How They Dug The Victoria Line

[Brad93]

Interesting film from the BBC first broadcast in ‘68.

 

[pressbrake1]

Hard men. Watched it a few nights ago.
Chuckled when I saw the navy drinking out of the fire bucket!

The track alignment with levels rules and sighting bars was excellent

 

[Pete.]

Public standing behind a single-bar barrier alongside the piling auger. Traffic driving inches from the work. Cabs stopping so a crane can pass across the junction. People standing on slung loads. No hard hats, gloves or any other PPE, no army of site managers, traffic marshalls, college-grad engineers or other hangers-on.

Hell of a contrast from today.

 

[brightspark]

Public standing behind a single-bar barrier alongside the piling auger. Traffic driving inches from the work. Cabs stopping so a crane can pass across the junction. People standing on slung loads. No hard hats, gloves or any other PPE, no army of site managers, traffic marshalls, college-grad engineers or other hangers-on.

Hell of a contrast from today.

then there wasn't any safety rules now its well over the top glad im the age I am. cant be doing with all the crap fiested upon us that most is just common sense I suppose some haven't got any though and need there hands holding

 

[Pete.]

Putting those segments up with an air winch and snatch blocks and 3 men underneath is not allowed today. We have an attachment for our robotic machines for rotating them and lifting them into place. The miners secretly hate it because it means less work for them, but unfortunately it's a necessity under modern H&S rules.

 

[Brad93]

Public standing behind a single-bar barrier alongside the piling auger. Traffic driving inches from the work. Cabs stopping so a crane can pass across the junction. People standing on slung loads. No hard hats, gloves or any other PPE, no army of site managers, traffic marshalls, college-grad engineers or other hangers-on.

Hell of a contrast from today.

15 hours to redirect a line. That would take 15 months these days.

 

[Pete.]

15 hours to redirect a line. That would take 15 months these days.

You know it! Look at Crossrail. The tunnels are all dug, the trains are made, the stations are built but it's two years overdue and more thanl a year from opening. Why? The signalling and controls. They had a fire over by Powder Mill Lane and it put the whole lot back a year.

They sent thousands of tons of ready mixed concrete away from the £2bn new station at Tottenham Court Road still in the mixing lorries. Why? Because they put the holding area for site deliveries up near Holborn and it can take 45 minutes to make it down Shaftesbury Avenue and round onto site (less than half a mile) due to solid traffic. By the time it got there the mix failed the slump test and could not be used.

 

[pressbrake1]

A couple of years back I had to go and recover a broken down ground drilling rig . In a compound away from the line.

Had to book in a induction coarse to gain access to what was essentially a carpark.
The day I got in the tube drivers were on strike, no sympathy for their plight from the £22k drillers

 

[Brad93]

Lea Tunnel.
Miles behind schedule and over budget.

Graduates on that thing, man, dumbasses with degrees.

Had a few on my confined spaces course. The stupid questions they asked.

The three big Pumps.
They can only run two days a week they’re that expensive to run. And they breakdown non stop too. 6,000V @ 3mw each.

no one really thought how hard it is to move 3000L a second from 87m down. And not just water, heavy solids and rags.

Until they expanded, the whole site was self sufficient from the SPG which makes 6MW of energy. They added the New aeration lanes and put the wind turbine up. Now they’re self sufficient on a windy day. Until they run their motors.

ASP4 the new aeration lanes.

 

[Pete.]

I busted a small link tunnel through in the side of that 90m shaft about 30m down from the top. They spent a month drilling a 3 foot diameter core hole thru about 15 foot of solid concrete and got the drill jammed in the last couple of inches. I finished it laying laying on my back with a jackhammer

 

[500e]

here you go Brad

 

[Brad93]

here you go Brad View attachment 215825

Say what you like it’s the self employed and the trades that get stuff done in this country.

7/10 of these graduate types are arrogant ***** who think the world owes them something. Unfortunately, they seem to follow the path of the post turtle and get into positions of power.
Usually that is down to their level of compliance and that makes them great candidates to be YES men.

Now, someone who has studied whilst working, gone through the open university etc, I’ve got tonnes of time for them.
I’m talking of engineers and civils here obviously.

 

[indy4x]

Just watched it and really enjoyed it

 

[Matchless]

Interesting film from the BBC first broadcast in ‘68.

I cannot remember how or why but my late father rode in the cab of the first Victoria line service, he worked for Hawker Syddeley power transformers in Fulborne rd Walthamstow, he was also once chairman of the Chingford and district model railway club,

 

[Parm]

here you go Brad View attachment 215825

Did you check google?

Books are so yesterday

 

[RWD3M]

I cannot remember how or why but my late father rode in the cab of the first Victoria line service, he worked for Hawker Syddeley power transformers in Fulborne rd Walthamstow, he was also once chairman of the Chingford and district model railway club,

I used to cycle past there as a nipper to visit my grandparents who lived in Chingford. Didn't it used to be called Fullers?

 

[zeppelin builder]

Say what you like it’s the self employed and the trades that get stuff done in this country.

7/10 of these graduate types are arrogant ***** who think the world owes them something. Unfortunately, they seem to follow the path of the post turtle and get into positions of power.
Usually that is down to their level of compliance and that makes them great candidates to be YES men.

Now, someone who has studied whilst working, gone through the open university etc, I’ve got tonnes of time for them.
I’m talking of engineers and civils here obviously.

ive found most of these civil engineers to be straight out college with no clue about real safety concerns had one that thought it was perfectly ok to have no acess in and out of deep excavations , i eventualy registered an official complaint about acess egress
which the company was realy reluctant to
persue it culminated in a kangaroo court of various civil engineers who wanted me to walk , ok i said wel call into see the client
on the way out
10 minutes later the head guy appeared all apologetic and full of promises
i took him aside and gave him a few choice gaelic verses

 

[Matchless]

I used to cycle past there as a nipper to visit my grandparents who lived in Chingford. Didn't it used to be called Fullers?

Fuller electric from memory, We lived in Chingford,

 

[4String.]

Here's a similar film, epic northern stuff:

 

[Revs1972]

7/10 of these graduate types are arrogant ***** who think the world owes them something.

chatting to a guy who is still at the place I left around 12 years ago on the weekend.
Apparently the drawing office is full of graduates now. All of them think they know it all.
Whereas he used to try to point them in the right direction, and get shouted down, he just lets them mess it all up and let the guys on site sort it out for them.