Prototype for everything corner.

[Gibbo675]

3 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

..... even when being towed ?

If the BIS is in the lights will work, unless the batteries were flat.

[Trog]

On ‎07‎/‎09‎/‎2020 at 12:24, luckymucklebackit said:

 

Sadly around the time I was applying for jobs in the railways, that important question "Does your Father work for the Railway" still had a lot of weight behind it, and I had to honestly reply - no!

 

Jim

 

One of the panel at my interview asked to be remembered to my father.  I was a yes to said question.

 

A driver I knew had first started on the railway at the end of the 1930's economic slump. Word had gone round the town that the local shed was taking on two lads as cleaners. On the appointed day there are about 200 lads queued up waiting for an interview, with each lad just getting a couple of minutes to make a good impression. Eventually it was my driver friends turn to see the Shed Master. "Are you Sammy's lad?" asks the great man (My driver friends father Sam having worked at the shed until his death a few years before.) On saying that yes he was, he was told to go to the office and get a ticket to go for his medical, and the process of choosing the second applicant from the other 199 continued.

[adb968008]

6 hours ago, Trog said:

 

One of the panel at my interview asked to be remembered to my father.  I was a yes to said question.

 

A driver I knew had first started on the railway at the end of the 1930's economic slump. Word had gone round the town that the local shed was taking on two lads as cleaners. On the appointed day there are about 200 lads queued up waiting for an interview, with each lad just getting a couple of minutes to make a good impression. Eventually it was my driver friends turn to see the Shed Master. "Are you Sammy's lad?" asks the great man (My driver friends father Sam having worked at the shed until his death a few years before.) On saying that yes he was, he was told to go to the office and get a ticket to go for his medical, and the process of choosing the second applicant from the other 199 continued.

things dont change.

we opened a position in our company and got nearly 450 applicants overnight. The guy who got it was already known to a few.

[dana]

 

wish list for Hornby skaledale 2021 ?

 

 

 

 

[rockershovel]

14 hours ago, adb968008 said:

things dont change.

we opened a position in our company and got nearly 450 applicants overnight. The guy who got it was already known to a few.

 

The problem is, when you have such a surplus of applicants, the selection process breaks down under its own weight. At least 80% of those applicants are of no real interest, being obviously generic, or offering little relevant experience or none at all, or some cogent reason why they aren’t suitable. Applications are ruthlessly pruned on grounds of age, although (once again) nobody is going to admit this.

 

Another 10% or so can be quickly eliminated (applicants who have previously been passed over for similar roles, by present or past employers, often fall at this fence, as do candidates requiring retraining or recertification of some sort either before starting work, or in the near future). 

 

At this point, the employer is selecting candidates by criteria which are arbitrary or simply random, to reduce the field quickly. It used to be common knowledge that applications sent in brown envelopes, rather than white, were binned unread; as were applications sent under 2nd class postage, rather than 1st. 

 

There is probably a residual pool of around 5-10% of applicants, most of which could do the job, but none of which meet the (probably over-optimistic or unrealistic) criteria specified by HR. There is often a further problem, that HR and operational management don’t agree fully on the actual required attributes. Ops Management will usually want a different candidate to HR. Ops Management are rarely much interested in “diversity”, although nobody is going to ADMIT that; they just want the most promising candidate. HR don’t usually share this view. 

 

At this point, the selection panel are making decisions for internal reasons, depending on who actually has control, or most influence. The defined criteria don’t actually produce a clearly defined outcome, so it comes down to either increasing the number of criteria (more key-words) or looking at undefined criteria or intangibles. Having some intangible connection with the company (which often can’t be advertised, but is understood by the selection panel) may well be decisive at this stage. 

 

 

Edited September 15, 2020 by rockershovel

[The Pilotman]

15 hours ago, adb968008 said:

things dont change.

we opened a position in our company and got nearly 450 applicants overnight. The guy who got it was already known to a few.

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know 

[caradoc]

3 hours ago, Western Aviator said:

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know 

 

Not always. Some years ago I interviewed candidates for a job in a railway control office, one of whom worked for the railway already and was known to us. To ensure fairness we asked every candidate exactly the same questions, and we did not ask anything technical; For example, we asked what the role of their prospective employer, Network Rail, was in the rail industry, on the basis that someone wanting to work for the company would at least have done some research on what we did. How wrong I was ! So the person we knew got the job, because they were the only one who knew anything, at all, about the railway.  

 

[Wickham Green too]

8 hours ago, rockershovel said:

 

.... applications sent in brown envelopes, rather than white, were binned unread ..........

 

Wish I was your bin man - the brown ones are the ones with used notes in ...............

[Steadfast]

An unusual movement today, not only was it a trio of power cars, but the 47 was on the back, not hauling the power cars!

Triple headed HST by Steadfast Fotography, on Flickr

Another trio of power cars off for overhaul, power door controls and some shiny green paint, 43029 leads 43027 and 43022 away from Westerleigh Junction running as 5E23 from Laira to Doncaster. Presumably the two trailers (42087 and 42580) are in line for the power door treatment. 47815 'Lost Boys 68 - 88' was bringing up the rear of this ROG operated move. I reckon this will be my last photo of an FGW blue power car, 14 years after the livery first appeared.

 

Jo

Edited September 15, 2020 by Steadfast

[45125]

On 14/09/2020 at 13:29, Jeremy C said:

 

An interesting question. I don't have my 1972 rule book to hand right now, but I was looking at it last night. Shunting locomotives operating round stations needed their red and white lights illuminated. Trains consisting of light engines needed an illuminated red light at the rear, but I am not at all sure whether showing an illuminated white light was permitted, and as I recall the two lights cannot be controlled separately on an 08. However, as an ordinary train (not a light engine movement), there needed to be a tail lamp "in working order" (I forget the precise wording), but it did not need to be illuminated except after dark, in snow, running through tunnels and some other situations.

 

I think the distinction between whether an illuminated red light or a red tail lamp in working order was required really came down to whether the train had a guard. With a light engine movement, the driver was responsible for flicking a switch; with a train, the guard was responsible for hanging a lamp on the back. Here we appear to have a situation where there isn't an appropriate switch to be flicked, and no guard to hang a lamp.

 

At some point (and I think it was before the 1996 rule book, but I don't have a date) the tail lamp rule was changed to say it always needed to be illuminated.

The marker lights on 350s could all be operated individually with the original fittings, they all had a toggle switch fitted underneath or on the side.

 

[rockershovel]

8 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Wish I was your bin man - the brown ones are the ones with used notes in ...............

 

One thing I’ve always greatly appreciated about this country, is the general standard of probity in such matters. There was always favouritism, nepotism and patronage, but outright bribery? Very rare, in such things. 

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

While looking for livery variations I spotted this picture, second one down within the link, of a D5228 hauling a train headed by fourteen brake vans:

 

https://www.derbysulzers.com/25078.html

 

Gibbo.

[Stubby47]

Not sure what to do with those left over chairs and fishplates?

 

Pile them on a brake van.

 

[Miserable]

On 13/09/2020 at 21:30, Wickham Green too said:

No tail lamp ?

Not needed when shunting within Station Limits (that's as in signal box, there didn't actually have to be a physical station!), but required when standing on a running line, loop or reception line (i.e. actually a train) or fouling clearing points. Red marker to the rear (checked by the guard when (s)he was acting as a second man. e.g. getting an engine off shed). Class 6 freights always a red to the rear. Don't forget the purpose of a tail lamp is to show the train is complete, it's not like car tail lights. Brake vans would show three reds to the rear, unless on a 'slow' line, loop or reception road where the lamp nearest the running line in the direction of traffic is white (take the red slide out). Then three reds again for the next running line and so on.

[rab]

2 hours ago, Stubby47 said:

Not sure what to do with those left over chairs and fishplates?

 

Pile them on a brake van.

 

 

Those chairs bring back a few memories.

I worked in a small foundry for a few years

and we used to get those in the scrap. 

They were good quality iron and made  good castings.

I have to confess to having broken up a few myself!

We used to turn them upside down,

one hit in the middle with a sledgehammer

and they were small enough to go in the furnace.

Edited September 20, 2020 by rab

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, Stubby47 said:

Not sure what to do with those left over chairs and fishplates?

 

Pile them on a brake van.

 

A quick way of increasing the ballast?

[Colin_McLeod]

When RPSI was restoring a brake van they found tons of chairs and other heavy stuff below the floor.

[SHMD]

44 minutes ago, melmerby said:

A quick way of increasing the ballast?

 

..but no way of calculating brake force.

It's also an unsecured load so I suspect it wasn't going very far.

 

 

Kev.

[Phil Mc]

1 hour ago, rab said:

 

Those chairs bring back a few memories.

I worked in a small foundry for a few years

and we used to get those in the scrap. 

They were good quality iron and made  good castings.

I have to confess to having broken up a few myself!

We used to turn them upside down,

one hit in the middle with a sledgehammer

and they were small enough to go in the furnace.

It must have been a small foundry if the furnace wasn’t big enough to take a complete chair !!

 

cheers,

Phil,

[Stubby47]

I think it was remains of recent trackwork at B&W. The van was parked in Platform 1,  between a coach and a Sentinel.

The occasion was an open day for railway volunteers and BRPS members, partly to try out some social distancing measures. 

 

[melmerby]

A loco so famous it had a song written about it. (Randy & the Rainbows).

It later had a sex change.

[rab]

13 hours ago, Phil Mc said:

It must have been a small foundry if the furnace wasn’t big enough to take a complete chair !!

 

cheers,

Phil,

They were broken up to aid handling.

The furnace was charged manually,

stood next to it throwing in iron, coke etc

for four or five hours at a time was not

the easiest of tasks 

[Wickham Green too]

Surely EVERYONE knows that 61338 didn't have oval buffers .....

 

 

 

 

[JamieR4489]

... and that 61338 is a B1, not a Southern mogul...

[Gibbo675]

2 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Surely EVERYONE knows that 61338 didn't have oval buffers .....

 

 

 

 

Hi Whickham,

 

It reminds me of this sort of thing:

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OO-gauge-scrapyard-B12-Class-loco-heavily-rusted-and-weathered-Ref-3/303692500641?hash=item46b57bcea1:g:rsYAAOSwOQ9fQQvD

 

Gibbo.