Nick Barnfield

This page is of Nick Barnfield's account of Swindon Works. His memories of Trainspotting can be found here.

I suppose Class 124 Trans Pennine DMU they should be called but to at least a Swindon copper smith they were Liverpool to Hull. Simple.

Powered by Leyland Albion diesel engines slung underneath from the sole bars. Now in common with all diesel engines they have to vent burnt diesel fuel.

At this point enter Les or to me Goldie, my journeyman, a very good mate until his death, however...

The first exhaust pipes fell to us, so off we went with good intent and drawings.

Basically we made soft wire bend templates to fit the many twists and turns from the power units to the end of the car.

The pipes themselves were three inch 16 gauge steel pipe. We or Goldie anyway has marked them out from our templates. The important apprentice bit comes now.

Hack sawed at the cut marks I now have to hammer a steel plug into one end of the pipe then hammer the end over to lock it in.

Next the pipe is clamped vertical on a jig and filled with silver sand through a sieve. Any damp in the sand will form a clump and getting it in the pipe is "bloody dangerous." Next stage is pipe ramming, that is to fill the pipe with sand and working from the bottom to the top and round the circumference keep tapping with a mallet until the sand is packed tight. Molten lead is then poured into the top two inches for a seal.

Back now to team work. With the sand filled pipe clamped in a vice and bends marked marked out we start the next step.

Goldie lights a large oxy acetylene torch and heats the first marked bend to red hot. I'm now at the end and pulling for life.

Anyone who has seen a pipe bent this way will know that the throat of the bend will squeeze in and if bent to far will start to crinkle.

So the bends are done in small steps and in between bends is taken to a large cast iron bench and the the bend where it has gone oval is with a quite a heavy Plannishing Hammer tapped back into the round. This goes on until all the bends are completed.

Quite a long description I know but that was GWR Swindon, modern machinery in my time, (I left in 1964) had not reached this part of the world.