Driver Competencies

Didn’t it happen more than once in the early 1990’s

 

No and No!

The reverser in the cab is the same on both classes, which is why. With the Horwich Crabs, the reach rod connects to a bellcrank facing rearwards, which reverses the reach rod's direction of travel, and connects to the radius rod via a lifting link. All Stanier engines have a rearward extension to the radius rod, which is lifted directly by the reach rod via the weigh shaft with no reversal of the direction of travel. Changing it would be a major job.

It's part of the engine. You get used to it.

 

This reminds me of a related issue which aircraft crash investigators discovered, which was that often the first officer (or other lower-ranking crew member, if more than a 2-person crew) knew the captain was making a mistake, but were reluctant to be forceful in trying to correct them. Apparently there's now formal training for air-crew to counteract this effect. (I seem to recall this was a bigger issue in cultures with a strong Confucian element, where people learn to defer to elders.) Not as urgent a problem in the rail world, if all that's going to happen is 'sticking'. SPADs are of course a different matter.

Noel

 

Middle Son was a great fan of Air Crash Investigation, Domestic Facilities Management & I had to 'pre watch' the episodes as he was only about 8 at the time - once I had to give management the 'Heads up' that a crash that killed a colleagues brother had been on TV the previous night.

But it was fascinating, in particular as time and again fat old blokes saved aircraft against the odds.

There is a lot of very useful stuff though about the interaction between crews and national differences - there are special instructions for Koreans it seems and Irish crews react very differently to Autopilot failure to Chinese ones.

Clearly much of the 'Human Factors' is very relevant to railway operation

 

The tender derailed a couple of times, didn't it? Hence why it ran with a Stanier tender for a bit, rather than a Fowler one?

 

I remember seeing a photo of the loco in the dirt at Kidderminster then the tender derailed a year or so later. The last time it ran with 5110’s tender was due to it going on hire somewhere and someone forgetting to take it’s tender handbrake off.

 

Let's clear up the tender issues. The tender tank was thin when the engine was bought from Barry, and after a couple of years in service, it was decided that it was time to replace it. The engine was withdrawn for new tyres to be fitted in 1994 and the opportunity taken to replace the tank while it was out of traffic. This job wasn't completed when the engine re-entered traffic so 5110's tender was used.

The tender tyres hadn't been replaced at the time, so when that job came up about 2010, 5110's tender was again used to keep the engine in use. The use of the Stanier tender had nothing to do with derailments.

 

I enjoyed reading this thread. It gives a lot of insight into steam locomotive operation that you don't see very often.

 

There’s a lot of areas that this thread covers but I will relate my experience in heritage railway operation.

There is training and examinations which all railways do according their own needs and circumstances. A short level 2’ gauge line will have a different regime from a long hilly standard gauge one obviously.
Add to that the variety of loco types even after the steam/diesel split. It seems a lot of lines talked about here are ‘passed for steam, drive anything as long as you know the individual quirks, passed for diesel, get passed out/instructed for each class’. I think this is a good system. It’s surprising how much engines of the same class vary.
I drove the 09 at the start of the current restrictions and had to ask where the bloomin’ whistle was as I hadn’t driven it for a few years.

We are briefed when an engine enters traffic because it is bound to be new to someone, there may have been changes or us old folk might have forgotten something. Steam loco whistle are a bit more obvious though.
On my line as Tom says you are tested on vac and air brakes if there is a air braked loco working.
We used to have a ‘Passed to drive in Station Limits’ grade which you had to pass through before taking the full driving test. We have a big engine test and a small engine test. This is because as they said back in steam days, we want to know if you are scared of the big ones and feel sorry for the small ones. My inspector used a lovely old fashioned phrase, ‘I want to see you develop the full potential of the locomotive.’ That is he want to see the regulator fully open at a suitable moment. With signal checks on 1 in 75 there is usually an opportunity. On a small engine you are often on the boiler limit anyway despite what some here think.
BTW firemen have the same test pattern.

There is one factor that is hard to define, quantify and legislate for and that is the character of the candidate. The management and the Inspector on the day have to form a judgement of the candidate. They have to know how well they will conduct themselves when out on their own, especially when confronted with a situation not encountered in training or testing. Making that judgement is a big task. Believe it or not I had a complete mechanical failure resulting a rescuing engine in the single line section with all the relevant procedures. It was my 4th driving turn.

By the time I passed for driving I had five full days being watched. 2 days on the shunt grade, One pass, one shunt, a day diesel conversion and 2 days pass, one big, one small which was air braked on the Driving test.

There are Rules and mechanical knowledge to learn and be examined on as well. Again, each railway has its own view on what is right for their line.

All of this has to be documented and be part of the SMS. As other posters have noted, we are running railways using historic equipment in a modern legal and regulatory environment. Getting the two parts to work harmoniously can be tricky.

I’m glad I’m just a Regulator Attendant and am only on the hook for my own mistakes, or that of my fuel pump.

 

As a follow-up to @Cosmo Bonsor post above, at the time I took my firing test, it consisted of the following - obviously done over a period of time. It may have changed since, but I suspect not by masses.

1) Rules test - knowledge of the rules, particularly those of importance to a fireman. Fixed, hand and lamp signals. A section of it was scenario-based for testing things you couldn't easily simulate on a test, specifically a train failure in section. (That got into an interesting discussion about replaying the same scenario but gradually removing various conditions, i.e. a progressively more complex scenario with progressively fewer people around to deal with it).

2) A mechanical exam - focused primarily on boilers, (construction and examination), and injectors. Again, some scenario-based stuff for things that couldn't easily be simulated. (At what point do you throw a fire out: I've had to do it once "for real").

3) Passed out for the two ground frames - East Grinstead and the Loco Yard exit.

4) Small engine test. Prep, run the service, dispose. I did mine on "Bluebell", double-headed on the Golden Arrow which was one and a half trips to East Grinstead at fairly close to the load limit for the loco.

5) Large engine test. Prep, run the service, dispose. I did mine on 847 - three trips to East Grinstead, or 66 miles. I think of the locos we have had in service in my time, 847 is probably the most physically demanding. You had no help on that: all the prep (which is heavy on that engine); all the coupling / uncoupling, watering, up and down to operate the ground frames at EG etc. I think there was an element of seeing how you organised your day: for example, did you pull coal forward when you had the chance?

On the loco tests, there was an element of driving. (Simulates: driver keels over and fireman has to at least be able to get to the next station (and stop) safely, both in terms of signals etc and water level / firing. I ended up driving 847 from about Horsted House Farm (driver keels over) to the next station - Kingscote. Driver miraculously recovered and off we went to East Grinstead with the minimal fire I had ...

The loco tests also had tests of observation; for example signals being put back late; a token put in a pouch wrongly etc. You hear tales of various "tricks" being played, but I guess each test or inspector is different. I think on one trip I was made to sit off the engine on 847 until only a few minutes before departure, and then take it from there, so you start on the back foot without a well-prepared fire and 7 or 8 miles of 1 in 75 ahead. On my day on "Bluebell", the other engine - 178 - went completely down the pan (we were coupled bunker to bunker and it was an easy job to see their pressure gauge heading the wrong way north of Horsted) and we ended up doing most of the work. To this day I don't know if that was arranged between the two drivers or not.

The important point I think for moving up a grade is not, can you do the job when everything is in your favour, but can you do it when things are against you? Sometimes you'll be on with a cleaner and they make a decent job from a poor situation; as often as not, soon after they are ready for their test.

Tom

 

Interesting, stark contrast with us where (at least on the guard side) that sort of thing is a big no-no.

 

Totally agree with this, in Bert Stewart’s book ‘On The Right Lines’ he tells a great story about when the first electrics came into service at Crewe himself and a few colleagues were given a brand new locomotive to train on and the the instructor took them aboard with an ‘ok gents of you go’ unbeknownst to them the instructor had engineered a few faults with the loco to check their knowledge before they had their first practical experience of an electric locomotive.
As you say Tom things are rather easy when things are going your way.
As one of my friends would say ‘Bad judgment comes from lack of experience, good judgment comes from a bad experience.

 

This might be slightly off drift but Bill Andrews in the driving seat of 46233 shows what a master he was .

 

In Steam days at Stratford, the examiner, Walter Lee would put a rope around the water glass, so You would know that You'd have to deal with a broken glass, but didn't know quite when.

 

For people who have only had to change a gauge glass on a loco out of steam, it is quite different to one that is, especially when doing it on the move. The first problem you have to overcome is closing the valves with steam and water issuing forth, although hopefully not too fiercely. Your jacket comes in handy for that. Then everything's rather hot so rags or gloves are necessary. Drop anything removed straight into the bucket of water that you always have. That way they cool down and don't end up falling through those large gaps in the footplate. The next job is to extract the remains of the glass and the rubbers, which may or may not come out cleanly and, if the glass has broken in the rubber, it will require digging out with a penknife or screwdriver. Putting everything back is usually relatively easy but once having inserted the glass you still have to feed the various bits onto it in the right order without dropping them.

 

Change it on the move - and fire at the same time. No thank you. At least most decent locos have two water gauge so you can get away with isolating the broken one until the next stop and change it there. That way even someone as cackhanded as I am has a reasonable chance of not dropping some vital part and losing it overboard.

Peter

 

I bit tough if it’s a GW engine!

 

You do at least have the two test cocks to be able to manage if you're at a point where you need to attend to the fire or you've got a stop coming up soon. Bit more difficult if you've got a long way before a stationary period (or even a period with the regulator closed) though

 

How much of the time do you actually spend throwing coal onto the fire, Peter? I'm sure it is not constant, even on the hardest of jobs. The glass change doesn't have to be done just like that and it can be done a bit at a time. If it's only a couple of minutes to a scheduled stop, waiting is fine; if it is many miles away I'd be doing it when I could. Admittedly, I've only done it on the move twice and it was going downhill on both occasions.

 

I know Steve, but any excuse not to change one on the go, if it can be helped - I'd be bound to drop or lose something vital. I had better not say who many I've had to change in anger - that would be tempting fate.

Peter