Industrial Railway Recruitment

Morning all, apologies if this is the wrong place.

Just a query about the process of becoming a driver on an industrial railway in the days of steam. The big mainline companies had fairly rigorous standards to meet before someone could be considered fit enough for the footplate, but was this the same for enginemen who worked the railways in factories, quarries, collieries, docks etc? Also for construction companies that used contractor's locomotives? Some sources I've looked at suggests that one could simply apply for the job without nessecarily starting on as a cleaner, or if a worker was good at operating machinery, could be trusted to drive a locomotive. Does anyone else know what the process was like?

Cheers, SW.

 

I heard it said of Yorkshire collieries and factories "if you could do nowt else, you drove the engine".

 

For many of the smaller industrial concerns it would be a case of taking someone off the street, but, just as when employing anyone, you would generally look at previous work experience, such as working with steam boilers. It would be highly unlikely that someone would be employed with no previous experience in some form. Employers weren't that daft. Quite often, you would 'promote' an existing employee. At collieries, the usual thing to do was to promote someone who had been working as a shunter if a driving vacancy arose.

 

https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/industrial-railway-crews.499008/

 

If you had asked the question a few years back, I could have asked my father what happened at his works. Too late now.

 

My knowledge is NCB based. In Cumberland vacancies for a driver were often advertised in the local papers, hence at Harington No.10 colliery they got ex BR firemen from Penrith and Kilmarnock sheds onto the locos as drivers.
Elsewhere it was often a case of someone at the pit hearing there was a vacancy and going to see the Surface Foreman about it, but you would start off as a shunter, many colliery locos had two shunters, such as on the Maesteg system and at Bickershaw Colliery. Often at a colliery you would start on the screens and then keep an ear open for any vacancies and make your case.

On a day to day basis if the regular driver was off ill it is true that the shunter would take his place, someone who worked loading wagons at the screens would then take the shunters place as they would have experience of coupling and uncoupling wagons and operating the brakes. It was all very much down to local practice, for instance at Cronton colliery in Lancashire if the driver was off a chap who worked repairing the colliery tubs deputised and very good he was too I am told. At Blaenavon in the last few years of operations if the driver was off the shunter wouldn't take the loco, so a loco fitter drove.

Some systems had a promotion route, at Maesteg you joined the platelayers and then got a job as shunter before becoming a spare driver and then a regular driver.
By common consent their best driver was an ex GWR man but he couldn't become an NCB driver because of the progression route.
He was with the platelayers unless they were suddenly short of someone to crew the loco, it was then that his ability to maintain steam pressure, do the same work in the same time with a lot less noise, and not use as much coal and water was noticed!