Most Constrained Driving Jobs.

[chris-shay]

Although pretty short, I guess the scenery on the Cairngorm funicular more than makes up for the endless going up and down!

[JeremyC]

Glasgow Subway must be pretty boring! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_Subway

[roythebus]

Aldwych-Holborn shuttle springs to mind...Acton Town-South Acton...both now long gone....Olympia-Earls Court when that used to run was tedious, 14 trips in a shift. the Circle Line used to be grim with Baker Street men having to do 4 rounds without a break, then sometimes you'd get 4 the other way!

 

The W&C myths, in BR days W&C duties were covered by drivers in 2,3 and 4 links at Waterloo, 16 duties in all. 16 return trips a day in my days, though some duties were a lot less. Guards were a dedicated link doing only the W&C, though a few men from "upstairs" were used to cover leave etc. From my knowledge nobody was ever banished down there as punishment. Had that been the case "upstairs" would quickly have stopped through the ensuing industrial action.

 

Yes, the W&C was boring, but the trains interesting with the Westinghouse brake providing some element of skill for the driver to practice. We used to have some entertaining moments too, but that's not for this thread! Some drivers used to prefer to work down there more than others, so used the mutual exchange of duty to go down there or work upstairs (more sociable hours).

 

Other boring bits, Addiscombe-Elmers End "poppers" when that was open, Kings Cross-Bounds Green ecs circuit when it was loco-hauled was boring, but plenty of time to do The Times crossword, get your head down, drink tea, like the OOC jobs mentioned earlier, after a few hours we'd run out of things to talk about!

[peak experience]

that turn is usually part of a bigger diagram (or used to be) when i was with chiltern you had a job at birmingham that used to be moor st-marylebone, marylebone-aylesbury via the met, aylesbury-risborough-aylesbury, aylesbury-risborough then pass back to moor st, we used to swap with an aylesbury driver though and do one straight back to marylebone after the first trip and they did the branch trips and we ended up on the same you caught back passenger from risborough at marylebone (or if you ran an earlier one) and they got an early finish

I'm guessing you were you passed out on the bubble cars then.

[big jim]

No, only Aylesbury drivers drove them, the time of day we got up there the bubble had done its morning turns for the day

[Swindon 123]

 Kings Cross-Bounds Green ecs circuit when it was loco-hauled was boring, but plenty of time to do The Times crossword, get your head down, drink tea, like the OOC jobs mentioned earlier, after a few hours we'd run out of things to talk about!

Ferm Park-Bounds Green-Hornsey. Was known as the Bermuda Triangle in my day. The night jobs where the worse. The only consolation was you rarely had time to do more than two round trips in an 8 hour shift or you had empty stock to work into or out off The Cross at the start or finish.  Very occasionally a dia would appear where you felt you where chasing your tail. The one below was one such diagram. (A bit moth eaten from one of my old notebooks).

 

If you look carefully it doesn't work as written, but that is because some trips where on certain days only. The ragged edge of the page hides some of the notes I added. Trying to get from Ferm Park through the washer in the early morning on one of these turns was very tedious. Long waits whilst Bounds Green processed the HST's ready for the mornings service, and if you hadn't collared enough reading material then time passed by very very slowly. A few train crew got a tap on the window waiting at the end of the washer road from the traincrew on the train behind, after falling asleep at the exit signal and said signal turning green on them.

 

Paul J.

[Jenny Emily]

Wasn't there a booked turn that was to take a class 03 from Gateshead to Berwick once a week, then return with the other 03 so that it could be serviced and fuelled? Pootling up the East Coast mainline at an 03's top speed must have been akin to listening to paint drying.

[russ p]

Ive took an 08 from Thornaby to Doncaster, thas was so tedious

[Fat Controller]

Wasn't there a booked turn that was to take a class 03 from Gateshead to Berwick once a week, then return with the other 03 so that it could be serviced and fuelled? Pootling up the East Coast mainline at an 03's top speed must have been akin to listening to paint drying.

They were quite nippy, in comparison to an 08; 27 mph against 18, IIRC.

[russ p]

A decent riding 03 isnt a bad machine, but a journey of any length in an 08 is awful.

To be pedantic the speed of an 03 is 28 1/4 

[ColinK]

Last Saturday I was driving a rail replacement coach, my job, standby at Oxenholme from 1500hrs to 0030 next morning. Everything went to plan, so I wasn't called into action, so just sat there and never moved. zzzzz

 

Plenty to keep me occupied though, caught up on my emails, read a book, looked at the engineering work, photographed the engineering trains, built a garden shed for my model railway.

 

My colleague did the same on Sunday and was busy driving all day.

[Swindon 123]

Ive took an 08 from Thornaby to Doncaster, thas was so tedious

 

I've done an 08 pilot swap for Hereford when we had one. Fortunately only one way, Cardiff to Hereford, but that took nearly 8 hours. Not at all comfortable. Fortunately there where two drivers booked to do the job, so we could at least talk, for a while. There used to be a job for the Hereford 08 + brake van on a Sunday to go up to Craven Arms and back, picking up all the crippled wagons that had been put off trains and bring them back to Hereford C&W. An 08 was used so no one was tempted to go too fast with the crippled wagons. (Usually hot boxes). That was a long job, but being on Sunday rate, no one really was in a rush.

 

Paul J.

[Swindon 123]

Last Saturday I was driving a rail replacement coach, my job, standby at Oxenholme from 1500hrs to 0030 next morning. Everything went to plan, so I wasn't called into action, so just sat there and never moved. zzzzz

 

Plenty to keep me occupied though, caught up on my emails, read a book, looked at the engineering work, photographed the engineering trains, built a garden shed for my model railway.

 

My colleague did the same on Sunday and was busy driving all day.

Had the same experience on a ballast job at Oxley. Sat for 12 hours on a Sunday and never moved an inch. To make matters worse I was on the last train in the queue in the middle of nowhere. Ran out of everything. Food, drink, things to read and watch, and then finally patience. Not even a chance to go and occupy myself taking photos of anything. I don't know how far behind the engineering was, but when a relief driver finally turned up, I traveled back to Bescot with him as the occupation had been given up and the train never even got on site in theory.

 

Paul J.

[big jim]

Similar thing happened to me on Boxing Day 2014, got to my loco at Copenhagen tunnel to find it blocked in by a crane one end and wagon the other, fired it up, heaters on, seat back and didn't do a thing all day

 

The good thing these days is the locos have electricity outlets so I plugged in the iPad and caught up on the Christmas telly on the iPlayer

[Fat Controller]

Similar thing happened to me on Boxing Day 2014, got to my loco at Copenhagen tunnel to find it blocked in by a crane one end and wagon the other, fired it up, heaters on, seat back and didn't do a thing all day

 

The good thing these days is the locos have electricity outlets so I plugged in the iPad and caught up on the Christmas telly on the iPlayer

Swiss Railways have just commissioned some electro-diesels for use on PW duties; they have a centre cab somewhat larger than that on the Claytons, furnished with cooking facilities and space for up to four people to sleep.

[Rugd1022]

Similar thing happened to me on Boxing Day 2014, got to my loco at Copenhagen tunnel to find it blocked in by a crane one end and wagon the other, fired it up, heaters on, seat back and didn't do a thing all day

 

The good thing these days is the locos have electricity outlets so I plugged in the iPad and caught up on the Christmas telly on the iPlayer

 

Had several weekend jobs like this over the years, with the blinds down, heater on and no movements occurring this is when my portable DVD player comes in handy. On one occasion I watched seven consecutive episodes of 'The Sweeney' down at Roade and never saw a sole all night!

 

Another really tedious job that springs to mind was a twelve hour jaunt for me and my Driver at Stonebridge Park one Friday afternoon, we were sat spare and thought we'd 'get away with it' but no, we given the job of taking a crippled BG from Wembley to Crewe at no more than 25mph, we ran out of jokes and interesting things to say before we got to Hanslope Jcn...!

[russ p]

Ballast work really is the work of the devil, when I worked for GB we had loads of it. I hated it

[Talltim]

Had several weekend jobs like this over the years, with the blinds down, heater on and no movements occurring this is when my portable DVD player comes in handy. On one occasion I watched seven consecutive episodes of 'The Sweeney' down at Roade and never saw a sole all night!

If you put the blind up you might have seen a Sole

[Pacific231G]

I may be able to beat all these. Towing canal barges very slowly through very long tunnels.

 

 

Starting in 1908 the coal carrying canals in North and East France in a line between Dunkerque and Strasburg with branches were gradually equipped with electric towing railways to replace the earlier horses. At their zenith in about 1950 the systeme extended along almost 1000kms or well over 600 miles of canal. 

 

Small metre gauge tractors (600mm gauge in Alsace) each pulled two or three barges at a slow walking pace and when they met another tow coming the other way they swapped towlines and went back the way they'd just come.

 

 

 

This must have been a fairly boring driving job though at least in summer I suppose the French countryside might have been pleasant enough but it later got far worse.

 

 

The main towing system (it also used rubber tyred electric tractors and diesel tractors on less busy canals)  closed in 1970 as most barges were by then self propelled. However, there were a number of tunnels too long to allow diesel powered barges to go through under their own power because of the fumes. A few of these had been equipped with electric towing tugs that pulled themselves along a chain laid the length of the tunnel and a couple of these are still in use today.

Though this isn't my photo, I saw this tug emerging from the Riqueval tunnel near St. Quentin and it looked very odd indeed with the chain clanking over its ends and passing over various pulleys. There was also a pair of 750V DC trolley wires hanging from the ceiling of a damp canal tunnel- what could possibly go wrong? though apparently the barge crews and especially their children remained in the cabin during the transit.

 

 

At least the crew of the tugs had some space aboard to move around in but in other tunnels the towing railway continued  on a shelf that had been the towpath and a number of these remained in service after the main system had closed. The driver's job was now confined to sitting in a very cramped cab in a very dark tunnel and very slowly, about one mile an hour or so, drag a group of barges through. This could take an hour or so and the driver would have to do this back and forth for the whole working day.

 

in 1997 I found three of these tractors in good condition still in their shed and two others rusting away under a bridge at opposite ends of the Mauvages tunnel in eastern France. The line of barges pulled by the tug could stretch for almost a kilometre and in their final years the rail tractors had been used in pairs to pull them more quickly out of the tunnel once the slow clanking chain tug had emerged with the tow line. 

 

These tractors hadn't actually operated in the tunnel and I'm not sure when the last electric rail tractor actually working through a tunnel finished. The tunnels involved were slightly shorter than those equipped with electric chain tugs so eventually they were all fitted with forced ventilation fans so barges could pass through them under their own power

 

Well away from the tunnels some of the railway lines weren't dismantled until fairly recently

 

 

Several miles of this one was still intact along the canalised River Aa north of St. Omer until it was turned into  a cycle track a  few years ago.

 

Where they ran through canalside villages with inset track some of that can still be seen today.

This is in St. Omer but I doubt if many people know what it was used for.

[russ p]

Harecastle had Electric tugs, were they chain tugs? I think they had only one trolley pole but could be wrong, I'm not sure if the return current can be via water

[Pacific231G]

Harecastle had Electric tugs, were they chain tugs? I think they had only one trolley pole but could be wrong, I'm not sure if the return current can be via water

Apparently they did only have one trolley pole (The French ones definitely have two) but I think the Harecastly tunnel tugs used a cable rather than a chain so the cable could have provided the return path (a chain probably couldn't have). Water wouldn't be sufficiently conductive to act as a return path but I  understand the Harecastle tugs (1914-1954) were partly battery powered with the electric system topping them up so a bit of discontinuity wouldn't have been such a a problem. 

[Fat Controller]

There is a French rolling-stock leasing and hire company that started out by towing barges- TOUAX

[Pacific231G]

There is a French rolling-stock leasing and hire company that started out by towing barges- TOUAX

Until 1994 they were the Société Générale de Touage et de Remorquage and operated steam and later motorised tugs on the Seine and the Oise rivers. They've diversified into into modular buildings, railway wagons and shipping containers.

 

Canalside towing in the North and East of France was consolidated into the C.G.T.V.N. (Compagnie Générale de Traction sur les Voies Navigable) in 1925 unrtil 1973 and they operated metre gauge electric rail tractors, along with some rubber tyred electric and motor tractors. A separate company Traction de l'Est operated the 600mm gauge electric tractors in and around Alsace where the mainly German built industrial canals had narrower towpaths. Both companies had monopolies of canalside towing (but not of self powered barges) on the canals they served but other companies operated motor tractors elsewhere sometimes on quite a large scale.

 

The great advantage to barge owners of mechanised towing was that they didn;t have to invest in new vessels to carry bulk loads like coal on well established routes. Self propelled barges were though faster and more flexible and that became increasinly important as canal traffic became more international.

 

After the main canalside towing service ceased in 1970 the various bits of towing railway used through and around the tunnels were transferred to the O.N.N. (Office National de Navigation- roughly equivalent to British Waterways and replaced in 1990 by V.N.F. Voies Navigable de France ) You often see O.N.N. on the side of the tractors in later photos and it was stencilled on the side of the three metre gauge tractors I found in their shed about a kilometre from the western end of the Mauvages tunnel in 1997. At that time the track to the western tunnel mouth was still completely intact though the more valuable overhead cable (sometimes not very far overhead!) had been salvaged.   

[11B]

Does this one count from today?

 

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/O89188/2016/04/30/advanced

 

Oxenholme Goods loop to Carnforth Steamtown it can only be 12 or 13 mile covered in 5hr 16mins. I did see it as it crawled into Carnforth Freightliner 66 and Network Rail wagons, one of which had both bogies on wheel skates......

 

I think it was last weekends failure the choked up the WCML been moved out of the way.

 

Ian

[darrel]

Once drove a 308 from skipton to Neville Hill, it had a slipped tyre. 5mph maximum that was a long trip made to seem longer by having tojo as my guard.