The steam drivers of tomorrow

I think another factor is that many young people simply can't make the time commitment to pass out as a driver. We tend to be a little preoccupied with matters such as careers or starting a family!

In my own case, another issue has been that there are no "jobs for life" any more; my career has involved several moves around the country in the last few years; on a couple of occasions I tried volunteering at one of the local preserved lines but of course but I never managed to qualify as a fireman, let alone a driver, before I had to move on and start again somewhere else. I have got around this problem by volunteering at Fairbourne; like many of the Welsh narrow gauge lines they offer volunteer accommodation, so although it means taking some time off work, it is a relatively straightforward matter to go back every year. And there does tend to be "job sharing" as described above; if the driver is happy that their fireman is sensible enough, they will usually let them take the regulator for at least one trip. After all, it is only by driving under supervision that firemen can gain the necessary experience to become drivers!

Of course, once upon a time we would have been able to look forward to a long retirement in which to devote more time to our railway volunteering. Now it looks as though my generation will be lucky to retire at all - and even if we do, we will probably spend much of our time looking after our grandchildren because our children will be working. I firmly believe that these demographic changes represent the greatest threat to railway preservation.

 

Or perhaps, having finally retired at about 80, looking after your great-grandchildren because your children and grandchildren will be working?

 

Here is a link to some great reading (not current news) but anyway worth mentioned!

https://www.google.no/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwif1LTtxq3cAhXjHpoKHX2TDAEQjhx6BAgBEAM&url=https://www.welshcountry.co.uk/gwili-railway-youngest-female-fireman/&psig=AOvVaw3o7XQZqvbdG4KB0Vzf5ha2&ust=1532171692050889

Knut

 

Here is a Youtube -clip I search up from a cabride with a young firewoman on board

 

Isn't there a breach of regs there no one looked at the token to see if it was the correct one. That's what's caused the head on at Abermule.

 

It might be worth pointing out that in the 'old days' I have been told that while the good drivers were very good, there were some who were pretty awful

I suggest that todays drivers are held to much higher standards than in the past

 

Met someone doing just that

 

In his book, Gordon Rushton talks about how one of the things he tried to do was to shorten the amount of time you took to become a driver on the FR. I seem to recall someone once telling me you had to do some massive number like 300 or 500 trips as a fireman/woman. I maybe remembering incorrectly because it was a very long time ago I was told this but the bottomline is that it would take about 10 years of hardcore volunteering to become a driver.

This is true of many things - for example you will often hear political parties complaining about lack of activists. There will be lots of young activists and elderly activists but very few people in between because who wants to spend days going to meetings or posting things through letter boxes or knocking on doors when they have families to raise, jobs to do etc etc. (This isn't a new thing, I've seen people complaining in the 1950s of the same thing with exactly the same reasons).

 

@240P15 's original point was about the mainline, I think. WCRC operate the majority of mainline steam tours. Their drivers are largely retired mainline drivers from the regular TOCs. Their firemen have a much wider range of backgrounds and ages and include people from preserved railways and loco support crews - all with suitable training and supervision. ( "Chessie" and @Shoddy127 can probably comment more on this). Hence, the difference in age between WCRC drivers and fireman is likely to be rather greater than other TOCs and preserved lines.

 

I was thinking of both heritage railway and the mainline. Thanks for your information!

 

You have to remember that DBC crews are full time drivers, so rules and route knowledge are a given, it is then just a case of training as a fireman/firewoman and then after a period of time to steam driving, in that respect it is just like training any other traction. Also Dick Hardy was a great friend of the DB crews and often went to their get togethers and was held in high praise, refered to as the "Governor".

 

I certainly came across that attitude when I started volunteering in my teens - "Hello driver, can I help at all?" "Sure, mine has two sugars and make sure you wash my mug out first..." - and it was one of several reasons why I abandoned railway preservation for over 30 years. Happily, my more recent experiences at two very different places are the exact opposite and I really hope that that's due to a general cultural shift rather than simply no longer being at the same place as the Neanderthals I met back then.

 

Before we start worrying about "The drivers of tomorrow" we need to concentrate on men/women coming in at the cleaner stage....get that sorted and the drivers of tomorrow will come ...

 

I had pretty much the same experience, but less so with the professional members of staff, most of whom bar one were great. Where I volunteered there were a group of hardcore volunteers for whom the railway was clearly their life and they considered the railway to be ‘theirs’. They took great pleasure in making miserable the lives of volunteers whose faces didn't fit. 'Remember how we ran X off the railway'. Sadly, I see a few volunteers from said line posting here on the forum and sadly it seems the sneering superiority remains. So it seems to get replicated across generations

It was justified by arguing that i) they were treated that way and ii) if you are able to withstand the treatment then you have proved yourself 'worthy' of their respect. You proved you were 'serious' about the railway, not some dilettante.

There were also a lot of people on the line who realised that this was BS but they were dealing with a very ingrained 'hard man' culture.

Certainly, I would be very reluctant to encourage anyone to volunteer there because who the hell wants to encourage someone to spend their free time being bullied.

But this is I think the bind for railways. On the one hand the hard man volunteers drive away volunteers, but on the other hand the hard man volunteers are also going to be the people who will turn up every week, the people who will be your footplate crew during low season. 'X maybe a bully, s/he maybe an arse, BUT s/he is able to drive/fire/guard in two weeks time when no one else is available.'

 

The most recent Ffestiniog Railway Society magazine has an interesting article of recollections from a woman who worked as volunteer fireman on the Ffestiniog for a good chunk of the 1956 season, and was then fireman on the Talyllyn for a number of years.

 

Wasn't the Talyllyn the first line to roster an all-female train crew, driver, fireman & guard? It was quite a long time ago, 10+ years at least. IIRC, it just happened to work out that way - not a special for International Women's Day or that sort of thing. Seems to me the narrow gauge lines have been more successful in attracting woman than standard gauge.

 

When I was put in charge of our steam locomotives and their operations, in Mariefred, Sweden 25 years ago, one of the first things I did was to introduce a new footplate training program. This was with more well defined steps, and clearly stating how much driving the firemen and cleaners should do in each step. And topping it with a formal diploma when passing as driver.
But also the training program has become longer and more demanding.
Finally, in the last years years we have succeeded in both passing more steam engine drivers as well as having more young people as volunteers at our railway.

Last year a team of young members booked themselves on one of the trains, giving a full train crew with the average age of less than 23, and half of them ladies. This year they top this tomorrow when the whole ÖSlJ will be run by a team aged 16-26. We hope that next year they will run a two trains in steam day.

Two times we have had all ladies days. The first was with steam on the narrow gauge plus the DMU on the yet to be converted std. gauge. A few years ago they ran a full day with two steam trains on the whole 11 km line. Since then we have had a third female driver examined.

 

Here is Sofia and her young crew just prior to the departure of the first train on Friday 3rd August in Mariefred.
Just to make it a little bit more interesting they ran the fire inspection trolley as an ordinary train with all the extra paperwork involved.
The day was hot, but they coped without problems, and promised to be back with a bigger team next year.

 

I remember going on the 'Pioneer' line in Budapest, with the exception of drivers most of the railway was run by under 16's - possibly even 14's

One station was an 'all girl' affair & the ticket inspector in our carriage looked about 7. He was clearly wacked and had gone to sleep next to his mother

 

Absolutely brilliant! Thanks for sharing this!

Knut