Your experiences of hiring locomotives (good and bad)

I have no experience on the Diesel front but on many railways there is now a disconnect between "entitlement" to join the steam footplate roster and essential experience gained through participation in overhauls and maintenance. Footplate work used to be seen as a privilege for those who rolled up their sleeves & put locos back into working order. That no longer seems to be the case. I would wager a modest sum that the abusers are often very light on restoration/overhaul experience. Some folk will respond saying that they do X or Y for their railway outside the motive power front. Worthy though that maybe it doesn't really help to solve the issue.

 

That's all well and good but if you've been spending all your available spare time overhauling the loco, when have you got the time to learn to fire and drive it? Once the loco is back in working order then you can start your footplate career in earnest but it will take time before you make the grade. With 34081 we have some members who are at fireman level and one who has achieved driver - used to be two but one's moved away - and others about to start at cleaner level. So for the time being we can't possibly man the loco for every day she's booked in traffic. As time goes on the situation will improve but in the meantime she'll be a "common user" loco. I suspect many other owner groups are in the same boat.

 

My comment was not intended to be as specific as your interpretation of it. I was suggesting that those who work on overhauls & maintenance generically on a railway are probably more likely to be more careful (and knowledgeable) crewing that railways fleet of locos.

 

It could still apply depending on the workload of the engineering department and the number of employees/volunteers. If they're stretched on the overhaul/maintenance front, there may still be a limited number of staff with the time to do that and work on the footplate. It would be interesting to learn from those involved with other railways just how many of those involved in overhauls and maintenance also have footplate duties.

 

There is also a level of time commitment - although I know a number of people who manage to be both active on the footplate and in one or other of the restoration groups, it is a big commitment of time if you are going to do both and also make substantive progress in both.

We have a couple of requirements for ensuring a degree of mechanical knowledge for footplate staff. One is that part of the qualification for moving up through the footplate grades is to pass mechanical exams, tailored to grade. More specifically, we also require footplate staff to do a number of "X", or workshop, turns in addition to footplate turns - as a rough guess, I reckon about 1 in 5 of my turns are "X". The precise tasks vary depending on need (rather than specifically working on one project), but they can be a good learning experience - for example, not too long ago I had a day assisting with taking measurements for valve setting the H class, and learnt a lot about the vagaries of valve gear in the process.

Tom

 

I find it fairly astonishing that folks are not able to look after other peoples locomotives properly- Bob's notes above make for really disappointing reading- No wonder the Tyseley fleet are kept away from the hire circuits these days!

I have never been in the position to do anything quite the same, but in previous jobs have often had to borrow/hire and use powerboats and landrovers. There was always the acceptance that they would get used- but never abused, and I was always very conscious (particularly when using powerboats) of any particular instructions that the owners had for the maintenance and use.

These have always been treated as though they were my own, and looked after in the same way as my own- they always went back to their owner in as good condition (although often cleaner!) as when they arrived- surely out of pride in doing a job well this woudl always be the case with something as special as a loco?!

Chris