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Film - Shunters at Work


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  • 2 weeks later...
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Fascinating film, thanks for posting. I know things have moved on since the 1970's but there is one aspect of this which is still really relevant;

 

"You've got to break every rule in the book to get the trains out and that's great until something goes wrong, and then they throw the rule book at you".

 

A lot of what I do for a living is about changing management culture in infrastructure projects and I am going to store this away to use as an illustration of the worst sort of HSE management...

 

G

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The Australian railway scene back then was a real mix of US and UK practice's

 

It's not too long ago that shunting was carried out in this country in the way shown on the film.

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I think it was even more (potentially) dangerous in UK yards, as we had no auto couplers, so there was a lot more getting in between wagons to couple up/uncouple, and riding on shunters' poles. Even more worrying (to me anyway) is that many of the drivers doing work in yards were green-carded (medically restricted) men, and concentration wasn't always their greatest characteristic.....I had more than one close call when a junior, especially at Dover Town Yard and Link-Span. It would take me a lot longer than the regulars to hook up or uncouple, especially when vac pipes were stiff on multi's. Drivers "didn't see me". Yeah, right.

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