Getting a footplate job in BR days

[Andy Kirkham]

A couple of years ago I read a newspaper obituary of an artist or writer (I cannot now remember who it was). Among the various jobs he had held before finding his vocation it was said that he had fired steam locomotives on the Seaton branch in Devon. This would have been in the 1960's. The impression given was that this was just one of a string of jobs that he had drifted in and out of rather casually, and this seems to be rather at odds with what I have always understood about career progression in steam days - namely that it was necessary to serve for a lengthy period as a cleaner before working on the footplate.

 

I am wondering whether there were ever any exceptions to this rule; was there ever a situation - perhaps especially in a rural area and near the end of steam - where it was possible to more-or-less walk into a footplate job?

 

Another question raised by this train of thought is: how long before the abolition of steam in a given area did BR cease to recruit and train men to work with steam? Or to put it another way: if I had been of age in the 1960s, what was the latest I could have joined the railway and still got to work on the footplate?

 

Andy Kirkham

[10800]

In the 50s it was difficult for the railways to recruit cleaners (better paid and cleaner jobs around) and so the career path to passed cleaner, fireman and beyond was much shorter. You could get to driver in a few years in some cases whereas before it could take decades.

[Arthur]

? Rate of promotion depended to a large degree on the number of men senior to you at your depot. ? At some depots men could be passed firemen for years awaiting a driving vacancy, elsewhere, moving upward could be quite quick. ? If you read any enginemens biographies you will see that often men moved depot, sometimes across the other side of the country, to gain quicker promotion.

 

IIRC Jim Carter, footplateman and photographer moved from Sutton Oak to Patricroft for this very reason.

 

It's very possible that at some depots someone working a few months as a cleaner might see the odd trip as a fireman.? 

 

Arthur

[pH]

I remember reading an article by a university student who had a summer job as a fireman on passenger trains on the LT&S lines at the very end of steam there. BR were having great difficulty in recruiting anyone to do the job there at that time. He was part of a small group who had a few days training in firing, went out on the road as 'third crew member' for a short time, but were then treated as regular firemen. I can't remember where the article was published - I'm not even sure when I saw it, though I think it was in the late 1960s.

[lapford34102]

Hi,

I'm not going to say that what's been described here never happened but it would have been against the rules. Knowing, and being passed on the relevant parts of the Rule Book, and I still have mine somewhere complete with stuck in amendments, was regarded as a given and anyone putting someone on the footplate mainline without being qualified was asking for trouble if something went wrong.

Recruitment was an issue in the 60's as few wanted to work in what was frankly grim conditions. Getting up at 3 in the morning to work in the cold on a dirty steam engine didn't exactly epitomise the swinging 60's. Weymouth in 67 had lost a lot of staff. Some had seen the writing on the wall and moved on to other things, others had taken the chance to retire and as mentioned a number had moved to depots where promotion was easier. They then delayed the Electrification scheme by a few months- result - short term staff problem so some staff did get the chance to move up.

I know of other examples of the "3rd man on the footplate" and whilst using them as firemen round the loco depot was seen as OK under close supervision anything more than that was unthinkable. But who knows what went on elsewhere.

Stu

[coachmann]

I just went into the shed in 1960, knocked on the shed foremans door and asked for a job. He thought it was gift week!

 

Following an extensive medical and eyesight test at Hunts Bank, I was given clothing, hat, wage docket, rags and bucket and told to clean a Fairburn Tank. Also helped the 'Disposal' team and showed how to lift heavy firebars from out of a firebox so some of the fire could be raked into the ashpan, and went undernieth the loco to rake out ashpan. Other jobs the first week included shovelling said ash out of the pit and onto the ground above. Then this lot into a 16ton mineral wagon. A bit like asking raw nurses to empty bedpans....if they lasted the first week they were fit for the job!

 

The second week I DMU'd into Machester to meet an inspector and other recruits and we travelled to Bolton shed for training on the footplate and learning rules, at first on dead rusting 'Austin Seven' 0-8-0s then on live engines. Being an enthusiast gave me a head start over the other guys as I knew quite a bit about a locos anatomy. At the end of the fortnights training we went to Bury shed to sit exams. I came out as a Passed Cleaner and never cleaned another engine! It was all firing or assisting the lighter-upper (on nights) after that.

 

Booking on at 12 midnight the first week, then 4am, 8am, 12noon, 4pm and 8pm the following weeks killed the job seeing as I was only 18 years old. It wasnt the work. I enjoyed it most of the time and built up strong legs and arms.

.

Larry G.

[Dagworth]

The whole line of promotion used to work on 'Seniority'

 

When you joined the line of promotion you gained your seniority date. I joined BR as a traction trainee on 15th July 1985. Because the position was part of the line of promotion to driver that date became my seniority date. If I'd joined as platform staff and then transfered to being a traction trainee my seniority would be the date that I'd transfered and in promotion prospects any time done on the platform wouldn't count.

I then passed out as a drivers assistant (secondman - the equivalent of fireman) and worked as such at Ipswich for a time. I could have stayed at Ipswich and would eventually have become a driver there.

Because of seniority though promotion wasn't straightforward. If I was the most senior secondman at the depot and a drivers job came up I could expect to get it, but if a secondman from another depot with greater seniority than me (perhaps a March man who'd joined in '83 as an example) applied for the job he would get it instead of me. The process was purely on seniority, no interviews, appraisals or anything, only on how long you'd been in the line.

 

Liekwise though I could apply for driving jobs at depots where the most senior secondman had a more recent seniority to me and I would get the job (Unless someone else also applied who had better seniority) In the end I moved to Charing Cross where the seniority date needed was anything before 1988.

 

Andi

[Oldddudders]

As Andi relates, seniority was everything, and in steam days, by and large, unless you were already in the Footplate Line of Promotion in your mid-teens, you would never enter those grades. I think Andi used what I believe was a "Clause 8" move under the 1922 Agreements to get his job at Charing Cross. Southern Region always had vacancies and was used to such moves, many of which cost it dear. EMU depots like Selhurst or Slade Green were never "full to establishment", and secondmen from other parts of the country, e.g. Glasgow, would apply for and gain a driving job. Traction and route learning would take up to 12 months, before such men actually did anything useful for Southern. Meanwhile, the moment they arrived on Southern, they would then apply for a driver's post back in their home city, which, being now in the driving grade, gave them seniority over all secondmen nationwide. Within the year, in many cases, a vacancy became available back at their original depot, and they were transferred back without ever having driven a train solo on Southern. I believe the footplate grades have benefitted more from privatisation than any other group of staff, with shortages of skilled men making a real market, and many being attracted by the higher salaries on offer at "posh" franchises. After all, which would you rather do every day - drive a Pendolino, Eurostar or HST, or run chimney-pot trips round dreary suburbs, stopping every mile or two? Thus, of course, the suburban TOCs have also had to offer enhanced rates to retain staff.

 

Signallers, all employed since 1.4.94 by Railtrack and then Network Rail, have enjoyed no such market opportunity, and thus may have found their earnings dropping behind the drivers, with whom there was a traditional claim for parity of responsibility.

[Fat Controller]

My old boss started his first railway career as a cleaner at Tunbridge Wells West in 1964- within a few months, he was a 'Passed Cleaner', firing for a 'Passed Fireman'. In theory, he shouldn't have been doing this, only being supposed to work with a fully-fledged driver, but there weren't enough, so the 'Passed' men got the local turns. However, not only was he doing this from his own shed, but he was being lent out to other Central Division sheds when they were short. He left the railway when steam finished down here, did a few different jobs, then returned to BR at Tonbridge as a guard, then Guard's Inspector.

I've not heard about anyone doing footplate work as a 'summer job' in the UK, but I do know someone who acted as an 'Aide de Conduite'('second man') from Chambery in the mid-1960s. I should add that his father was a very senior SNCF manager at the time, which probably helped...

Brian

[coachmann]

......within a few months, he was a 'Passed Cleaner', firing for a 'Passed Fireman'. In theory, he shouldn't have been doing this, only being supposed to work with a fully-fledged driver, but there weren't enough, so the 'Passed' men got the local turns.

The men I fired for as a passed cleaner were often passed firemen. I never wondered where their regular mates were....I just did as I was told. There were regular turns with crews where I hoped the fireman would do a sickie (such as the Delph job), but I never got it. Much of my work involved pilot duty at Mumps Bridge or Royton Junction or Ashton Moss. There were other turns where I was too busy to notice where we were until I recognised a landmark such as Brewery Sidings! ( Thinking about it, I think the only job I did when firing for an old driver when his regular fireman phoned in sick was the evening Clegg Street-Mirfield parcels. It wasnt the pleasantest of tasks when the driver made it clear he wanted an easy life, not a bl**dy passed cleaner!

[The Stationmaster]

It was not at all unusual in areas where the railway was 'unattractive' as an employer for people to follow a route similar to that taken by (or foisted on ) Larry - even in the early 1950s.

 

The bigger step - apart from qualifying for the permanent rate of pay on the basis of number of turns worked - was getting permanent appointment into a grade. Often this involved a move to large or less popular depots 'to get your job' and then putting in a First Preference to go back to your original home depot. The same thing happened on appointment to Driver and with All Line Vacancy Lists it was relatively easy, even in the 1970s/early'80s, to get rapid promotion - usually by applying for a suburban depot in the London area of the Southern Region, where Seniority Dates tended to be recent. At the same time you could look at somewhere like Fort William where Secondmen who were not prepared to move for a driving job were in their 50s and waiting for a local Driver to retire to get into the grade.

 

First Preference moves could sometimes be interesting; when HSTs penetrated to the West of England route in the late '70s the Driver's dates at Exeter and Penzance suddenly moved a decade or more overnight. One of my Drivers happened to have recorded a First Preference for Penzance years earlier when he had moved to get his driving job. In he was called to the office to be told that he would be starting at Penzance on Monday fortnight - 'unless we happen to have lost your note withdrawing your First Preference', we hadn't so he went. B)

[pH]

I've not heard about anyone doing footplate work as a 'summer job' in the UK,

 

After I posted that yesterday, I did some searching on the web. I found the original article I remembered - published in 1961. But here's a later, more detailed version - Temporary fireman .

[roythebus]

Reviving an old thread, what Oldudders says isn't quite right about preference moves. When a footplateman applied for promotion on the all line vacancy list, he would have to list his depots in order of preference.

 

So, if a kings Cross secondman wanted to stay at KX as a driver, he'd have to put that as preference 1. when a job appeared at KX, he would eventually move back there. If Selhurst was his 8th choice and he was the most senior applicant he'd get moved to SH as a driver, then back to KX when a job of his seniority appeared there. As others have said, the Southern was used as a stepping stone for promotional purposes and very often drivers would never drive a train in anger on the southern as route and traction learning could take years and their first preference depot would come up by that time!

 

The all line vacancy list would appear bi-monthly with lists of traction trainee, secondman and driver vacancies, with what depots had how many vacancies. Moves would be on "clause 8" as oldudders says which dated back many years and was very restrictive as to where footplate staff could move. I think an 8(a) move was a redundant man who could move anywhere there was a vacancy; he had absolute priority over everyone else. An 8(B) move was the preference transfer mentioned above and you could have one of these in each grade. Once you'd moved to your depot of first choice, you were stuck there forever unless you could get a mutual exchange with someone at another depot or use the once-in-a-lifetime 8© move!

 

For the unwary this was a mine field as one letter wrong in a name could make a big difference to where you had to live. Sometimes as Stationmaster says, a move could appear many years after the application was lodged. There was no option, you had to go!

 

My moves on BR were as traction trainee at Rugby, fresh recruit; appointed secondman at Rugby almost straight away as the vacancy list appeared a week later; I was not happy there for various reasons and used my 8© move to get to Kings Cross and thoroughly enjoyed most of the work there, loco hauled suburbans, empty coach moves, Deltics..interesting times. As I've mentioned on other threads, I was the first new recruit at Rugby for over 10 years!

 

I applied for driving jobs as soon as I'd done the required number of 2nd man turns, ISTR 500 turns, 2 years worth, but got nothing for a year or more. eventually I got Addiscombe, with an 8(B) preference for Waterloo. So that was my moves and would have been stuck at Waterloo for life, except my career was terminated, but the chances to move would have come with privatisation and the need for equality with the E* drivers from France who were on double what we were getting!

 

At Waterloo we had drivers from all over, Peterborough, Crewe, Northampton, Rugby, Salisbury, Eastleigh, Milton Keynes, Norwich and a large contingent from Bedford when the Bedpan became live. some of those did very little driving and there was even a blue "tourist plaque" in the messroom at Waterloo put there by Bill Hughes which read something like "on this site Phil C**** did very little from November 1983 to December 1986". These men commuted daily to Waterloo and this pattern was repeated over most of the country. That was the dedication of staff in those days.

 

In some northern outposts, those who chose not to move for promotion retired as passed secondmen as vacancies never appeared at their home depot! Virtually no new staff were taken on at depots outside London from before the end of steam to the mid 1970's, and in some places later than that, which is why there was a shortage of footplate staff in the mid 1980s that mike mentioned in his post.

 

This then had the knock-one effect of the 8(B) men moving back to their home depots, leaving a perpetual shortage of drivers at the London depots! The sheer antiquity of the footplate promotion and transfer system had a demoralising effect on staff even to the mid 1980's, and must have hampered the efficient running of the railway for years. Like a lot of the agreements, it was probably fit for purpose in the 1920s and 30s, but it should have been updated with the demise of steam or before.

[coachmann]

It is often said the railways found it difficult to recruit folk to do dirty filthy railway work. The job itself had barely changed since the year dot....It was the young people that had changed. I smile when I hear some of the commentaries on railway videos about how truly awful conditions were in steam days, but this is merely comparing todays sanitized world with that of yesteryear, which the video producers clearly cannot comprehend.

 

The job itself was enjoyable most of the time and carried with it more diginity than many a labouring job such as coal bagging, working on't bins, in a cotton mill, noisy steel yard, making plastic raincoats or down't pit. As I remember it, the 'killer' for youngsters in the later 1950s was shift work and they looked for any 'day' job that didn't get in the way of dating, pop music, dancing, pubs and sex. I followed this course too while earning good money in a pop group.....And yes we were all under age! But after a couple of years the group and groupies I opted for footplate work and shifts. It was 'my steady' that eventually objected to footplate work as she complained she never saw me!

[roythebus]

I think a certain Pete W may well go along with some of your sentiments there! His work on't footplate and later in't pop world has made him quite a bit over the years, which of course has benefited the railway preservation industry..

[The Stationmaster]

Adding to RTB's post above I've dug out my old ASLEF Conditions of Service book and there were 8 positions in order of preference for filling vacancies for Secondmen (as they were at the time of that edition) and Drivers. The full order - for anyone interested - was as follows (as parts of Cause 7 of the Promotion, Transfer & Redundancy Arrangements) -

i. Men originally made redundant at the depot and currently elsewhere with a first preference to return to that depot and men put back under redundancy and at that depot awaiting reinstatement to their proper grade,

ii. Applications for transfer under Clause 8b subject to there being no unappointed men senior to them at the depot concerned (basically men who went away and left thos depot as there first preference should a vacancy arise)

iii. Drivers and Secondmen whom it is necessary to allocate to work within their grade at another depot under Clause 10a (effectively on helath grounds if a suitable restricted job didn't exist at their original home depot.

iv. Applicants for transfer under Clause 8c subject to their being no unappointed men in the grade concerned at the depot to which transfer is requested (Clause 8c was an accommodation transfer, each man was allowed one move within the grade on this basis if he wished to register for one).

 

None of the above vacancies would be advertised on the Vacancy List - it would simple appear with their names in places in accordance with the above order of priority. Meanwhile at the depot you scanned the list to see who you were going to get back and celebrated or sought solace accordingly (usually the former - I only ever had one bloke come back with a 'reputation' and he was from before my time at the depot concerned and he turned out to be a smashing chap apart from his out of work interest in 'Moroccan Woodbine' but at least he kept that well clear of work until the Medical Officer explained how long the effects could last at which time he packed them in. Alas a tragic incident marred his later footplate career but I have also had immense respect for him, and still have).

 

And back to the order of preference and we are now down to 'open' vacancies which appeared as such on the Vacancy List -

v. Redundant men waiting to be placed in a job at their listed rate of pay. (very similar to priority i but they hadn't got a preference in for the depot where the vacancy existed). e.g Driver redundant at Bath Green Park who had perhaps a preference in for Bristol, Westbury and so on but decides to take a job at Reading when it come sup as an open vacancy).

vi. Senior applicant standing put-backfrom the grade in which the vacancy arises but not in receipt of the staff list rate of pay for that job.

vii. Senior unappointed applicant provided he is not junior to the senior unappointed man at the depot where the vacancy arises.

viii. Senior unappointed man at the depot concerned, if he is senior to all unappointed applicants or, alternatively, if there are no applicants for the vacancy (in other words if no one else wants it he gets it whether he wants it or not - at which point he immediately records an application for a Clause 8c accommodation move to a place where he does want to go and waits his turn to get there according to the above priorities).

 

In some respects quite an advance on some of the pre-Nationalisation conditions because while it gave folk a bit more scope to move and greater protection if redundant/put-back there was no longer any compulsion. As I understand it on the early GWR the equivalent of Cause 8viii above was Company wide and thus if no one else applied the, say, senior Cleaner/passed Cleaner on the Company's books would move to take a firing vacancy if no one else applied for it although he could then put in the equivalent of an 8c application (it might even have been automatic). This had the effect of producing some very different moves from later PT&R as men could go from comparatively good depots for promotion to somewhere else if there was no other way of filling a vacancy. Just how compulsory this was I don't know but it clearly worked like that before 1914 on the GWR in some circumstances.

[Rugd1022]

 

This then had the knock-one effect of the 8( B) men moving back to their home depots, leaving a perpetual shortage of drivers at the London depots! The sheer antiquity of the footplate promotion and transfer system had a demoralising effect on staff even to the mid 1980's, and must have hampered the efficient running of the railway for years. Like a lot of the agreements, it was probably fit for purpose in the 1920s and 30s, but it should have been updated with the demise of steam or before.

 

This was the situation on BR in a nutshell when I started... Monday 6th September 1982 along with fifteen others on the YTS scheme at Rugby station... come the new year and one morning the TCI from the Booking On Point downstairs came into the classroom and said ''right, there are eight Traction Trainee vacancies going begging down at Stonebridge Park, anyone interested get on the next one to London and I'll phone your names through to HQ".... so off eight of us went and that was that, we'd gained full time employment on BR due to a chronic shortage of footplate crew! None of us stayed at Stonebridge Park for very long, I moved to Old Oak, one or two moved to Northampton (Andy Rhodes was one) and one lad (Nodge Gordon I believe) went back to his native Wath area.

[6Y99]

Nigel Gordon ended up Worksop and later Toton and now kinda back near Worksop with FLHH at Rother Valley Depot

[roythebus]

Thanks to mike for the PT&R Agreement in full; quite difficult to understand and none of this was ever explained to anyone starting on the job at the time! So, a wrong move there and you could be stuck somewhere inconvenient for a long time!

 

I wonder how this compares to the current agreements if indeed there are any?

[Guest Phil]

It must be remembered that jobs in the 1960s were fairly easy to come by in towns and cities. The contraction of steam in the 1960s was partially aided by the lack of people prepared to get their hands dirty whilst working unsocial shifts. A batch of diesel shunt locos which were destined for northern depots were diverted to the West Midlands sheds in the mid 1960s, simply because the MPDs were struggling for footplate crew. Dropping a "350" shunt engine into a yard vice a steam engine instantly reduces the need for a much needed fireman / passed cleaner, remembering of course that the driver was probably already a "green carded" ex mainline driver anyway.

 

It is certainly true that cleaners in the 1960s very very quickly went out firing.

[The Stationmaster]

Thanks to mike for the PT&R Agreement in full; quite difficult to understand and none of this was ever explained to anyone starting on the job at the time! So, a wrong move there and you could be stuck somewhere inconvenient for a long time!

 

I wonder how this compares to the current agreements if indeed there are any?

 

As far as I can work out Roy there don't seem to be hardly any (big surprise that ) Moves between companies are straightforward - you apply for a job when it is advertised and are viewed and will probably have to undergo some sort of psychometric testing plus of course a medical and a drugs & alcohol test; if they want you and like you you'll get in as long as the D&A test is ok. If they don't want you you'll fail one of the tests.

 

Some companies have got internal arrangements regarding PT&R and in the best they are agreed with ASLE&F (the union which has done far more for its members under privatisation than, I think, any other in the rail industry) and most companies have at least internally published disciplinary procedures some of which I now are not much different from BR procedure. Alas there have been a couple of cowboy TOCs since privytisation and I hate to think what happened in those although I think all are pretty well sorted nowadays but there have been one or two 'make a fast buck' managerial types who have left a trail of havoc behind their short term cost saving schemes - one for instance cut out all the Spare Drivers during his brief tenure at one TOC and left a total mess plus a big cost increase for his successor to sort.

 

Conditions of employment vary enormously between companies as do salaries and in addition many will recruit potential Drivers 'off the street' and take them from there to sitting in the seat in not much over 6 months. It's all a very different world from the one most of us knew although I did manage a few years in it but at least it was in a decent operating company with some sense of the railway kind near enough the top to make a difference.

[roythebus]

I did try to get back on the railway a few years ago; took the test with EWS at Donny and failed, despite having done the job for about 20 years previously. It seems they don't want anyone with railway experience. Meanwhile I'll stick with running buses, after all I made more for running railway replacement buses for Connex and others than I ever did from driving trains.

 

The BR pension's useful though!

[The Stationmaster]

I did try to get back on the railway a few years ago; took the test with EWS at Donny and failed, despite having done the job for about 20 years previously. It seems they don't want anyone with railway experience. Meanwhile I'll stick with running buses, after all I made more for running railway replacement buses for Connex and others than I ever did from driving trains.

The BR pension's useful though!

The pension is definitely useful (more like essential in my case although it will reduce next year). Railway recruitment nowadays seems distinctly odd to me and there is, I get the impression, a definite feeling against those with past experience although operators will usually be keen to take someone who is currently a Driver because it substantially reduces their training costs.

 

One thing worth keeping in mind tho' is the job isn't what it used to be (I remember being told that not long after I started back in 1966) but today it is more true than ever with a lot of what we thought of as 'everyday railway work' barely 20 years ago now a thing of the past and found only in the memories of those who were around then. As for the railway of 20 years before that you might as well talk about life on Mars, it's totally incomprehensible to many of those about today - and that was 'only' 1972.

[roythebus]

When I was on the railway, everyone used to go in every day and think "it can't get worse". It did and according to what I've heard, it still does!

[phil-b259]

One thing worth keeping in mind tho' is the job isn't what it used to be (I remember being told that not long after I started back in 1966) but today it is more true than ever with a lot of what we thought of as 'everyday railway work' barely 20 years ago now a thing of the past and found only in the memories of those who were around then. As for the railway of 20 years before that you might as well talk about life on Mars, it's totally incomprehensible to many of those about today - and that was 'only' 1972.

 

Very true. Even though I've only been on the railway for a little over 10 years, some things (especially in respect of the amount of safety 'paperwork', rules and the way staff were trusted to get on with things) have change significantly. For example I remember the time before things like the mandatory wearing of hard hats at all times was imposed and that was in the days of slam door trains with fully opening windows. No doubt in future years I will be telling apprentices about the times when we were trusted to climb signal gantries without the requirement to get strapped into a climbers safety harness and have a colleague similarly equipped just in case you slip and end up dangling from a rope (right at drivers eye height I might add) and require rescuing (assuming a train doesn't get you first).

 

I have to say that at times like this many of my colleagues are happy to admit that things were far better in the days of individual IMCs - although that may well be because AMEC did seem to treat us well.