Driver Competencies

Not sure if this is the right place, but its another one of those inane thoughts which popped into my head when I couldn't sleep.

Background to this is modern traction and specifically the suggestion that the recently stored Freightliner Class 86's were unlikely to be reactivated even if business improved and money was spent overhauling them as all the drivers have now been retrained to drive 90's and thus their competencies to drive 86's will lapse without use, i.e. they will no longer 'sign' for 86's.

Got me thinking how does this work with steam engines, there is obviously a lot more to driving railway locomotives than just making them go and stop (as there is with an 86 & 90) but also certain commonality, so what happens when say a GWR 28xx (using these examples as I know it has happened) goes on hire to the NYMR or KWVR, obviously their drivers will be competent on the locomotives they drive on their home line, but how does driving a different beast get managed, is it done through the owners rep overseeing use (as I understand is the case with 60103 when she goes elsewhere), or do drivers have to go to the lending railway and 'have a go' before they can drive?

Expanding it further, how does it work on the mainline, WCR introduced BIL the other year, now I cannot imagine anyone on their books had driven a MN before, likewise I cannot imagine that the first time the diver on test runs drove a MN was to open the regulator and drive her out of Steamtown, so do mainline drivers encountering new loco's on the mainline go to preserved lines to get expereince and competency in driving the class? Likewise same could be said with LSL and Royal Scot for instance. I vaguely recall that Tornado visited the Weardale Railway shortly before WCR started to operate her, considering the links between WCR and WR was that to allow WCR crews to get competency in driving her.

I know competency in modern traction goes beyond just driving and includes things like management and fault finding, and understand that this may not be relevant to heritage stuff as on preserved lines they are never more than c.20 miles from an engineer, and on the mainline such competency is normally sat in a carriage behind the engine if not on the footplate, but just wondered how it is done.

As you may have grasped I didn't sleep very well last night!

 

I think that the most obvious case of this was the LNWR Super D. Somewhat different than other steam locos!

 

Likewise and I should have mentioned with regards to LSL what are they going to do re 60532.

 

On the Bluebell, with the home fleet, the assumption is that your competency at any particular grade is across the whole steam fleet - which is one reason why our driving and firing tests are multi day affairs, and will take in a range of locos. I suspect that when Fenchurch and Beachy Head enter service, we will probably need some refreshers on air brakes for people who have gone up through the ranks without using them.

For visiting engines, it depends a lot on the owner. Some have come unaccompanied and we have just been left to get on with it; some have an owner's rep who will ride with it but let the crew drive and fire, maybe offering some guidance; occasionally one will come (generally an incoming mainline loco on a charter) where the mainline crew drive and fire, and we would just provide a conductor driver for route knowledge / rules purposes. It really depends on the owner. It is normal with visiting engines that we get an instruction sheet which ideally discusses any particular oddities the loco may have. In things I've been on, probably the Beattie Well Tank was the most challenging to understand, and came unaccompanied. The Coal Tank had its quirks, but the KWVR provided a rep to ride with it, though we did all the driving and firing.

Tom

 

Wouldn't WCR drivers have worked BB/WC - is an MN that different?

Perhaps this is why we are seeing the pool of loco types getting a bit smaller? ie Bulleids, Black 5s, Castles, A3/A1/A4? This is maybe my perception compared to the 1980s when it seemed like there were a lot of different classes on the mainline - S15, N15, LN, Manors, Halls, Kings?

 

I see what you mean and that was my initial thought, but is an 86 that much different from a 90?

 

I’m not sure of the situation now but in steam days a driver was declared competent to drive and was expected to handle whatever type of locomotive he was presented with on his shift. If it was a type that was totally to him he might be allocated a loco inspector to ride with him, I think this happened on the GE section when they borrowed a few Bulleids during the time the Britannia’s were withdrawn after there were instances of the wheels shifting on the axles
When ‘foreign’ engines were used on steam specials it was usual to bring a crew with the loco and use the services of a local driver as conductor. This could lead to problems, I remember Bert Hooker relating telling story of when he was rostered you work a MN over Shap and back down the S&C. I think it involved 35012 and they were getting a bit short of water but the inspector reassured them that Dillicar troughs were coming up. Bert had to give him the bad news that they didn’t have a scoop. They were then faced with a water stop at Tebay and tackling Shap from a standing start.

 

Not sure about that, I know that when we had the second Deltic age in the late 1990’s drivers who hadn’t Deltic knowledge did a 3 day course whereas drivers with 37 knowledge did a shorter course (day and half?) to sign for them.
I would have thought they wouldn’t have been too much difference as class’s 86, 87 and 90 are descended from each other. I could be totally wrong though.

 

I don't know but they were built 20+ years apart. Maybe similar but different enough?

 

My understanding is that, for whatever reason, that competency for diesel and electric locos has always been class-dependent, and it has not for steam. Maybe historically there was more of a perception that if you were unfamiliar with a steam loco, you could work it out, but that would potentially be harder for a diesel/electric / could go more wrong.
Certainly at the GCRN you have to sign for each individual diesel, but once you're qualified on a steam, you're good to go on any. When we have short term visitors from other railways there tends to be a rep that comes with them. When we hired 46521 from Loughborough crews were invited down to Loughborough to have a familiarisation session. The loco was in steam, and we were shown round the loco, given tips etc. When we've had new locos come as our 'long term resident' sometimes we're just given the engine, sent out a PDF document with anything key we needed to know (idiosynracies of the loco, lubricator, owner's preferences etc) and maybe if other crew members have been on before you ask them for tips. When we had 2890 (the tender Austerity) there was a day before the season started when all crews were invited and we did a trip down the line with each crew getting a chance to have a go before we started carrying passengers. That's my experience with steam, at any rate. Can't really elaborate on diesels or electrics.

 

isn't some of this down to grandfather rights and the change in circumstances? Different class competencies wasn't a thing in the days of steam, and so has never come in. I'd think it's in nobody's interest to seek to change that now. Imagine trying to categorise the different steam engines - you'd end up with each one being a separate category.

 

I believe that steam competency is just that. There are drawbacks when stepping on to an unfamiliar engine, but there is nothing hidden "under the bonnet" as there is with modern traction. That said, when Eastleigh drivers started back on steam only 2 of the EWS men were "steam passed", the remainder being ex-firemen. So they all came up to the watercress Line for about a week, as at the time we had a BR Standard and a rebuilt Bullied (WCX) and, perhaps, a WC as well (I can't remember now). So there was an element of type training intended.
Some years ago (1993, I think) a railtour changed engines at Southampton Central. I was the duty shunter and duly uncoupled E5001 and attached a Romanian 56. There happened to be 1 driver at Eastleigh who had driven Class 71's, but many years before. I imagine a session with the Traction Inspector and the old handbooks answered, as far as refreshing was concerned.
Pat

 

Except for the GWR ones which are, so they say, all the same [grin]

 

I think the only real problem arose in WWII when a crew might find and engine they'd never seen before and completely different to anything they knew: the American 2-8-0s. They'd need to spend some time figuring out where everything was on one of those, and what it did when they found it. A problem arose with those engines in Britain: crews working unfitted goods down a gradient would screw down the handbrake and keep it like that for many miles. There were no unfitted goods in America so need to do that, and their chilled iron wheels weren't used to such treatment, and objected very strongly.

But even engines from distant parts of Britain could present challenges: does it like a thin or thick fire? What shape, saucer, thick at the back, fire down the sides? How high should you carry the water? Don't try a full boiler with a Super D. For the driver, do you go for a short cut-off and full second valve, or ease down on the regulator and push the lever down? If it was an unfitted goods, how good was the engine brake?

Realistically, the crews were expected to work all this out for themselves, and usually did so. A steam engine was basically that; there were differences, but you didn't get the subtleties you got with diesel and electrics. But in the fifties and sixties, a lot of diesel knowledge was about how to get them moving again if they sat down!

 

Oh, I don't know. It is documented that crews at the ex- Midland Railway shed at Rowsley, on the Manchester Central to Derby line, would go off sick if they were rostered on an ex LNWR Super D that had worked in on a freight from the Manchester area.

 

Showing my ignorance, when a member of staff 'signs a route' or signs 'a class of loco', what are they actually signing, and who establishes the standard?

 

I believe that 86-90 is a significant difference because it spanned a move from (put very crudely) analogue to electronic control, whereas my understanding is that classes 81-85 were treated as a common competency.

More generally, the difference on the diesel and electric side, which seems logical except that it has no roots in steam practice where there must also have been appreciable differences, seems to be that it is assumed that each type will have significantly different handling characteristics, and therefore drivers need to be trained for those characteristics.

 

From my experience (albeit 20 years ago) if you sign a route, say Paddington Bristol it means you have knowledge of that route regarding things like gradients, signal sighting that kind of thing.
If you sign for the traction say a Class 52, you are competent to drive a Class 52, your familiar with it and it’s foibles etc.
I’m using these as an example because as I understand when 1015 first went mainline the owning group had some members who were A) competent on Class 52’s on heritage lines and the necessary paper work to prove it.
B) They also had route knowledge on the ‘Big Railway’ and were also employees of EWS who ran that particular charter at the time.
I think who establishes the standard is the TOC responsible for the movement?
Im sure there was an instance of a 40 movement a few years ago where the driver signed for Class 40’s but worked for another TOC so had a conductor/inspector from the TOC responsible. I’m quite happy to be told otherwise this is from conversations had with friends who work on the big railway, so it might be I’ve misunderstood certain things.

 

When visiting locos have come to Ravenglass in the past, either for a gala or on loan, the locos will have had a pilot man from the visiting railway for a couple of weeks to get drivers trained on it before our home drivers were allowed out solo. Such examples were Hercules and Wroxham Broad in past years