The Men of God’s Wonderful Railway

From the hard work in the engineering industry to the comfort of a consumer driven world – a comparison of two contrasting television reports shows this economic shift - in a nutshell.

In the archives of Swindon Cable, the first com­mer­cial cable TV channel in the UK, amidst Christmas shows, football coverage, and “Winter Won­der­land” snow videos, there are two reports on the fate of the Swindon Railway Works, once one of the most signi­fi­cant loco­mo­ti­ve con­struc­tion and service faci­li­ties in the world.

Paul Lang­cas­ter, a long-time reporter for Swindon Cable, returned to disused halls of the Railway Works for the 25th-anni­ver­s­a­ry cele­bra­ti­on of the Great Western Designer Outlet Village that took its place. The video, unin­spi­rin­gly and unsur­pri­sin­gly titled “Outlet at 25 (Master),” shows a sleek shopping mall housed by the ‘listed’ indus­tri­al building. Inte­res­tin­g­ly, this pro­mo­tio­nal video by the outlet’s operator also tells the story of this remar­kab­le indus­tri­al site, which brought Swindon to city status.

Since the 1840s, the Great Western Railway (GWR) has connected London to Bristol. It soon earned its honorary title, “God’s Wonderful Railway” and marketed itself as “The Holiday Line” from the start of mass tourism, making the beaches of Wales and Cornwall acces­si­ble to the lower classes. In Swindon, pre­vious­ly an insi­gni­fi­cant market town, the technical centre was built because of its central location on the route. At its peak, the Swindon Railway Works employed 14,000 workers who built the best steam loco­mo­ti­ves in the world and were exemplary in caring for and investing in their employees. The health centre, financed with a small wage deduction, gua­ran­te­ed lifelong, free health care and became the model and the inspi­ra­ti­on for the National Health Service (NHS).

Another docu­men­ta­ry, same place, 30 years earlier:

Keith Wilkinson, in his nearly 30-minute, impres­si­ve tele­vi­si­on report “God’s Wonderful Railway Men,” documents the struggle of the workers of the Swindon Railway to keep their factory alive. Wilkinson captures the rusty aesthetic of a fading indus­tri­al culture and its asso­cia­ted workers. While the came­ra­work and sound design of “God’s Wonderful Railway Men” are not top-notch, the film is com­pel­ling for its immediacy and proximity to the action. It is a fantastic his­to­ri­cal document.

Prolonged dramatic organ music accom­pa­nies a long camera shot, with the cameraman riding on a cart through an enormous hall where loco­mo­ti­ves are being repaired and serviced. Two scenes fores­ha­dow the fate of the Works and its workers: the scrapping and torching of the 40159 in the loco­mo­ti­ve graveyard and the pan from a diesel loco­mo­ti­ve to a passing high-speed train that literally and figu­ra­tively “overtakes” the workshop. The sequences from inside the hall showcase a now-lost world of indus­tri­al work: physical labour, sweat, manual work, grime, steam, iron, and machines operated by workers who set the pace of work themselves.

Protests by workers in Swindon and London, as well as lobbying in Par­lia­ment, did not have the desired effect, even though the workers were ready to adapt and retrain, embracing the new tech­no­lo­gies. The worker-priest in civilian clothes argued for the value that the work at the GWR brought to the community and the workers them­sel­ves. The loss of irre­pla­ce­ab­le skills threa­tened the wealth, vitality, and crea­ti­vi­ty of a trade that faced ine­vi­ta­ble extinction.
Another priest, wearing his soutane, cri­ti­ci­zed the railway manage­ment, empha­si­zing the struc­tu­ring role of the railway works for Swindon – the railway as both father and mother figure of the town.

Bill Reid, a retired boi­ler­ma­ker who spent his entire 51-year working life at the Swindon Railway Works, mourns the lost skills that once thrived in the workshops that built loco­mo­ti­ves. The spirited retiree, one of three elderly gentlemen sitting in armchairs in their ‘sunday bests’, he is not just a disap­poin­ted railway worker but also a clear-sighted thinker whose foresight puts advocates of blind progress to shame.

“One mile of motorway needs 40 acres of land. One mile of railway track needs 1 acre. Think of all that farmland lost…” tracks instead of roads. “You don’t get the air pollution. They are just now realizing that even the forests [min. 25:25] are dying. Poisoned by the toxic atmo­s­phe­re. I think they’ll even­tual­ly have to return to the railway.”

A demons­tra­tor’s sign reads: “Is this the age of the train?” Well, it certainly is now. Yet, why have we gone 40 years in the wrong direction, on the wrong train?