In 1972, as the 150th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington Railway was in its early planning stages, British Railways celebrated its 25th anniversary since nationalisation.

In Swindon Works little had changed since it was built 130 years previously.

In fact, people joining the works in 1939 would have noticed hardly any change in the plant and machinery at Swindon.

Outside Swindon technology had moved on as Pioneer 10, the first spacecraft to leave the solar system, was being launched at Cape Canaveral.

A plaque was placed on the side of the spacecraft to show where Earth was in the solar system and what we look like, just in case it bumped into an alien life form.

Five years previously in 1967, British Rail Workshops had built just 15 locomotives between them.

Swindon had not built any of these and the reason was that Swindon had been starved of sufficient funds to reinvest in its works.

This scandalous approach by British Railways to its workshops had left them not only needing newer equipment but better working conditions at least on par with those outside the nationalised industries.

Swindon workers were grafting away in workshops that would have still been familiar to their great grandparents. One only has to look at photographs taken 100 years apart to see this stagnation.

In 1968 the Transport Act allowed the works to manufacture for outside industry.

Following on from the introduction of this act the original 29 railway workshops of British Railways were reduced to 14, one of which, after much discussion, was Swindon.

A new company was formed as the 14 workshops had a combined turnover of £100m and a staff of 37,000, so began the last episode of Swindon works.

On January 1, 1970 British Rail Engineering Limited started trading.

From what I understand BREL soon set about looking at ways of further reducing the staff and workshops in its control.

The reasoning behind this was that the railway freight services were contracting in size year on year and that BREL wanted to concentrate its work into specialised core workshops, such as wagon building, carriage building and by forming new alliances with private companies such as Metro-Cammell, forming a new subsidiary called BRE-Metro Ltd.

I am told, though I have found it difficult to confirm, that Swindon was at that point viewed by BREL as a shop with a strong unionised environment and a workforce finding it difficult to accept change.

This may just be folklore or selective memory by many of those I have spoken to.

It is claimed that Swindon works was viewed by BREL as the place to send the difficult or awkward contracts that had little money in them.

I find this an interesting point of view, as it takes little account of the skill base and quality of the Swindon workers that always managed to complete these “dirty jobs” on time, and to a high standard.

Perhaps BREL were looking for an excuse to close the works in the early 1970s?

BREL was busy at its other workshops making wagons for Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland Railways, as well as rolling stock for London transport.

In July, 1972 with fewer than 5,000 workers at Swindon, Harry Roberts arrived as the works manager, but that’s another story – read my next article to find out more.