Because she is female......

I can understand if an owning group wants to give preference to their own members to drive a loco. Or they might want to supervise other (non-group) drivers. But I can't see how they could restrict the choice of crew for any other reason.

Anyone know of other loco owners who have (successfully) restricted the choice of footplate crew?

Richard

 

There are some Richard yes, crews on the Super D certainly are drawn from folk who have been familiarised with its wiles. There are also quite a few privately owned locos - as opposed to society or railway owned crews that I have come across, where the loco is only dirven by the owner, their reps or close associates. That said, they are in my experience, quite willing to let others "have hold" in their presence.

 

Ah, the Super D..... Certainly not one to drive or fire for the first time unless you've been through an initiation ceremony! I can't think of any other locos with that many quirks. Sentinels, perhaps.

 

IIRC the owner of 1306 'Mayflower' has always restricted driving of the loco to his own group.

 

IIRC which is why he fell out with the GCR and 61306 is now stuck on the Battlefield Line, coming out half a dozen times a year to run 3 miles up and down a couple of times...

 

GCR or NVR?

Regards,

Dan

 

Where have you been all these years? In between the GCR and its current Battlefield Line home was a very long period of residence at the NVR.

 

OK - so an owner might specify certain drivers due to their membership of the owning group. It's up to the railway if it is prepared to accept these restrictions. But preventing certain drivers on the basis of their sex (or race/colour) is a different issue. There is employment legislation protecting paid employees in these situations, but I'm not sure if this also covers volunteers.

Richard

 

I don't know how far it goes but I was told that, at the NNR at least, volunteers and employees were to be seen as the same legally.

 

I've done a bit of Googling and found nothing about sex discrimination for volunteers. However, volunteers seem to have been excluded from Disability discrimination legislation. See this article for example:
http://www.lawdit.co.uk/reading_roo...nteers-not-covered-by-discrimination-laws.htm

Richard

 

Regardless of the legal stance on it, I think we all agree exclusion based on gender is wrong, and perhaps if it is not illegal it may bring about a change in the law if this was publicised?

Fight the power (or not)

 

Having read this thread, AND taken some advice from our Operating & Safety people, I can say on behalf of HRA that there is NO bar to ANYONE driving or firing a locomotive provided they are both fit and have been classed as "competent" by the operating railway concerned. We do NOT support a ban on someone driving just because of their gender and if the railway concerned in this thread wishes to have HRA support, then they only have to contact us and we will be pleased to give our wholehearted support. With regard to Anthony's comments on the Super D [And Steve's Sentinel comment], the HRA view is simply that use of such specialist locos on other railways is best agreed between the loco owner and the loco hirer, and of course the hiring railway must always have their own representative on the footplate if the loco is driven by anyone other than their crews, whilst the loco owner should always have an owner's rep on board if it is driven by the hiring railway. This is common practice throughout the heritage world and works very well indeed.

regards,

Ian

 

We've now had four pages of comment on this but no intimation of the circumstances. Although the original poster claims it to be recent, I just wonder whether the happening is fact or fiction?

 

And your point is........

 

A very good question, Steve! In the absence of anything to the contrary, DW and myself have assumed this to be correct and thought that an "official" reply would settle the question itself, whatever the veracity of the actual situation.

 

I just wonder whether the happening is fact or fiction?

His point.

 

My point is exactly as stated in my post. Every poster is saying no, it shouldn't happen and yet you say it did, without any substantiation of the facts, other than your statement. I'm not saying that you're being a troll and having a bit of a joke but such things aren't unknown. To keep credibility, you really need to substantiate things. If its true, you've nothing to lose, although the guilty party might have egg on its face.

 

Hello all,

does it matter if an incident happened which lead to the question, if there is fear it might happen or if it is pure fiction? It is an interesting question anyway, I think.

Christoph