I'm going to step away from railroading this week. This is a film on making steel in Britain in 1945. There are some railroad shots in it, but not many:
Nobody would walk into such a place today. Back then, their idea of safety headgear was wearing two fedoras. Guys are peering into open steel furnaces without any sort of safety goggles, let alone dark glasses. Leather gloves seem to be it for safety gear.
By modern standards, this is almost a horror movie.
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2 comments:
Pretty much all large industry until the late 60's/early 70's. If this shocks you, you need to learn more about what industry was like before.
My grandfather worked in the steel mills in Gary, Indiana.
He took me on a tour in the early 70's ('72?)
Pretty much looked like that. A bit more PPE, but not much. Hard hats and gloves, but not much more. It just was the way it was. It paid really well for not to terrible safety, and no one forced you to work there.
He told me on that tour that if I got a job there he'd break both my legs.
'Twas only when OSHA took over that safety began to improve. Then OSHA became a behemoth that impeded industry, then finally grew some sense. Now we have a safe(er) workplace that has decent productivity.
My understanding is that the mines were significantly worse when it came to safety back then.
But...but...who wants job-killing regulations...;-)
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