Added: 04/02/2006 |
Trainman and train crew concept evaluationAt all times becoming a trainman or train driver required diligence and persistence. A trainman, especially a brakeman is a member of a train crew. So how did the train crew concep tappear?
Traditionally, boys were recruited onto the steam railway at the age of fourteen as engine cleaners with only a basic education. After a year or so of laborious engine cleaning combined with general shed duties, such as assisting the boiler-smiths and fitters, they would be examined and 'passed out' by a locomotive inspector as being fit for firing duties.
Now re-classified as 'passed cleaners', they could be used by the shed foremen as firemen on such workings as local goods trips or yard shunting. Incredible as it now seems, there was no paid formal training at all. Cleaners practiced self-education and attended free Mutual Improvement Classes (MICs) run by experienced drivers and firemen in their own time, often between church and brass band practice on a Sunday morning in a driver's front parlour.
Eventually a cleaner would obtain a full time fireman's appointment, often at a depot far from home, beginning the slow progression through the rosters, called 'links'. This would see them starting on shed, local and shunting work, gradually venturing further afield, on to semi-fast passenger work and long-haul freights, finally express passenger trains. Promotion through the links and grades was on a rigid system based on length of service or 'seniority', what is commonly known as 'Buggins' Turn'. After ten years or so, and still studying in his own time, a trainman would be examined and passed for driving, becoming a 'passed fireman', thereafter being available for the most lowly driving duties, usually shunting or preparation & disposal of locomotives.
Finally, perhaps in his late thirties or early forties a trainman would obtain promotion to driver and begin the long haul through the links all over again, perhaps not becoming a 'top link' express driver until just a few years before retirement.
In the 1960s, with the advent of diesel and electric traction, fireman became secondman, trainman or Driver Assistant, once women began to be recruited into the footplate grades. The late 'sixties also saw BR introduce a formal training course called the MP12, which eventually led to the disappearance of the semi-official and unpaid MICs.
Typically, one would join BR at sixteen and might be a DA for around five years before being sent on the six month long MP12 and being 'passed out' for driving to become a Relief Driver. Shortly after, at the age of 21 or 22, promotion would be gained to Train Driver, usually at one of the lowly and unpopular suburban commuter train depots around the big cities with their rather boring and repetitive work. Most would simultaneously 'register a preference' to transfer back to their home depot or to some place offering a more interesting and varied workload once they had enough seniority behind them to progress.
With the phasing out of double-manning in the nineteen-eighties the train crew concept was introduced. This saw conductors (and occasionally signalers or station staff) being selected for driver training with little or no 'front-end' experience. This was followed by the 'Sectorisation' of BR into InterCity, Network SouthEast, Regional Railways and Railfreight sectors. This led to train drivers specialising in driving only certain types of train in more geographically limited areas.
For many experienced drivers the reduction in route coverage and the number of train types they handled resulted indamaging the quality of the train job. The Train crew Concept also resulted in a sharp rise of the age bar at which you become a trainman and a driver, from early twenties to more like thirties and forties due to the sudden eligibility of large numbers of older conductors. The further division of BR into some thirty Train Operating Companies (TOCs), which were subsequently franchised or sold to private firms, has further reduced the scope of train driving.
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