Engines at Work Fred Dibnah's Made in Britain

Fred Dibnah is now eight weeks into his grand tour

of industrial Britain.

It's a celebration of the fact that after 27 years,

he's just completed his rebuild of the engine,

and also of the remarkable achievements

of the engineers and industrial workers

whose endeavours made it possible

to build an engine like this in the first place.

He wants to see the sort of place

where an engine like this would have been built.

Today, the only places where you can get any idea of what was involved

in building big steam engines on a large scale

is at the works of some of the preserved railways.

So, Fred is on his way from Ashbourne in Derbyshire

to Bridgnorth in Shropshire,

where he's going to have a look at some of the engine building

that is going on in the workshops of the Severn Valley Railway.

It's a long journey - about 80 miles in total -

and Fred's engine isn't the fastest vehicle on the road.

So, Fred and his team are going to break their journey

and have an overnight stop here at the headquarters

of the North Staffs and Cheshire Traction Engine Club.

-I hope these lads have a pint ready for us.

-Yeah.

Members keep their engines here and generally come at the weekends

to work on them or to take them off to rallies.

I thought we were never gonna get here!

So far, we've seen the traction engine as a mode of transport

for getting Fred and his team around the country.

But these engines were real workhorses,

and in their time, they were put to a whole variety of uses.

'A traction engine's a strange machine

'that were developed really from a lot of other engines.

'It all starts off in the 1840s in the country of all places,

'where all the effort were put in by either animals or the human frame.

'The men in the country, the blacksmiths and and village mechanics, as you might say,

'decided that they would make a small locomotive boiler

'and then stick on top of it a crank shaft and a cylinder

'with a flywheel, and place it on four wooden wheels

'so it could be used to drive threshing machines

'and big saws and all that sort of stuff.

'It could be used in quarries to crush stone,

'it could be used to work portable water pumps.

'It were like a general doer of all things on working sites.'

Here at the traction engine club,

we get the chance to see the engines at work.

-Eh-up, Fred!

-Hiya.

Phil Jeffs is the chairman of the club.

-Yeah, yeah, it's a few year now since I last came.

-It is, it is.

Things are looking just as nice - it's a lovely place, this.

-It is.

-Yeah, you could live in here, you know. I could.

How many living vans have you got here altogether?

Ooh, I've never counted. There's probably 15 or 20.

Yeah, I bet there is, aye.

-What you doing today, anyway?

-You've just arrived in time.

We're gonna pull that dead poplar out, there.

We want to use the wood for some brake blocks for the engine.

Aye, it's good - it doesn't set on fire.

-It's supposed to be the best.

-Yeah.

And we're gonna use the traction engine...

-Yeah?

-..to winch it out.

-To pull it down, yeah, yeah.

We've got Lady Hamilton to anchor it just in case.

Let's hope it comes down as clean as one of your chimneys!

Yeah, aye, yeah. Well, it should do.

-Yeah.

-We should be safe enough here, shouldn't we?

-I hope so.

The boss is winding the wiring.

-He's got some tension on the rope anyway.

-Yeah.

Rope broke!

I reckon if we went about 15 or 20 foot up the tree, it'd have it easy.

But it's got a lot of power that,

when it'll bloody pull summat like that apart.

I mean look at that there, what it's done to that. Yeah.

I'll tell you what, if we go up 15 foot and it fails again,

a double purchase, you know?

Yeah, with a snatch block and hooked to the back of the engine.

Somebody's coming with a stacker tray.

Didn't the steeple-jacking used to be Fred's job?

-The easy way to go up in the world, that is.

-Aye.

I reckon it'll do it now with that. Get it up there, like.

I heard it creak but I think there was a lot more left.

There's a lot more creaks!

Yeah, we just done a big tree in our yard, you know, with bloody tuppers and all sorts.

And the engine... that thing weren't done, you know?

You've got a nice winch on it.

With the rope fixed higher up the tree,

are they going to have any more success getting it down?

It's a bit like waiting to see one of Fred's chimneys come down.

Right, they're going for a pull.

Yes, it's coming.

-Think it snapped nice and clean, didn't it?

-Yeah.

You want to get the stump out now.

Resort to dynamite, you know?

Now it's time to get the tree sawed up for those brake blocks.

And at a place like this, of course,

the whole operation is going to be done by steam power.

'It's amazing how many different makers there were of these things.

'Ransom Sims and Jeffries, Savage's, King's Lynn.

'Fowler's in Leeds, Aveling and Porter,

'Green's in Leeds, McLaren's in Leeds...'

ENGINE WHISTLES

'There's literally dozens of these companies.

'Some only in a small way, like a village agricultural engineer

'that bought the castings somewhere else and assembled his own thing.'

And what's Fred trying to get?

These are made of mahogany, you see?

Three inches thick...

Seven inches deep...

and 15 inches long, really.

Can we remember all that? Bloody hell, wait a minute -

we've no paper, have we?

Here you are.

Yeah...

three inches...

-..three inches by seven inches.

-Yep.

Now then, Colin, we've got our cutting list here.

We couldn't find any paper.

So, our brake blocks are made of mahogany,

-and that's the real McCoy this innit, this stuff?

-Yeah, yeah.

So, if you could be so kind...

and then we could leave them for the season,

and then we can throw them away and make nice brand new ones.

-You won't to have to varnish them.

-I'll buy you a pint.

-You won't have to varnish these?

-No.

All right, we'll do that then.

It's time for an old traction engine rally tradition.

We'll put the steps and the stick on and then we'll declare the bar open.

That's it. Ooh, very good. Yes, excellent.

I think really bringing this barrel of bitter here

has all the potential for a good booze up, a steam booze up!

-A farmer's half.

-A farmer's half.

In the olden days we used to arrive at the steam rally

with a full barrel of bitter and a load of glasses.

And and a lot of other people did as well,

so it'd save you spending your hard earned cash at the beer tent,

which were always inflated prices.

It always led to unbelievable drunkenness.

Any more for any more?

Not done it for a bit, I'm quite looking forward to this afternoon.

I'm going to have a talk with my mates over here.

-Hello, chaps. How are you doing?

-Eh-up, Fred.

-Eh-up, Fred.

-All right?

-Sit down.

-It reminds me of my early misspent youth, this!

How's your machine going, Colin? All right?

-Well, we can't wear it out.

-Eh?

-We can't wear it out.

Can't wear it out!

We're showing more times than we're standing doing nothing

at events this year.

Trouble is, if you don't do it, the only thing the younger generation

know in relation to a steam engine is Thomas the Tank Engine, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-And how many people walk up to you and say,

"What were they used for, mister"?

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-Hello, Fred.

-Ooh, look who's here.

-He's trouble.

He's a steam man, aren't you? An up and coming steam man, yeah.

-They tell me you used to have summat to do with railways, as well.

-Yes, Severn Valley Railway.

Oh, aye, yeah. Well that's a big outfit that, innit?

It's very good. You'll have to come along sometime.

-I think we're going there in a bit.

-Are you? Come find us then.

-We'll call and have a look.

-Yeah.

What exactly do you do there?

I'm a fitter machinist there.

-The lathes and all that like?

-Yeah.

-Then we go and put them on the engines.

-Yeah.

Richard Jess has grown up with steam and engineering in his blood.

He's part of a new generation keeping the world of steam alive.

-Eh-up, Fred!

-How we doing, all right?

We were talking about the Steam Apprentice Club.

That's a good idea, that.

You know, it's amazing how many kids there are, you know...

Somebody mentioned it earlier,

bloody Thomas the Tank Engine

and, "How does it work?" and all that jazz.

We got nigh on 700 kids in the Apprentice Club.

Yeah, yeah. That's good for our movement, isn't it, really?

I was saying, I was just talking to John,

I joined when I was 12 years old and I'm 25 now.

A grown man now, yeah!

It's amazing, I don't realise how old I am.

You get blokes come, big as him, and they say, "When I were little,

"you let me have a ride on your steamroller", you know?

That's what starts them off. Then they come along and nowadays,

because everything's got to be controlled and regulated,

we've got a log book scheme so the youngsters work through a scheme

which takes them through the basics of working an engine.

That's the problem these days

is that kids are more interested in Playstations,

and steam engines just seem to take a background.

I'm glad that the Apprentice Club is bringing it forward,

introducing the younger generation to the steam engine, because eventually I'm going to get old.

-Yeah, yeah.

-And I want people younger than me following on.

Jack, he took to it like a duck to water really.

Some people you could train for ten years and they'd still never know.

Yeah, I know what you mean.

Jack's sort of introduction to steam engines were unavoidable really.

I mean, he'd arrived into an household full of steam engines.

He's always shown a great and dedicated interest

in the world of steam engines.

He's pretty smart and he's started his first job

on the Isle of Man Railway Company.

So, you know, he's not half-heartedly going about it.

I'm quite proud of him, really.

I mean, you've heard how dedicated Roger is to it.

"I want a go, Dad. I want a go, I want a go, I want a go."

But for Fred, too many of these skills have been lost.

Somewhere along the line from the Victorian age we started to lose it.

I think a lot of it has got to do with education.

I remember a period

when they threw all the lathes out of technical colleges

and all the woodwork benches and everything with theory

and a man can learn how to lay bricks now in six months.

That's impossible.

Can you imagine lads doing catering, cooking?

I know everybody wants to be a... Freud, is it?

It's all a bit sad in a way.

I can't see that teaching a little lad at school how to bake a cake

is any way to run an industrial empire.

And one of the things that's given Fred great satisfaction

as he's travelled around making his programmes

is the number of young people he's seen

learning the skills that are needed to keep steam alive.

I'm in charge of the water!

Are we ready?

And it's not just been the lads.

And here at the traction engine club,

they need as many young enthusiasts as they can get

because there's plenty of work to be done.

We've got a low spot in the... in the ground here.

It's all made up ground.

And it tends to puddle in the winter and everything.

So, what they're doing is using the club engine, Lady Hamilton.

That's got a scarifier on.

And they're digging the ground up

and we're going to try and level it out and roll it back down.

-Put a bit more on?

-Yeah.

It's handy when you've got all your own road making gear.

Well, it's been restored.

Let's use it for the purpose that it was designed, really.

If we can't make a road here, then nobody can.

Just putting a few roofing tiles in to make up the ground.

Yeah I can see! Yeah, they're good them, aren't they?

-Are they Redland?

-Yes!

In my drive where me tarmac bit joins onto the cinders,

it keeps bloody disappearing there.

I could do with doing a bit of that myself.

-The proof will be next time it rains.

-Yeah.

-It should be all right.

-I should think so, yes.

And now some more old friends to meet.

Hello, Leonard. I'm not drunk, it's me leg, it's a bit wacky!

-You all right, mate?

-Yeah, not so bad mate, not so bad.

-Yeah.

-I see you still like the Guinness.

-Oh, yes, yes.

I've just been to the pub for this.

-You're very fortunate having this club here.

-Good planning.

With a pub at that side of the gate and one at this side

and a motley collection of steam engine owners.

-Bloody brilliant, yeah.

-How long has it been going now?

We come 30 years ago.

-I don't know. It was 30 or 40 years, wasn't it?

-Yeah, I was gonna say.

Hey, it's nice that, innit?

I heard a rumour that you've got a bit of a problem with the old firebox?

-Yeah on the Fowler.

-Aye.

Well, it's the old story. I've had it about 35 years now.

And the old boiler, of course, has to be inspected every ten years for hydraulic pressure.

I got it all stripped ready at home for the inspection.

He looked at the boiler tubes and he said,

"Oh, the boiler tubes want changing."

But I've been without an engine now for two months.

-Yeah.

-And I'm getting a bit sort of...

I know what you mean. It's like going to a steam rally without your engine.

You feel out of place! Yeah.

So doing the riveting, you know, it's...you know the noise it makes?

-Yeah.

-Well, I've had to go next door neighbours,

two or three that way, two or three that way, and say,

"Between two o'clock and three o'clock, I'm riveting again."

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-So, they all arrange to go out!

Wait a minute. Right...

And this is where Len does all that riveting.

The Bratch pumping station is near Wolverhampton.

And as well as working on his traction engines here,

Len's devoted years of his life

to restoring the great triple expansion engines in here

that were used for pumping the water.

When Fred left the traction engine club the next day,

he called in to see how his old mate was getting on with the job.

-The last time we come you showed me the engine and it were in bits, weren't it?

-In bits.

-We'd taken it to pieces.

-And now you've worked hard, how many years?

-Six years.

-Aye, yeah.

-In '91 we first came here to start.

And you had no boiler, did you?

Nothing at all, nothing at all.

-Yeah, yeah.

-I bought the boiler second hand from a lemonade factory.

They found that it wasn't big enough for the capacity of the steam,

and they had to buy a bigger one.

And I bought that second hand, yeah.

The engines inside, them are a credit to you, them man, they're beautiful.

-Yeah.

-You could use them in any sort of big liner pictures like the Titanic job.

When I was 12, in the field next door,

we built a 3½ and 5" gauge miniature railway.

And I used to cycle to there from West Bromwich.

-From home?

-Yeah, and we built the railway there on a Sunday evening.

When we shut down, I used to walk along the canal to here,

knock the door and the chief engineer, Mr Hunt,

-used to let us in and watch the engines going.

-That's nice.

Never thinking when I was coming up for 70 I'd have the keys.

I've done things like that.

You know, when you're little and you look and...

With your mouth open at it all...

And then, bloody hell, later on in your life you're actually in charge!

I've done engines like my traction engines and models before.

But never done one that big. I don't think I shall do any bigger now.

You're getting a bit long in the tooth for owt bigger!

-We'll go down into the pumping department.

-Yes.

Come in here, Fred.

-This is where it all goes on.

-Very impressive down here.

-Yeah.

Of course, if you imagine if it were pumping water,

there'd be a hell of a throb in here now.

In fact, this is what they used to hear over the road

in the houses I mentioned before.

I say the flywheels as well, you see?

A hell of a thing, aren't they?

The crank shaft, of course, that was made in Liverpool,

and stamped on it is the year it was forged.

-Manufactured, yeah.

-Yeah, manufactured. Which was 18...

What was it now? 1892, I think it was, or 1893.

Yeah, just think, on the bottom of the sea there'll be a lot of things like that.

Lovely engines, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Full of barnacles. Not shiny like this.

Now it's time for the Severn Valley Railway...

..and Fred's still finding it a bit of a novelty

to be driving his own engine.

'It's quite strange, really,

'because never having owned a traction engine of my own,

'even though I've driven quite a few dozen of different makes,

'you go to steam do's and they're all,

"Would you like a go on my engine?" and all that like.

'And it's quite nice when you get the chance to drive your own.

'After 20 odd years of struggling and restoration,

'to get it into the state that I wanted it -

'like a new one, as you might say.'

Right, we're here.

-Oh, at last!

-Yeah.

Fred and his team have now reached Bridgnorth in Shropshire.

The Severn Valley Railway

runs trains between here and Kidderminster in Worcestershire.

The line was built in the mid 1850s.

Here there's an engine repair shed which gives us an idea

of what a loco works would have been like

back in the age of steam railways.

Fred met John Robinson,

the production manager, to have a look round.

Bit outsized for this line, which is...

I've been before as a spectator, like.

Aye, it reminds me of when I were a kid down here.

-Yeah.

-Plenty of smoke and the smell of sulphur...

-This is a nice one, innit?

-Yeah.

-That's right. He's on test for the vehicle acceptance body there.

-Yeah.

This engine over here, that's an 8F.

There was 840 of them on BR.

This one was out in the Second World War. It was out in Persia and Egypt.

Let's have a look on board then.

Aye. Now then...

Howdy, you all right?

This is Roy. He's just been getting it ready.

Have you been warming it up?

Warming it up, yeah.

Big lumps them, aren't they?

Aye, it's nice stuff.

When it's good, I call it radioactive coal.

You get some and it's a waste of space, innit?

As soon as you start taking any steam off it just disappears.

The pipe work is nice and simple on here, in't it?

There's not too much of it like, the injectors and brake job.

-You can pick it straight up.

-Yeah, yeah.

It's funny, if you go from a steam engine from the LMS,

you go on a Western one,

you can still pick up what's what on it,

even though they're from different companies,

you can actually pick it out.

When the wars came, the government...

And I were quite surprised

at the ability of the workshops, of the railways -

of what they could actually do.

And of course they started to turn them

into working for the war effort.

They were tremendous, the railway factories, they really were.

I don't think we can make a bean can now.

Yeah, well you're getting near to the point there.

You can pick a book up about boiler making,

and it's written by an academic

who's never mended a boiler, never mind made one.

-That's right.

-And it says, "And the rivets are closed."

-Yes.

It doesn't tell you how to close them,

and there's no way you're going to learn that by reading the book.

-Would you like to go and look at the workshops?

-Aye, yeah, yeah.

-I'll follow you, John.

-OK, right, magic.

Take care as you come down.

From being a goods shed, we gutted it.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. You got all the machines from elsewhere.

Yeah, and put them in.

I've done a stack of them in my time, but there you go.

Aye, I think you know this fella, er...

Oh, aye. He's a traction engine man, yeah.

How do you do? How are you doing, mate?

Ah, what you doing now?

I'm just removing the old studs.

Oh aye, yeah. That's brass that, innit?

-Oh yeah.

-These little holes, I mean, look at them.

-I thought, "Is it a blow hole?"

-No, it's a drain hole.

It's a drain hole from the inside of this receiver, like.

-Yeah.

-When it's all coming out condensing and it runs out.

-Yeah.

-It's a good idea that, innit?

I think I'll do that to my tractor,

because it's always full of bloody water

-that splashes about all over the place.

-Yeah.

George was the guy who taught Graham, who is our boiler foreman,

all about the boilers from British Railways

because he was the chief London Midland region inspector.

Hiya, Graham. You all right, mate?

-We've come having a look round your shed...

-Yeah.

-..and see what you do.

-I'll leave you with Graham, Fred, and I'll see you later.

-Yeah, all right, John. See you, mate.

-This is...

Yeah, I can see you're putting bits in on the flange bit, aren't you?

Aye, aye. You can see the one that came out.

It's a bit worn, so we put some inserts in.

How have you got that out of there, with a cutter?

Yes, a plasma cutter.

-Aye, this is a copper tube plate we've just finished, Fred.

-Yeah.

Two new pieces on the flanges there.

That's right. And they go in the tube holes.

-It's ready for going in like a brand new bit.

-Yeah.

And this bit here's had the same treatment, hasn't it?

Yes, same treatment. Copper door plate.

Yeah. Really, for anybody who doesn't know anything

about locomotive boilers,

this is a wonderful example

of explaining it nice and simple, you know?

Like this big gap round here is full of water,

and the stays for these bolts that hold the plates together,

if they weren't there and you lit the fire, it would no doubt blow up.

And of course the fire is in this, this chamber.

Really, we're looking where all the pipes would be

and all the tubes that are necessary for its running.

You can see there's been a lot of work done

in this thing in years gone by, can't you?

-Because even the fire hole plate's been screwed in, hasn't it?

-Yeah.

Originally it would be riveted.

-Originally riveted.

-Yeah.

As it's been repaired at various railway works,

they've taken the rivets out and put proper screws in.

When it was originally built, it was all model stays.

As they failed they've put ordinary copper ones in?

Yes, so they've gone up a size.

Yeah, blooming heck!

Aye, we all know what sort of a struggle that'd be!

Fred spent so long in the boiler shop

that by the time he'd left the last train had departed.

So there was no time for any foot plate rides here.

It was time to move on.

From Bridgnorth, he had to get to the Black Country Museum in Dudley,

to find out how the chains used for steering his engine were made.

Chains made in the Black Country

were renowned for their quality all over the world.

At the end of the 19th century,

90% of all the chain workshops in England and Wales

were here in the Black Country.

Most of them were very small -

in the backyards of workers' houses.

Stop now, stop now, stop.

They've managed to find their way here,

even though you won't find the Black Country marked on any map.

-Let's go and have a look at this pit.

-Yeah, all right, yeah.

It's an industrial area to the west of Birmingham

that was originally based on coal mining and iron working.

It got its name in the 19th century

when thousands of chimneys filled the air with smoke

and mining turned the ground inside out,

creating huge expanses of industrial dereliction.

It's not as nice looking as your head gears.

-No it isn't, is it?

-They've not put any shaped sections on.

This cage is new since we last came.

Hey, look at this - a draining trough for minding water.

Up comes the thingymebob - budush! - and down the trough into the river.

Hey, it's all interesting stuff, innit?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Look at all these wheels.

CREAK!

I don't think there's anything connected.

And there's always going to be an engine to have a look at.

-Yeah.

-That's only a little 'un, innit?

-Yeah. Nice though, innit?

-Mmm.

Yeah, it's got the drum outside hasn't it? In another shed.

Did you say that at George's Lane pit was a similar size to this?

There were one exactly the same as this, yeah. Nice engine.

What would that spring be for?

Now there's a point. Big spring...

I know, for... Start it...

-This lever, here...

-Yeah.

-This, that one, when you lift it up it lifts the...

-Lifts it off that thing.

Yeah, and the eccentric rod came along

and worked a Weir shaft across here.

1860s-odd, this engine.

You can tell.

Yeah.

CREAK-CREAK

Ooh, musical, innit?

Look at that - an electric storm lamp.

Ooh, there's the indicator board there.

-We'll have to make one of them, won't we?

-Mmm.

They're going to park the engine up and stay around here tonight,

ready for their visit to the chainmaker tomorrow.

As well as the chainmaking,

Fred is going to one of the places

where all the copper for an engine like this was mined.

And he's going to find out how the copper was spun,

and made into parts for the engine.

Subtitles by BBC Broadcast 2005

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