This feels like a symptom of the modern age. When I was younger I took pride in knowing how to do the basics all over the place, under the car bonnet for example, or wiring a plug. These days everyone is discouraged from tinkering, things are sealed, warranties at risk of being voided, and so whole generations have lost the ability or confidence to even be curious.

I'm not so sure, I tend to think it's just the nature of working in technology - it moves on and develops. So skills moved on from repairing wooden waggons to repairing cars to rechipping cars. I think the curiosity and tinkering is still there, but just as when I was starting engineering in the late 70s mechanical engineers were dismayed that we were curious about electronics rather than mechanics, now it has moved on again to curiosity within a virtual world. 

I'd also a bit take issue with Mike about steam railway engineering, from what I see of the preservation movement (including mainline running), I'd wouldn't be surprised if there's actually more expertise there now in the UK than there was maybe 30 years ago. (The company I work for, which is a very hard nosed engineering consultancy division, includes a mainline steam loco certification business for the UK.) Similarly with valve audio, it's very much alive and well, and again probably if anything more active than when I left the audio industry in the early 90's - it got a big boost when the iron curtain fell and we had access to eastern European valve plants.

Personally I think it's very rare that we really lose engineering skills, to the point where it's actually almost impossible to recover them. I believe getting the colours in medieval stained glass is one that was lost (a few hundred years ago). My father's area was the manufacture of coal gas (town gas), there are probably some skills that have been lost there. but I suspect the underlying knowledge is still recorded. Personally I've lost the skill of servicing motor uniselectors but that's good - that was a skill I never wanted in the first place and hope never to need again

And there are positive things those of us with experience can do in these interconnected days. I hang around on a couple of pro-audio forums and give people nudges regarding analogue audio design. But that said, I think they'd probably get there without me, I can just save a bit of time - and occasionally debunk myths about how we used to design things! Audio is a particularly strong field for having a fabled "golden age" of engineering that never really existed - those of us who were in it are often credited with having far more skill and knowledge than we actually had, and sadly many late career / retired engineers don't do as much as they could to dispel that "black art" aura. So I think overall that's my feeling about this, if you genuinely have a "dying" skill that's useful then there's often opportunities now - which didn't exist 30-40 years ago - to support people who want to learn it. But if no-one's interested, maybe it's just time to learn something new. Which can be personally tough admitting that a hard earned skill is maybe not that useful any more. (Which is why I now only do analogue audio design for my own enjoyment, not as a day job. Admittedly it is also much more fun doing it just for myself!)

Cheers,

Andy

I'm not so sure, I tend to think it's just the nature of working in technology - it moves on and develops. So skills moved on from repairing wooden waggons to repairing cars to rechipping cars. I think the curiosity and tinkering is still there, but just as when I was starting engineering in the late 70s mechanical engineers were dismayed that we were curious about electronics rather than mechanics, now it has moved on again to curiosity within a virtual world. 

I'd also a bit take issue with Mike about steam railway engineering, from what I see of the preservation movement (including mainline running), I'd wouldn't be surprised if there's actually more expertise there now in the UK than there was maybe 30 years ago. (The company I work for, which is a very hard nosed engineering consultancy division, includes a mainline steam loco certification business for the UK.) Similarly with valve audio, it's very much alive and well, and again probably if anything more active than when I left the audio industry in the early 90's - it got a big boost when the iron curtain fell and we had access to eastern European valve plants.

Personally I think it's very rare that we really lose engineering skills, to the point where it's actually almost impossible to recover them. I believe getting the colours in medieval stained glass is one that was lost (a few hundred years ago). My father's area was the manufacture of coal gas (town gas), there are probably some skills that have been lost there. but I suspect the underlying knowledge is still recorded. Personally I've lost the skill of servicing motor uniselectors but that's good - that was a skill I never wanted in the first place and hope never to need again

And there are positive things those of us with experience can do in these interconnected days. I hang around on a couple of pro-audio forums and give people nudges regarding analogue audio design. But that said, I think they'd probably get there without me, I can just save a bit of time - and occasionally debunk myths about how we used to design things! Audio is a particularly strong field for having a fabled "golden age" of engineering that never really existed - those of us who were in it are often credited with having far more skill and knowledge than we actually had, and sadly many late career / retired engineers don't do as much as they could to dispel that "black art" aura. So I think overall that's my feeling about this, if you genuinely have a "dying" skill that's useful then there's often opportunities now - which didn't exist 30-40 years ago - to support people who want to learn it. But if no-one's interested, maybe it's just time to learn something new. Which can be personally tough admitting that a hard earned skill is maybe not that useful any more. (Which is why I now only do analogue audio design for my own enjoyment, not as a day job. Admittedly it is also much more fun doing it just for myself!)

Cheers,

Andy

One lost skill is the ability for the UK to design and manufacture high speed trains without significant foreign help. The Intercity 225 is a marvel of technology that was built within my own lifetime, but the UK no longer has the ability to design and manufacture such a machine nowadays, so had to rely on companies like Hitachi (which just so happens to have almost vanished from consumer electronics).

From a viewpoint of many foreigners, it could be argued that the British have some fetish for (or even an obsession with) steam trains. Interest and desire is effective at keeping skills alive.