end of the bridge.

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So it's probably more busy now than it was in John's day.

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I'll admit to that, yeah.

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It is different.

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With these short frames, you know, you could just stand by your frame.

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You'd never move.

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But with the frame of 50, 55 levers at Bala junction and Barmouth and places,

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you had to walk along the frame and work it, you know.

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-Put it back that one, number two.

-Put this one back?

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Oh, it goes back, doesn't it?

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I didn't expect to see that going back so...

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Go on, John.

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Another pull, I'll have a bad back now.

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There we are.

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Today, there are very few drivers alive who know what it was like

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to take 700 ton coal trains up and down the steep gradients of South Wales in the age of steam.

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Among footplate crews, this was known as "incline working".

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Here with the men at the Neath Railway Club is Dick Jones,

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now one of the oldest surviving drivers of steam freight trains in Wales.

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He worked for 45 years on the footplate, 25 of them as driver,

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based at the Glyn Neath shed.

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I wasn't nervous.

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We're all individuals, and some were nervous on the job.

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I was working a train one day and we had a guard from Neath,

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and I didn't know the guard at all.

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I was coming back from the docks with a train of empties

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and when we got to Glyn Neath, he said to me, "Driver, do you know,

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"I was on my hands and knees in the van coming up."

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"Why?" my fireman said to him. "Were you cleaning the van out?"

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"No, I was asking the Lord to take me home safe!"

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LAUGHTER

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Some gradients were so steep, it needed the power of a second engine pushing from behind.

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This was called banking.

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Going up a gradient at Glyn Neath to Aberdare,

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it was 1 in 49, it was a steep gradient.

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You'd have an assistant engine with you as well.

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It would bank you up, you know, and we'd have about 30 wagons, loaded wagons on, you know.

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They used to have a code that once the banker got up behind the train,

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he would tell the front train by going, beep, beep, beep

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and the front one would do the same and off you'd go.

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Though it seemed hard work for crews and engines taking a train up the steep inclines of the Valleys,

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it was much more precarious bringing it down the other side.

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In this remarkable footage, a steam engine on a gradient with heavy coal wagons

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cannot keep control, even with brakes down hard

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and sand being poured onto the rails for extra grip.

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At Llangollen, a staff member demonstrates how the crews

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operated a braking system practised throughout the age of steam-hauled freight.

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When you're coming down an incline, the guard come down, or the brakes man you call him,

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and you start pulling away quietly and he'd be putting the brakes down.

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When you knew you had sufficient brakes down,

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you just blow two on the whistle for him and then he'd go back to the guard's van and away you go.

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It comes through experience, because you knew by the stroke of the engine,

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the power of the engine, you know. You knew there was sufficient brakes that you could come to a stand.

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Two particular steep gradients were either side of Quakers Yard

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on the Merthyr to Pontypridd line.

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As a fireman, Dennis Jones knew the line well, so he was immediately alert to a misunderstanding

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between his driver and guard at Quaker's Yard,

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an error that was to result in a runaway train.

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We came out of Black Lion Colliery, which is Merthyr Vale Colliery

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and we approached Quaker's Yard and we came to the top of the bank.

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Then we waited for the guard to come down.

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He started putting the brakes down.

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I'm looking back for the guard.

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He was on the van. I said, "You haven't whistled for sufficient brakes, have you?"

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The driver said, "No, I haven't."

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I said, "The guard's back on the van, give me the tip."

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I said, "You haven't got enough brakes down."

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We couldn't stop, there's no argument about that.

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We were picking up speed all the time.

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There's a one in 40 bank.

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So we came to Abercynon station, the signalman was hanging out of the window

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and I was motioning to go... That I wanted a straight run.

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Luckily, the signalman was able to divert the runaway train

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onto a level siding sufficiently long for the engine and coal wagons to come to a stop.

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That was a nasty feeling really because you lose all control

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and you cannot do anything at all about it.

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You've just got to sit and wait or jump.

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The line from Blaenavon Yards to Pontypool Road was built in the 1870s

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to transport coal from Big Pit, high up on the moors of Blaenavon.

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The gradients here were some of the steepest in the country.

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In 1980, Big Pit and the surrounding collieries closed.

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But the very same year, enthusiasts started the Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway

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and since 1983, steam trains have travelled again on a short section of the old line.

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Dennis Jones worked the coal trains here as a young fireman in the late 1940s

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and can still remember the challenge of the gradients.

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I can relate coming up here actually, it was years ago,

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a very steep part of the track which you had to be so careful

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and it is a complicated road to manoeuvre.

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We knew exactly what was required on incline working and, to me, it was a fine art.

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The many inclines and gorges of the Valleys presented

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plenty of challenges for the Victorian builders of the railways in South Wales.

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But transporting the coal was paramount and, no matter where a mine was located,

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bridges, tunnels or viaducts would be built.

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The spectacular Crumlin Viaduct spanned the Ebbw and Kendon valleys on the Vale of Neath line.

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Opened in 1857, this engineering marvel stood 200 feet at its highest point.

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Tony Morgan fired trains over it a century later.

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There were several viaducts but there was nothing like Crumlin Viaduct

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because when you were up there, the wind it was quite high.

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There was only a small door on a Western engine

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so it was right through and it would be blowing you.

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Very exciting, really, because you were way up

0:24:350:24:38

and I used to go over there all hours of the night and all hours of the day.

0:24:380:24:43

The Crumlin viaduct which had stood for over a century

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was demolished within three years of Beeching's closure of the line in 1964.

0:24:490:24:54

For the people of Crumlin, there is very little left for them to remember of this symbol

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from Wales's glorious railway past.

0:25:060:25:09

Restored railways have had great success in bringing the experience

0:25:300:25:34

of steam railways to a modern public.

0:25:340:25:37

But since Dr Beeching finished off steam hauled freight in 1967,

0:25:390:25:44

it is simply not possible for these railways to convey the reality of working steam trains.

0:25:440:25:50

Taking 70 wagons of coal up and down the valleys of Wales

0:25:520:25:56

is preserved only on enthusiasts' films and in the memories of railway men like Tony Morgan.

0:25:560:26:03

Here we have an old video and, after watching it, I just could not believe it.

0:26:030:26:08

It took me back right to when I was a young lad working on the railway.

0:26:080:26:12

And the sounds, the smoke, the smell

0:26:120:26:15

everything was great on the railway

0:26:150:26:17

and it was lovely to put your head out through the side and just smell.

0:26:170:26:22

At Llangollen, volunteers and staff do still run goods trains at special steam galas.

0:26:290:26:34

They have earned a reputation for their expertise

0:26:370:26:40

in bringing steam engines back to life.

0:26:400:26:42

Often, these engines had spent many years slowly rusting away at Woodham's Yard, Barry Island.

0:26:440:26:51

Here in 1968, nearly 300 former British Rail engines awaited their fate.

0:26:520:26:58

Over the next four decades, enthusiasts sought to beat Beeching

0:26:580:27:03

by buying these scrapped steam engines.

0:27:030:27:06

Llangollen started rebuilding its first steam engine, Austin 1, in 1975.

0:27:060:27:13

Dave Owen was there at the start.

0:27:130:27:15

There was no handbook on how to repair or restore an engine,

0:27:150:27:19

but even steam locomotives are pretty basic machines.

0:27:190:27:22

So if you've got engineering nous or engineering background

0:27:220:27:25

you can apply that experience into problem solving and manufacture of new items

0:27:250:27:29

because you can't go out to buy a part any more, you've got to manufacture it.

0:27:290:27:35

Llangollen has built up a valuable skill base in the heritage engineering of steam locomotives.

0:27:360:27:43

Foxcote Manor is a fine example of what has been achieved here.

0:27:450:27:49

Rescued from Barry scrap yard after spending much of its working life in Wales,

0:27:500:27:56

it has been resident at Llangollen since 1986, longer than its years with British Rail.

0:27:560:28:02

It's such a beautiful looking engine, that just might be my biased opinion,

0:28:050:28:09

but because it's been here so long, been overhauled twice here,

0:28:090:28:12

it's its natural home.

0:28:120:28:14

Therefore I think we all think of it as the railway's flagship.

0:28:140:28:17

I think it just sits well with this countryside.

0:28:170:28:21

Like all restored lines across Wales, Llangollen Railway is dedicated to keeping engines alive.

0:28:260:28:32

The story of the remembrance and preservation of steam railways

0:28:320:28:37

is one of triumph over tragedy, pride in the past and hope for the future.

0:28:370:28:41

Dr Beeching had no idea of the thriving heritage industry

0:28:430:28:47

he would create when he axed the steam hauled railways of Wales.

0:28:470:28:52

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:29:020:29:04

E-mail [email protected]

0:29:040:29:07

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