Drivers Job Cards

[NorthEndCab]

When I book on each day I pick up my job card for the day which tells me where I need to be and when, headcodes and station stops. 

When did this start in its present format? And does anyone know what happened in steam days?

Eg; if I booked on in 1934, would I have a list of stops or would I just be told I’m driving “The 16:40 Sheffield,” and be expected to know the stops? 

Many thanks!

[russ p]

We never had them in BR days in the North east but when I went to central trains at Norwich in 2001 we had them then

[101]

14 minutes ago, russ p said:

We never had them in BR days in the North east but when I went to central trains at Norwich in 2001 we had them then

I'm surprised at that Russ we certainly had them 40 years ago on the WR, and I thought they were around many years before that.

 

Northendcab your post reads as if you are a driver is that correct?

If so I am interested that you called them 'job cards' is this the new name in your part of the world?

They always were and still are known on the western - and with all other drivers I ever came in to contact with - as 'Diagrams' 

Edited February 5, 2019 by 101

[cb900f]

At Sheffield we always asked for the diagram too.

 

On the 1st day of the new timetable the driver or the second man would write all stops , recovery time etc on a sheet of card (usually torn off the back page of the WTT ) and place it in the back of the diagram. The diagram was always in a plastic envelope.

 

Woe betide you if you lost the diagram. The driver booking on duty next day would be far from happy.

 

I was working 1V99 from Leeds to Sheffield one summers evening and I opened the window on the 45 at about 80mph and whoosh the diagram was sucked out, off the desk.

 

Happy days

 

Pete

[101]

Yes ours were always in the little plastic sleeves as well, with all sorts of useful stuff written on the back, right down to the opening times of the local chippy or pub 

 

[cb900f]

Pub ? I can't believe you drank on duty.

[The Stationmaster]

6 hours ago, 101 said:

I'm surprised at that Russ we certainly had them 40 years ago on the WR, and I thought they were around many years before that.

 

Northendcab your post reads as if you are a driver is that correct?

If so I am interested that you called them 'job cards' is this the new name in your part of the world?

They always were and still are known on the western - and with all other drivers I ever came in to contact with - as 'Diagrams' 

And the first man to work the turn after the diagram changed was usually the one who wrote all the stopping places on the other side.

 

2 hours ago, cb900f said:

Pub ? I can't believe you drank on duty.

Whistle code for a train running up the Up Loop at Marston Crossing.

2 long - two pints to be ready on the counter at the Marston Arms -  just across the field from the  loop exit signal.

3 long - we like this Guard and he's coming too so one for him as well.

 

The loops, and the yard on the Down side, are long gone.   Amazingly the pub is still there.

[russ p]

We had diagrams but were posted in the notice case so you had to copy them out but they didn't have the stopping pattern on 

[The Johnster]

Back in the day, the rule was simply that one should not report for duty in a drunk condition or become so while on duty; in other words drinking was permitted so long as you were sensible with it.  The norm was that you were sensible with it, slightly less so if you were going home on the cushions but you still behaved yourself.  The culture had been inherited from steam days when it would have been cruel to refuse a fireman a beer on hot day after a tough trip!

 

Sadly, it is the nature of alcohol that not everybody is sensible all the time; there was a bit of a sea change after the Eltham Well Hall crash in the 70s (high speed on a speed restricted curve) when the loco crew had taken too much in the way of advantage of a jollyboys to Margate and the secondman, who had not signed the road, was driving; it is probable that the driver, in charge of the loco, was asleep.  Beer bottles were found in the cab afterwards.

 

 Loco crews of ECML trains with tender corridors that had been relieved in motion between York and Thirsk were given beer from the restaurant car in their reserved compartment, though I do not know if this was an officially sanctioned arrangement; there would have been no reason that it wasn't, though.

[irishmail]

3 hours ago, cb900f said:

Pub ? I can't believe you drank on duty.

Back in the day you did not sign for the route until you knew all the pubs....  

[NorthEndCab]

9 hours ago, 101 said:

Northendcab your post reads as if you are a driver is that correct?

If so I am interested that you called them 'job cards' is this the new name in your part of the world?

They always were and still are known on the western - and with all other drivers I ever came in to contact with - as 'Diagrams' 

 

Hi, thanks for replying! Yes I am a driver and at our Depot we refer to them as job cards and the rolling stock follows a diagram.

 

Although you would be understood if you asked for a diagram. I’m not sure if it’s an ex Midland thing or a Depot specific thing. 

 

 

 

 

 

[cb900f]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

And the first man to work the turn after the diagram changed was usually the one who wrote all the stopping places on the other side.

 

Whistle code for a train running up the Up Loop at Marston Crossing.

2 long - two pints to be ready on the counter at the Marston Arms -  just across the field from the  loop exit signal.

3 long - we like this Guard and he's coming too so one for him as well.

 

The loops, and the yard on the Down side, are long gone.   Amazingly the pub is still there.

The 3 long wouldn't have been used much at our depot. We were 100% passenger/parcels so we rarely used whistle codes., We didn't even sit in the same room at Sheffield when we had the wooden cabin at the south end of platform 1.

[101]

45 minutes ago, cb900f said:

The 3 long wouldn't have been used much at our depot. We were 100% passenger/parcels so we rarely used whistle codes., We didn't even sit in the same room at Sheffield when we had the wooden cabin at the south end of platform 1.

 

I never understood the seperate cabin thing, we didn't have it on the western.

The southern was the same, when the cabin at Eastleigh was upstairs on the station, it was a large room with about a third on one end partitioned off for the drivers, and whenever I went in there you were lucky to get a seat whilst the guards side was virtually empty, plus the daft thing was that the kitchen was in the guards side so you had to go in there anyway! I always thought it strange.

Whenever I went anywhere with seperate cabins I always told the guard to come in with me, and it was rare anyone said anything - they probably knew we were strange western foreigners! And it was easier in later years when trainman d/g and drivers all wore virtually the same uniform 

[cb900f]

When they replaced the cabin with a new brick built mess room we still sat at different tables. I suppose the topic of conversations were different.

 

In fact the top table was always for Sheffield  footplate, because of the spare turns in those days someone would always be in residence.

 

Pete

 

[The Johnster]

This applied to the pubs as well, or at least it did to the Windmill in Gloucester.  There was a red end of the bar and a green end, for Midland and Western men respectively, and on my first visit I made the mistake of going in to the red end, to be told to 'f*ck off up your own end, Canton'.  This was more than 20 years after the GW had ceased to exist, and nearly 50 after the Midland had!

 

The Windmill has probably long gone now; it was up a side street to the left after you'd come out of the shed and gone over Horton Road level crossing.  I suspect anything that remains of it is beneath Metz Way.

[roythebus]

On the Southern we had to write down the diagram from the notice case. The guard's job was to tell us where to stop. Leaving intermediate stops on time were his problem, not mine.    At KX we copied down the diagram, but the platform staff would give us a train running sheet with intermediate pass and station times, TSRs and recovery time.

 

Drivers and secondmen worked to diagrams, as did guards and carriages. Never heard of job sheets. that's a boil-in-the-bag expression. Ping.

[hobbyhorse]

7 hours ago, roythebus said:

On the Southern we had to write down the diagram from the notice case. The guard's job was to tell us where to stop. Leaving intermediate stops on time were his problem, not mine.    At KX we copied down the diagram, but the platform staff would give us a train running sheet with intermediate pass and station times, TSRs and recovery time.

 

Drivers and secondmen worked to diagrams, as did guards and carriages. Never heard of job sheets. that's a boil-in-the-bag expression. Ping.

Similar on the South Eastern, just the diagrams in the case, then get the WTT's out and find all the stopping places.

one of the benefits of my depot Grove Park was it was quite small so we used to rewrite the diagrams to suit ourselves, this in management speak was called fiddling. This all stopped when the depot expanded opening up the old Hither Green down yard and continental siding to EMUT stabling, as we had management on site now, something we never had.

 

Simon

[101]

9 hours ago, roythebus said:

 Never heard of job sheets. that's a boil-in-the-bag expression. Ping.

 

I was trying to polite, but I would have said a very similar thing in the messroom!   Although in fairness to the OP I'm sure it's the sort of thing that's been passed on from one of the many 'boil in the bag' managers the industry has now.

[russ p]

A lot of management is microwaved!

I like to wind my mate up about boil in the bag, he saw I had a badge so said what's that?

 I said something you can't ever wear as it was lost boys, so he said I'm going to get some boil in the bag badges made!

I said its not a term of endearment, while your at it get a matching yellow vest made with w#@ker written across it!

Like I said just a laugh so I don't mean it so hope no one gets upset

[Fat Controller]

I suspect they're something that come in after management have seen them elsewhere. A few years ago, I was fortunate to have a cab ride from Paris to Le Havre, then back to Rouen; the person who invited me was a driver who also accompanied and assessed other drivers. I got to visit the booking-on lobby at Sotteville; one wall was taken up by pigeon -holes, each holding laminated cards with the details of a particular working (being SNCF, these could be different for each day). The details not only listed station stops and booked times, but also passing times at key landmarks, such as junctions: in SNCF eyes, it was as important not to be early, as it was not to be late. There used to be something called a 'prime du charbon' to encourage drivers to drive economically- it survived the end of steam by a long while.

What was noticeable was that every cab had a properly-designed mounting for the 'fiche du train' usually in the middle of the 'manipulateur du traction'  (the thing that looks like a steering wheel)

[The Johnster]

Only in France could one find something as wonderful as a 'manipulateur du traction'.  I want one, and I don't even know what it is, just that my life will be immeasurably enhanced by it's ownership. 

[Fat Controller]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

Only in France could one find something as wonderful as a 'manipulateur du traction'.  I want one, and I don't even know what it is, just that my life will be immeasurably enhanced by it's ownership. 

It's the thing that looks like a steering wheel. Yesterday, I found some cracking photos on Google; could I find them today? Should I find a photo on-line, or one of me in a the cab of an electric, I'll post it.

[w124bob]

On 09/02/2019 at 06:57, hobbyhorse said:

Similar on the South Eastern, just the diagrams in the case, then get the WTT's out and find all the stopping places.

one of the benefits of my depot Grove Park was it was quite small so we used to rewrite the diagrams to suit ourselves, this in management speak was called fiddling. This all stopped when the depot expanded opening up the old Hither Green down yard and continental siding to EMUT stabling, as we had management on site now, something we never had.

 

Simon

I was at Orpington in the early 80's , seem to recall the drivers  LDC  being given the new official digrammes to rewrite to a more driver friendly variation, cut and paste literally! Yes drivers would write down the diagramme from the notice board. Manchester Victoria had the diagrammes n plastic wallets , new time table day everyone scrabbling through WTT 's writing out the stops. TCS has a problem, 5 uncovered diagrammes but only 3 spare drivers easy, throw diagrammes on table and leave us to it, all trains ran!

[The Stationmaster]

On 09/02/2019 at 21:34, Fat Controller said:

I suspect they're something that come in after management have seen them elsewhere. A few years ago, I was fortunate to have a cab ride from Paris to Le Havre, then back to Rouen; the person who invited me was a driver who also accompanied and assessed other drivers. I got to visit the booking-on lobby at Sotteville; one wall was taken up by pigeon -holes, each holding laminated cards with the details of a particular working (being SNCF, these could be different for each day). The details not only listed station stops and booked times, but also passing times at key landmarks, such as junctions: in SNCF eyes, it was as important not to be early, as it was not to be late. There used to be something called a 'prime du charbon' to encourage drivers to drive economically- it survived the end of steam by a long while.

What was noticeable was that every cab had a properly-designed mounting for the 'fiche du train' usually in the middle of the 'manipulateur du traction'  (the thing that looks like a steering wheel)

The SNCF Livre Ligne is a very different things from the idea of diagrams contained in plastic wallets as it combines permanent and temporary speed restrictions, plus line speeds. plus various other Sectional Appendix type information plus timings into a single book style thing or card.  hence learning a new road on SNCfF takes only a few days even if it's several hundred miles.