Large and Small locomotive economics, ex-West Somerset Railway developments

Thanks Chris - how much of a struggle is covering that? Does the WSRplc have any paid footplate staff or paid staff who aren't employed specifically as footplate but can be called on if necessary?

Thanks

Steven

 

Does doing that mean that you avoid having to empty the pits?

 

It was the practice for vacancies to be shown on the published roster sent to drivers/ fireman before month start, followed by email notification of vacancies nearer the time. Some MPD fulltime staff can act as drivers/ fireman when needed,as on the NYMR.Years ago,I used to know who was phoning Thurs/ Friday lunchtimes before I picked the receiver up ! One way or another, the pit got done by esprit de coeur, e g before leaving shed or first crew back.
The chief TIs office overlooking the pits is an encouragement.

 

On the WSR we've not yet had to cancel a turn due to lack of volunteers. Sometime, as Tiffer has mentioned, shed staff do undertake some driving and firing turns. However some of these are done in their own time rather than as paid work.
Rosters come out well in advance of the start of each month. Gaps are clear and normally covered by folks who magically find they have extra spare time. It's fairly easy to get 50 plus turns a year if you want to.

 

Severn Valley turns are usually getting on for 12 hours. Some used to be longer, but one or two misdemeanours occurred and, during the ensuing investigations, people pointed out, quite reasonably, that they had been on duty for over 12 hours and may not have been firing on all cylinders. Management duly took note, corporate liability raised its head and steps were taken...

Like Steve, I take every opportunity to get my head out of the window/door opening and off the engine in the hot weather and I make sure my fireman does likewise. If we have a trainee on, I make sure they do not spend their time glued to the shovel and watching the gauges. I know it's hard; I was that cleaner.

I'm always on the engine by 0700 at the latest, by personal preference. I'm awake, up and I prefer to take my time preparing; each to their own. What is interesting is to read of other Railways' practises and to find that we all do more or less the same thing, or, at least, achieve the same objective, by similar means.

Regards,

John

 

Continuing with the hours/duties theme (because I have a special interest) NYMR crews don't light up their own locos but usually come on duty about 2¼-2½ hours before their first train and prep it. Generally allowed 10 min for reading notices, etc, 1¼ hours for prep and 10 min for washing off, etc. At end of day, 1 hr for disposal. NB, we throw out our fires and clean ashpan & smokebox each evening. Do others do the same? I know that on many railways the crews light up the loco, as well but this is done by the duty fitter (paid) and charge cleaner (volunteer/pressed man.)

 

WSR practice is to light up having booked on at 06.30 for most turns for 09.25 off shed. Both Driver & Fireman book on together which allows for a bit of work sharing as well as reducing the risk of lone working. The fire/ashpan/smokebox disposal is always an am duty & because the fire was left in the previous day the loco will still have something like 40psi on the clock. If the loco was not in steam the day before a warming fire will have ben lit then.

SVR practice (weekends) is to roster a lighting up cleaner who is passed in the duty & turns up at 05.30 or thereabouts to light up (loco warm already). Like the WSR the fires are left in at the end of the day so grate cleaning is the first job. Unlike the WSR crews tend to empty the ashpan & smokebox in the evening (that is the current instruction).
During the week the crews (normally on 5 full days) tend towards the WSR way of working lighting, preparing, working & disposing their own loco.

Conclusions from this:
1. Having paid dearly for the coal & its heat it seems most sensible to leave the fire to die at night with no/minimum disturbance providing the fire has been run down to a sensible level & the loco will not make appreciable steam causing blowing off when unattended.
2. Emptying the ashpan & smokebox, whilst never pleasant tasks, are easier & safer in the morning when the loco is cooler. Again why waste the heat doing this in the evening?
3. The am disposal (fire cleaned, smokebox cleaned, fire lit, tea drunk) can all be achieved quite quickly if the loco has a drop grate (preferred to troublesome rocking grate)& swill out ashpan, specially shaped & with no moving parts (preferred to troublesome hopper ashpan).
4. After an am disposal/light up there is time for a good wash if necessary as your nicely prepared fire of Welsh coal burns through.
5. You are much more likely to get a decent meal & the odd pint or two if you get off the engine soon after arriving on shed rather than some time later after faffing with a hot disposal!

 

We light up and dispose our own locos. It is possible (just) to do a three trip day in twelve hours with one crew, including preparation and disposal. On Saturdays one of our service trains runs four trips, so the day is (normally) split prep + 2 trips and 2 trips + dispose.

Our normal disposal routine (taking that first because it governs prep the next day!) would be to arrive on shed, check the smokebox, throw out smokebox ash, and hydraulic the boiler, leaving the loco with the fire in (ideally dying out); wood stacked in the cab and the ashpan full.

Next morning, prep would then be check the smokebox again (but it should be basically clean), throw the remains of the fire out, light up and then rake out the ashpan once the fire is well alight, after the driver has finished oiling up underneath.

If a loco is out of traffic for more than a day, it would have a warming fire put in the afternoon before service but allowed to die out overnight in the normal way.

The logic for leaving the fire in is basically to allow the boiler to cool down as slowly as possible. Personally, I'd rather throw out a cold fire in the morning when I am feeling fresh, than a hot one in the evening when I am tired, but I guess others may have a different view. Our evening GA doesn't get back to Sheffield Park until 11pm, after which the loco has to take water, so probably doesn't get back on shed until about 11:15pm. I suspect then having to rake out the ashpan and throw the fire out wouldn't be very popular!

Incidentally, on the subject of emptying pits. At weekends, we have rostered cleaners, and emptying the pits and generally tidying the yard are part of the duties once the service engines are off shed. They will also get barrows of wood prepared ready for the returning engines. Midweek, loco crews are expected to clear their own pits before going off shed - failure to do so doesn't make you a very popular bunny!

Tom

 

On those Railways were crews do their own lighting up, who undertakes an exam for the loco and declares it is fit for the day?

Also, where a loco hasn't been in use (for example, where there is weekend only service), is a crew rostered to put the fire in the day before and another to dispose the day after?

Thanks

Steven

 

Steven,
basically yes there is a warming fire put in the day before if the loco is stone cold. That may also involve disposal of firebox, ashpan and smokebox or it may not. I'm just back from such a duty today with 6960. (Also managed to give it a fairly good clean as it had come back from it's holiday looking a little dirty.) We also did a bit of hand coaling to make sure she'd get to MD tomorrow.
On the cleaning up and disposal if the loco is not in traffic the answer is it depends. But it's rare for us to leave an engine for too many days without disposing of it even if the disposal is spread out between several people over 2 days.

As to the daily exam, that's the drivers job. The fitter does the 7 day exams.

 

With Swanage, we light up and dispose our own engines too, although signing on at the same time as the early turn crew is a Duty Fitter who is responsible for undertaking a Daily Exam (although the Driver is also still responsible for his own exam, dealing with such things as oiling complete, brake test completed etc).

Length of duty depends on the timetable in operation. Through the year, excluding Special Events, we broadly have 4 timetables; Orange (Winter), Blue (Standard), Green (Mid) and Yellow (Peak). The Blue and Green timetables from a steam point of view are identical, the only difference in the Green timetable is the addition of a diesel diagram in the opposite path.

The longest turn we have is on the Orange timetable, which is an all-day turn; sign on, prep, work 4 trips (with an hour break in the middle of the day), then dispose; signing off at 17.20 for a 10 hour, 10 minute day. Disposal at Swanage is clean smokebox, then dispose fire, leaving a small clean fire under the door, with the exception of 6695 in which the fire is left in overnight at the request of the owning group.

On the Blue and Green timetables, with a 6 trip day this lends itself nicely to splitting the day in half; early turn signs on at 06.30 and prepares the engine ready for a 10.00 first train. They then work three trips, and get relief on arrival at Swanage at 13.44; sign off time is 14.05, for a duty time of 7 hours 35 minutes. The late turn signs on at 13.15, then works the afternoon three trips and disposes; an hour booked for shunting and disposal, resulting in a duty time of 5 hours and 30 minutes.

The Peak season is a little more complicated, and will actually be changing for 2015 based on experience of struggling for crews during weekdays in particular this year. There will be an early turn crew (duty 304) which signs on at 06:00, lights up both service locos and, following arrival of the next crew at 07.30, carries on bringing their engine round ready for working to Corfe light engine at 09.15. They then work two trips followed by relief, and work lunch relief for other crews at 12.40 and 14.40, signing off at 16.00 for a duty time of 10 hours. Turns 305 and 306 are basically the walk on, walk off turns and are 4 trips with a lunch relief (8 hours 55 and 7 hours 30), while 308 will be the short turn; sign on at 16:15, work two trips and dispose.

We find that we have a balance in terms of footplate crew; some prefer the long day, and so will prefer to do the all-day turns during the winter, while some will prefer shorter turns such as the disposal turns in the summer or afternoons in the Blue and Green. This works out quite nicely though, as there is at least something for everyone!

 

If I'm reading what you've said correctly, in peak season you have four turns each day. Are you able to say how many drivers & firemen are on your books. If any other people can give similar figures for their railways, I'd be interested. P.M. me if you don't want to go public. NYMR currently has 49 steam drivers and 66 firemen plus a few diesel only/second men.

 

It's interesting to note how many lines leave a small or dying fire in, which must be a lot kinder to the boiler than throwing it all out - but do they then have someone on site? This has been the cause of discussion in the past at the NYMR, where the practice is to throw all the fire out, so that no presence is required.

 

At the Severn Valley, for as long as I have been on the footplate, most of us have left a "back end" fire in overnight. It has recently been a decree that fires should not be thrown out, but clinker broken up and the fire left to die slowly. Most mid-week crews, (on for the 5 days) will clean their fire and leave a good "back end" in. This will keep your engine warm all night and, certainly with the bigger engines, will mean that you have 30 - 40 psi on the clock and some fire in in the morning. This cheers your morning up considerably. I was taught by ex - BR firemen and they would happily leave a fire in on, say, an 8F, up to the firehole ring and three feet into the box. You could guarantee that you would arrive on the engine at 0630 to find 3/4 of a glass, 100lbs on the clock and nothing to do, but crack the dampers and spread the fire a few minutes before leaving the shed.

If you are on the engine for several days together, a good "cooking" fire is your best friend.

 

This used to happen on the NYMR when I first started but there were several instances of crews turning up in the morning to find no water in the glass/locos blowing off. Without actually saying so, the law effectively requires you to have someone in attendance whilst a boiler is in steam unless it is automatically controlled. You'd certainly struggle to avoid prosecution if anything went wrong.

 

If that's the case then simply chucking the fire out will not be sufficient if the boiler is left close to full working pressure. Granted the boiler has no means of making more steam but the retained pressure is still considerable. The WSR rule is simple. The boiler must not be close to the red line and it must not be making steam. Normally we run the fire right down, so it's effectively going (gone) out by the time we get on shed. Then we top up the boiler to knock the pressure back. Boilers are then checked after all other stabling and locking up duties are complete to make sure they really are not making steam. It's not unknown for a crew to shovel the fire out if they can't meet the above criteria.

 

Our practice sounds similar to the WSR - come on shed with the smallest fire you can manage (while still having it covering the grate!), hydraulic the boiler and make sure the loco isn't making steam. As an example, on the trip on the P class I wrote up further up thread, we arrived back at SP after our second trip with 140psi, 3/4 glass (160psi red line). After we shunted the stock away and got on shed, we were down to 120psi, 1/2 glass but with the fire still orange across the grate. By time the boiler was hydraulic'd, we were at 60psi and the fire was going grey. Probably the hardest to arrange is the H class, which is a brilliant steamer when you don't want it to be!

Tom

 

We have 38 steam Drivers, 10 Passed Firemen, 18 Firemen and 9 Passed Cleaners, with another couple of Drivers passed only for diesel traction. As you can imagine, with numbers like that, when you need 5 Drivers and 4 Firemen every day in the Peak season (including the evening diesel service), and another crew on Friday and Saturday nights when we are running a dining train, the middle of the summer can be a little bit fraught for those rostering the turns!

It might also go some way to explaining why I'm a lot quieter on here in the summer!

As another example, in the Peak season we require 5 Guards each day (early and late turns on both sets, and an evening diesel Guard from 18.00 - 23.00), with a sixth required on Friday and Saturday nights for the dining train. We currently have a total of 36 Guards on the books, meaning that we need one-sixth of our Guards available two out of seven days throughout the Peak season; another fairly hefty headache to deal with...!

 

An extract from the latest Locomotive Operating News on the IWSR website:

'This year the high season two-train working extended out until the middle of September; the railway operated continuously from 28th June until 18th September. That’s a total of 83 running days, of which 42 were two train days.... Considering the roster for Drivers alone, there are currently only 14 of which 11 are in full time employment elsewhere with the constraints on availability that inevitably imposes, so to get so many turns filled really is an achievement! A positive side to this is that the majority of our Drivers complete a significant number of turns each year (some well above 30) so a high level of experience and competence is maintained'.

 

The noting of that achievement is good to see - those in the "mud and bullets" of rostering can all to easily fail to see what they and the crews they are working with actually achieve.

As one of the senior voices in movement said last year "nobody pretends running a steam railway is easy" - except, all too often, we do act as though we expect it be and assume that we are doing something wrong or trying to do too much when it doesn't just run itself!

Steven