"Travelling Shunter"

[Peter Kazmierczak]

My wife is doing a bit of family history and has found that her paternal grandfather was a "travelling shunter" with the Southern Railway. He lived in Thornton Heath and I'm wondering what's the difference between a travelling shunter and the more usual one?

[The Johnster]

The travelling of course.

 

A travelling shunter was a higher grade than a 'normal' shunter, who would be employed at a goods or marshalling yard or a station to perform the coupling and uncoupling of stock.  He would be passed out on rules and regulations concerning the use of couplings, vacuum and steam pipes, and so on.  A travelling shunter leaves the station or yard with a trip or pickup with the guard on the brake van to assist the guard with the shunting operations at the unstaffed private sidings or small yards visited, by shunting and by working ground frames and so on.  So, he had to have passed signalling rules and regulations, working of trains, and be cogniscent of engineering or other works notices of speed restrictions and occupations, and sign guards' route knowledge as well.

 

The next step up would be goods guard; these men were employed by the Traffic Department and followed that line of promotion.   So, your wife's paternal grandfather was a skillled and competent railwayman capable of pretty much any freight duty, and she should be proud of him.  When I started as a goods guard 'off the street recruited' at Canton in 1970, I learned most of what I knew from travelling shunters initially.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Thanks TJ; much appreciated.

I assume he might've been based at the nearby yard at Norwood Jn.

Any idea what they might've been earning; this was around 1939? Would it have been a reserved occupation as my wife can't find anything about him being in the services.

Edited November 30, 2021 by Peter Kazmierczak

[bécasse]

It would have been a reserved occupation depending on his age. My father was a London bus driver who was 31 in 1939 and so wasn't called up, younger men plus those that had been in the TA were called up.

[The Johnster]

On 30/11/2021 at 21:35, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Thanks TJ; much appreciated.

I assume he might've been based at the nearby yard at Norwood Jn.

Any idea what they might've been earning; this was around 1939? Would it have been a reserved occupation as my wife can't find anything about him being in the services.

Soz, no idea.  More than a shunter, less than a guard, but IWHT plenty of overtime available.  Yard shunting at a big marshalling yard like Norwood, basically dodging 20ton boxes on wheels trying to kill you and coming at you from several roads at once, in a blackout, sounds pretty terrifying to me; kudos to him.