Steam Drivers

I see from the leatest Heritage Railway association newsletter (Sidelines) that they are revising their guidance on footplate competence to recommend that steam loco drivers are passed on individual classes, rather than simply passed to drive steam locos. This has always been the case with diesel driving and is simply extending this requirement to steam. this is something that both HMRI and the RAIB have been pushing for for some time.

I'm just wondering what the impact will be on heritage railways, especially with regard to visiting locos?

 

I can quite see that it is sensible that crews be familiar with particular types of equipment (for example both mechanical and displacement lubricators or Bulleid steam reversers) but steam locomotives generally have characteristics that are fairly consistent across their company and period. So for example, Lord Nelson, a Schools and an S15 are quite similar in operation. Of course the arch examples of this are GWR locomotives. If you've fired or driven 822 (The Earl) on the WLLR, the controls on 6024 are instantly recognisable and operate in the same way. The only difference between them really is that one has a screw reverser. I can't see the necessity to train someone separately for a 57xx, 45xx, 79xx or for WC versus a MN or for each of the bunch of Urie/Maunsell types I mentioned before. OK train separately for GW types, Maunsell, Bullied, LNER types, but each class????? And what about the standards?

This is a significant logistical issue. Take the MHR....7 locomotives (currently). There are roughly 90 crew members. This is not a trivial exercise in record keeping alone.

 

I'm not going to disagree......

 

I would have thought this would be equally, if not more, onerous on lines that are mainly run by industrials. There, you could have a situation where two locos from the same manufacturer are different in small but vital ways. I am thinking of lines like the Middleton and the Tanfield, and wondering how badly this would affect them.

 

For a long time SVR driving exams have had separate theoretical and practical sub sections for:
GW vacuum braked locos
GW steam braked locos
LMS locos
BR Std locos
All as generic types
and more recently Bullied pacifics
Whilst this sounds onerous this very largely covers the fleet of 26(?) locos and to pass for driving all parts have to be taken and passed.
If this was brought in visiting locos would need to be reviewed to see whether or not they were sufficiently similar to a resident type or whether specific extra training for differences would be required. The classic example of this is the GWR Steam Rail motor where a short course lasting a few hours gives familiarity on quite a different traction unit even though many of the fittings are standard GW ones. The problem though is whether the requirement is for a formal exam or familiarity through training/experience and a degree of self certification once a general driving qualification has been obtained.

 

I can see the Bluebell loving that. With around 25 individual classes of locomotives in the fleet, the record keeping will be a nightmare, especially as some classes don't see service for decades at a time. A good example being the Q class, which will run in the next year for so, but hasn't run for over 20 years. Would those who passed out on it 30 years ago automatically pass out again? Glad I'm not involved....
Daniel

 

One of the big problems that I see is matching locos to crews and you've given a good example in the Bluebell. I don't know how many footplate crew they have but I'll guess at a round 100 (drivers/firemen) If some aren't passed on (say) the Q you have to make sure the loco/crew combination is matched. Even more so with visiting locos. Volunteers generally aren't available at any time for crew training and often only do one day at a time, fitted around the rest of their busy life. I don't think that simply having owners footplate reps is a satisfactory solution.

 

Whilst that seems sensible, I'm not sure that it will satisfy the objectives. I've driven five of the preserved Black 5's and every one is different, sometimes in minor detail but sometimes major; brakes, as an example, where 44871 & 45407 now have air brakes. Other differences are injectors, lubrication and ashpans, to name three. You may say that these are insignificant but where do you draw the line?

 

Tut, tut.

 

And a tut, tut for you too.
Seems we've come a long way from steam days when a crew were expected to take whatever loco was allocated too them whether they had experience of it or not.

 

Give 21B some credit. He manged to spell Bulleid correctly in the opening sentence. He's just inconsistent, that's all!

 

Tut Tut!

 

Touché. I blame autocorrect.

 

I think rostering could be awkward. For example, we roster weekend crews in four month slices (i.e. I know what I will be doing up to the end of December) and midweek, at least initially, is taken up to a year ahead (because people need to book holidays from work). But even when things are going well, we only roster locos perhaps four to eight weeks in advance, basically tied round routine maintenance and washout schedules. So I'm not sure quite how you are supposed to roster a crew who, different members of which may only have partial traction knowledge, when you don't know what the traction will be many months in advance. And it's not just loco crew: we also roster a spare driver and fireman every weekend day who are there to cover any illness / non-attendance: presumably they could only be drawn from the ranks of people experienced on all traction, including visitors, just in case..

On a railway like the Bluebell with a very diverse fleet, the opportunities to go on some locos are also scarce. For example, in the last six years, I have never had an angine turn on Stepney or Baxter. OK, I've been on Fenchurch, so at least have Terrier experience, but I do wonder what would happen if I were deemed to be competent on U-Boat, P, C, H etc, but not on a little Fletcher Jennings 0-4-0T!

I do wonder what problem this is supposed to solve, i.e. how many incidents there have been that could be directly ascribed to a crew member making a mistake due to unfamiliarity with the loco? The risk is that the army of volunteers - including those in administrative roles, such as roster clerks - may just decide it's too much bother. At which point, we may have railways that are very safe by virtue of not being able to run any trains...

Tom

 

Presumably, if the diesel logic is followed through, there will also be ongoing assessments to be carried out on each class of loco. On a railway with say 6 different classes of loco in traffic, six assessments could be required in every assessment period on top of what they already get if they drive diesels. The big difference between a heritage line and mainline is the amount of different classes we use. Many main line drivers often only drive one or two types, on a heritage line this could easily be in double figures just on steam. Definitely will be a big challenge for many railways, I suspect it will require one or more full time Inspectors to be employed on many lines.

On the positive side it may be possible to pass out drivers on simple tank engine to gain experience before moving up to larger more complex machines, however this sounds like a roster clerks worst nightmare, particularly when a last minute failure of a loco requires a different class of loco as replacement that the booked driver is not qualified for. I can see a lot of adverts going up for full time steam drivers as railways try to make sure they can cover turns on all classes.

 

Personally, I'm glad I am 'out of it' now. A few years ago I was expected to do training /rostering at a minor railway. There was one 'steam driver' who would only be available for ONE day a year. I refused to rosrer him due to'lack of current competance', but was over-ruled by the management... I quit the post soon after...

In a similar vein, would all classes of 1st Generation DMU's have to be assessed separately, even though they have the same controls, etc...?

Frank N.

 

Steve, can you give more detail please? Does it mean literally 'everyone should be assessed on each class' or that a structured training programme needs to cover should include a day on each in-service engine? Or that when a driver preps a 'new' engine and he is supervised for the first trip?

You could read this many ways and I can actually see some merit in the idea depending on how it is implemented.

 

who passes the assessor?

 

I suspect that you don't have to keep the competence records up to date for a heritage railway? It isn't too bad a job if you have full time staff and a suitable software, but neither is always the case. My real point was though that this is the tip of the iceberg, and others have pointed out the issues with implementing the guidance.