How many times was it found that railwaymen's stories were a bit unbelievable/exaggerated or outright madeup?

[The Stationmaster]

17 hours ago, johnofwessex said:

I remember coming back to Swansea from Camarthen on a GW150 service behind Raveningham Hall, I have no idea how fast we went out of Camarthen but 'Hold On Tight' was the order of the day.  

 

Not to be forgotten

Regrettably (in some respects) not particularly fast on that working as the Inspector in charge was pretty cautious and i was trying to balance what at the punters wanted with what the professional opinion of what Inspector was prepared to do.  And I was under pressure to get 'a more sparkling prerformance'' from two retired - but previously very senior indeed - WR managers

[The Stationmaster]

14 hours ago, pH said:

When suburban (short- and long-distance) services south of the Clyde were steam-hauled, it was mostly 2-6-4 tanks that were in charge - Fairburns and Standards. I had a few interesting(!) trips on those services - I travelled daily for a few years.
 

The one I was referring to was a journey behind a Standard 4 tank which, from a start at Hillington East, was doing over 80 by the time the driver shut off and braked (hard) about the present site of Shields depot on the approach to Glasgow Central.

The Glasgow suburban services were known - possibly even back then - for some fairly wild antics on the part of some Drivers - whi  in a number of cases definitely subsequently found to be under the affluence of incohol.  Back in the 1970s I attended a course at Crewe, Webb House, on the disciplinary procedure specifically for traincrew managers and there was a chap there from Clydeside.  Apparently Monday was 'disciplinary case hearings day'. and there would be a long line of miscreants waiting their turn outside the Regional Traincrew Manager's office with consumption of alcohol while on duty being the most common alleged offence.

 

There was, near one of the main Glasgow termini an establishment known as 'the wee bar' and in the evenings most of the customers were Drivers on duty and not all were caught in the occasional managerial spot checks.  There were some very hair raising tales of Drivers very much under the influence on the Clydeside electrics including one who had run through half a dozen stations without stopping as booked and who was eventually topped by a signal set to danger to acruate the AWS (so the story went) and the Driver had to be lifted out of the cab.  

 

No doubt - as in my own experience of some of them - Drivers who had been able to sink considerable quantities of beer and then sweat it off back in steam days carried their habit through to modern traction which involved far less physical exercise.  Akthough I kearnt taht the principal problem in Glasgow was the 'wee dram' - not beer.  I know that at one time things got so bad that a senior manager asked to be removed from his post because he considered it imposible to deal, in the way he thought is should be handledh,  with the alcohol problem among certain grades of staff. he was moved to the WR!). 

[62613]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

The Glasgow suburban services were known - possibly even back then - for some fairly wild antics on the part of some Drivers - whi  in a number of cases definitely subsequently found to be under the affluence of incohol.  Back in the 1970s I attended a course at Crewe, Webb House, on the disciplinary procedure specifically for traincrew managers and there was a chap there from Clydeside.  Apparently Monday was 'disciplinary case hearings day'. and there would be a long line of miscreants waiting their turn outside the Regional Traincrew Manager's office with consumption of alcohol while on duty being the most common alleged offence.

 

There was, near one of the main Glasgow termini an establishment known as 'the wee bar' and in the evenings most of the customers were Drivers on duty and not all were caught in the occasional managerial spot checks.  There were some very hair raising tales of Drivers very much under the influence on the Clydeside electrics including one who had run through half a dozen stations without stopping as booked and who was eventually topped by a signal set to danger to acruate the AWS (so the story went) and the Driver had to be lifted out of the cab.  

 

No doubt - as in my own experience of some of them - Drivers who had been able to sink considerable quantities of beer and then sweat it off back in steam days carried their habit through to modern traction which involved far less physical exercise.  Akthough I kearnt taht the principal problem in Glasgow was the 'wee dram' - not beer.  I know that at one time things got so bad that a senior manager asked to be removed from his post because he considered it imposible to deal, in the way he thought is should be handledh,  with the alcohol problem among certain grades of staff. he was moved to the WR!). 

On which note, and slightly OT, wasn't the driver of the train involved in the Eltham Well Hall derailment over the limit? 

[keefer]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Although I learnt taht the principal problem in Glasgow was the 'wee dram' - not beer.

Typical drink of choice for Scottish men of the time was "a hauf an' a hauf".

Standard pub measure of spirits was usually a 1/5 gill (England i think was 1/6 gill) but a lot of smaller, older bars would have 1/4 gill - so presumably a double measure became known as a 'hauf' (1/2 gill).

The second "hauf" was a half-pint of beer as a chaser (typically 'Heavy' or bitter rather than lager).

 

I'm sure I've read an accident report in the Glasgow/Clyde area where, although not completely intoxicated, the driver was found to have had a few drinks in the Station Bar before taking over his train.

 

@62613 the accident report for Eltham Well Hall is here:

https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/eventsummary.php?eventID=134

Primary cause excessive speed due to driver intoxication (equivalent to 8.5 pints of beer or 8.5 measures of spirits).

 

Edited February 23, 2023 by keefer

[Wheatley]

On 19/02/2023 at 21:48, Wheatley said:

Things I know to be true because I was there or had to deal with the aftermath or part of it:

 

Signalman P being reduced to the ranks for getting caught with a topless model in his box, followed a couple of weeks later by our SM making a valiant but unsuccessful attempt to buy every copy of Razzle within a ten mile radius. I got P's job. 

[MJI]

22 hours ago, johnofwessex said:

I remember coming back to Swansea from Camarthen on a GW150 service behind Raveningham Hall, I have no idea how fast we went out of Camarthen but 'Hold On Tight' was the order of the day.  

 

Not to be forgotten

 

GWR150. I am sure Clun Castle was doing well over 60 on the Gloucester Swindon line nearer Swindon end, I would guess at least 70, been in the front seats of a DMU along the same line watching the speedo and rev counter, 90 and in the red, I thought Diesels were governed.

[Enterprisingwestern]

2 minutes ago, MJI said:

I thought Diesels were governed.

, but can be "adjusted".

 

Mike.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Enterprisingwestern

[The Johnster]

8 hours ago, LMS2968 said:

More than slightly OT, but Joe Brown was more than a minor early rock 'n' roll star and was well known and respected within the business, and with recording success to his name. What's more, he's still touring!

 

He must be knocking on a bit; I'm 71 on Monday and he's got a good ten years on me!  Not sure I'd want to be touring, that's a young mans' game.  Good for him, he's a decent sort for a chat in the Bridgnorth station bar... 

[OnTheBranchline]

2 hours ago, Wheatley said:

 

Times have changed, haven't they? That wouldn't lift an eyebrow these days.

[MarkC]

12 minutes ago, OnTheBranchline said:

 

Times have changed, haven't they? That wouldn't lift an eyebrow these days.

Indeed so - and didn't the skipper of some RN war canoe get into hot water because a certain Mary Millington came on board his battlewagon & had some <ahem> 'interaction' with a few of his crew?

[MJI]

1 hour ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

, but can be "adjusted".

 

Mike.

 

Was a lively ride as well. But was quick. I _THINK_ it was a BR 119. As decentish seats and they were all B on that service.

[The Johnster]

2 hours ago, keefer said:

 

@62613 the accident report for Eltham Well Hall is here:

https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/eventsummary.php?eventID=134

Primary cause excessive speed due to driver intoxication (equivalent to 8.5 pints of beer or 8.5 measures of spirits).

 

The Eltham Well Hall crash marked something of a sea change in attitudes to drinking on the railway.  As has been said, in steam days it would have been cruel to deny a crew that had worked a rough job on a hot day the chance of a beer or two, and I worked in the 70s on a railway with a strong and established drinking culture.  The rules stated that a man must not be intoxicated when reporting for duty or become intoxicated on duty, which allowed a good bit of wobble room around individual staff, TCM, and roster clerk (the person responsible for observing the condition of men booking on duty 'alert and in good health' as the accident reports have it) interpretations of what did or did not constitute 'intoxication'.

 

By and large we used our own common sense with this.  A beer or maybe two on a hot day before working back home, perhaps one or two more if we were coming home on the cushions, in pubs near stations or sheds, why not?  But 'by and large' does not account for individuals who would drink a lot more.  Some of these were drunks who should not have been on the job, and some seemed capable of absorbing insane amounts of beer (and it was mostly beer, whiskey was a Scottish thing) and continuing seemingly unaffected by it.  One driver, a mere 4'6" and skinny, wiry, with it, not even standard gauge, was legendary for this, and on a job where we came back early from Severn Tunnel and 'flogged our tickets'*, I accompanied him into the 'Great Western' side bar, across the road from Cardiff Central and watched him down an amount of Brains Dark that his tiny frame seemed physically incapble of accommodating.  I made the mistake of going in rounds with him, and had to be poured into a taxi and sent home!  He had no swallow reflex and poured the stuff straight down!

 

At Eltham, IIRC, the crew had worked an excursion to Margate and had had enough time at the resort to imbibe enough to make them drunk, not to mention having bottled beer aboard the locomotive.  On the return journey, the secondman was at the controls while the driver slept it off in the shotgun seat, with the result that the train did not slow for a speed restricted curve and tipped down the embankment.  Both men's bodies were found to be well over the limit for car driving, and there is little doubt that they had abused the situation and paid the ultimate price.

 

I think we all realised that the writing was on the wall for the old ways after that, and some self-examination was in order and, for most of us, undertaken!  Random breathalyser testing was introduced shortly afterwards, which some men took as a personal insult to their common sense, but mostly we could see which way the wind was blowing and that it was inevitable.   This was the root of the current situation, when random testing for both alchohol and narcotics is standard practice, substance abuse is not tolerated at all, and the railway is safer for it. 

 

I have plenty of 'drunk on duty' stories nonetheless, such as the Canton guard (in my link) who had overdone it in the staff club at Temple Meads and tw^tted the SM out on the platform when he was remonstrated with (night in the cells, instant dismissal, quite properly), and drivers brawling in the street outside the 'Windmill' in Gloucester.  Happy days; well, not all the time, not entirely...

 

 

*Traincrew in the 70s had to fill out a daily return sheet with details of how they had used their time on duty, 'awaiting orders', walking time, preparation, train working with details of timings and loads, PNB, travelling or working home etc.  This was the basis of recording running details and of calculating pay and bonusses.  You were supposed to hand it to the roster clerk when you booked off duty, but it was normal practice if you wanted to get away a bit earlier to give it to a man who was going back to the shed anyway, and he'd hand it in with his.  This practice, actually fraud but nobody worried much about it so long as the job was done properly, was called 'flogging your ticket'.  It would be impossible nowadays, but was part of the 'different world back then' that everybody tells youngsters about now...

 

We were mostly unsupervised, being out on the road working trains, and trusted to do the job according to the rules.  Plenty of minor infractions of those when authority wasn't looking which they weren't as a rule, but in general that's what we did.  There was a sort of quid pro quo 'traditional' attitude that supervisors were expected to simultaneously tolerate the minor infractions and early finishes but keep a lid on anything dangerous; I'm sure Stationmaster Mike will have more to say on this aspect of the job.  We got on with, tried not to kill anyone, and the managers covered our sittydownbits and took the rap as much as they could if anything did go wrong, for which we respected them in due measure.  It sort of harked back to the days when railway managers considered themselves to be 'officers and gentlemen', and some of them still were.

 

 

 

 

[pH]

11 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

At Eltham, IIRC, the crew had worked an excursion to Margate and had had enough time at the resort to imbibe enough to make them drunk, not to mention having bottled beer aboard the locomotive.  On the return journey, the secondman was at the controls while the driver slept it off in the shotgun seat, with the result that the train did not slow for a speed restricted curve and tipped down the embankment.  Both men's bodies were found to be well over the limit for car driving, and there is little doubt that they had abused the situation and paid the ultimate price.

According to the accident report, the driver was driving at the time of the derailment. The secondman was not killed, though he was injured.

[Simon Lee]

26 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

 

The Eltham Well Hall crash marked something of a sea change in attitudes to drinking on the railway.  As has been said, in steam days it would have been cruel to deny a crew that had worked a rough job on a hot day the chance of a beer or two, and I worked in the 70s on a railway with a strong and established drinking culture.  The rules stated that a man must not be intoxicated when reporting for duty or become intoxicated on duty, which allowed a good bit of wobble room around individual staff, TCM, and roster clerk (the person responsible for observing the condition of men booking on duty 'alert and in good health' as the accident reports have it) interpretations of what did or did not constitute 'intoxication'.

 

By and large we used our own common sense with this.  A beer or maybe two on a hot day before working back home, perhaps one or two more if we were coming home on the cushions, in pubs near stations or sheds, why not?  But 'by and large' does not account for individuals who would drink a lot more.  Some of these were drunks who should not have been on the job, and some seemed capable of absorbing insane amounts of beer (and it was mostly beer, whiskey was a Scottish thing) and continuing seemingly unaffected by it.  One driver, a mere 4'6" and skinny, wiry, with it, not even standard gauge, was legendary for this, and on a job where we came back early from Severn Tunnel and 'flogged our tickets'*, I accompanied him into the 'Great Western' side bar, across the road from Cardiff Central and watched him down an amount of Brains Dark that his tiny frame seemed physically incapble of accommodating.  I made the mistake of going in rounds with him, and had to be poured into a taxi and sent home!  He had no swallow reflex and poured the stuff straight down!

 

At Eltham, IIRC, the crew had worked an excursion to Margate and had had enough time at the resort to imbibe enough to make them drunk, not to mention having bottled beer aboard the locomotive.  On the return journey, the secondman was at the controls while the driver slept it off in the shotgun seat, with the result that the train did not slow for a speed restricted curve and tipped down the embankment.  Both men's bodies were found to be well over the limit for car driving, and there is little doubt that they had abused the situation and paid the ultimate price.

 

I think we all realised that the writing was on the wall for the old ways after that, and some self-examination was in order and, for most of us, undertaken!  Random breathalyser testing was introduced shortly afterwards, which some men took as a personal insult to their common sense, but mostly we could see which way the wind was blowing and that it was inevitable.   This was the root of the current situation, when random testing for both alchohol and narcotics is standard practice, substance abuse is not tolerated at all, and the railway is safer for it. 

 

I have plenty of 'drunk on duty' stories nonetheless, such as the Canton guard (in my link) who had overdone it in the staff club at Temple Meads and tw^tted the SM out on the platform when he was remonstrated with (night in the cells, instant dismissal, quite properly), and drivers brawling in the street outside the 'Windmill' in Gloucester.  Happy days; well, not all the time, not entirely...

 

 

*Traincrew in the 70s had to fill out a daily return sheet with details of how they had used their time on duty, 'awaiting orders', walking time, preparation, train working with details of timings and loads, PNB, travelling or working home etc.  This was the basis of recording running details and of calculating pay and bonusses.  You were supposed to hand it to the roster clerk when you booked off duty, but it was normal practice if you wanted to get away a bit earlier to give it to a man who was going back to the shed anyway, and he'd hand it in with his.  This practice, actually fraud but nobody worried much about it so long as the job was done properly, was called 'flogging your ticket'.  It would be impossible nowadays, but was part of the 'different world back then' that everybody tells youngsters about now...

 

We were mostly unsupervised, being out on the road working trains, and trusted to do the job according to the rules.  Plenty of minor infractions of those when authority wasn't looking which they weren't as a rule, but in general that's what we did.  There was a sort of quid pro quo 'traditional' attitude that supervisors were expected to simultaneously tolerate the minor infractions and early finishes but keep a lid on anything dangerous; I'm sure Stationmaster Mike will have more to say on this aspect of the job.  We got on with, tried not to kill anyone, and the managers covered our sittydownbits and took the rap as much as they could if anything did go wrong, for which we respected them in due measure.  It sort of harked back to the days when railway managers considered themselves to be 'officers and gentlemen', and some of them still were.

 

 

 

 

As noted, the driver in the Eltham derailment was driving, not the secondman. Driver was killed, the secondman went on to have a long footplate career. 

They had passed down to Margate, the driver had been partaking of refreshment all afternoon, and encouraged the secondman to partake at Margate. There were bottles on the loco, but one of the C&W lads l worked with  at Dover attended, as part of the recovery teams found bottle necks with the caps still in place. 

 

As an aside, another former colleague at Dover had just taken duty on his first shift flying solo in South Eastern control, and his first phone call was from a distressed railman at Eltham Well Hall.....

[pH]

3 hours ago, keefer said:

I'm sure I've read an accident report in the Glasgow/Clyde area where, although not completely intoxicated, the driver was found to have had a few drinks in the Station Bar before taking over his train.

The crew involved in the accident at Wormit in 1955 had been in the pub beforehand, though the inspector writing the accident report does not definitely state that the driver was intoxicated. (I know this isn’t Glasgow area.)

 

 

[OnTheBranchline]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

 

The Eltham Well Hall crash marked something of a sea change in attitudes to drinking on the railway.  As has been said, in steam days it would have been cruel to deny a crew that had worked a rough job on a hot day the chance of a beer or two, and I worked in the 70s on a railway with a strong and established drinking culture.  The rules stated that a man must not be intoxicated when reporting for duty or become intoxicated on duty, which allowed a good bit of wobble room around individual staff, TCM, and roster clerk (the person responsible for observing the condition of men booking on duty 'alert and in good health' as the accident reports have it) interpretations of what did or did not constitute 'intoxication'.

 

By and large we used our own common sense with this.  A beer or maybe two on a hot day before working back home, perhaps one or two more if we were coming home on the cushions, in pubs near stations or sheds, why not?  But 'by and large' does not account for individuals who would drink a lot more.  Some of these were drunks who should not have been on the job, and some seemed capable of absorbing insane amounts of beer (and it was mostly beer, whiskey was a Scottish thing) and continuing seemingly unaffected by it.  One driver, a mere 4'6" and skinny, wiry, with it, not even standard gauge, was legendary for this, and on a job where we came back early from Severn Tunnel and 'flogged our tickets'*, I accompanied him into the 'Great Western' side bar, across the road from Cardiff Central and watched him down an amount of Brains Dark that his tiny frame seemed physically incapble of accommodating.  I made the mistake of going in rounds with him, and had to be poured into a taxi and sent home!  He had no swallow reflex and poured the stuff straight down!

 

At Eltham, IIRC, the crew had worked an excursion to Margate and had had enough time at the resort to imbibe enough to make them drunk, not to mention having bottled beer aboard the locomotive.  On the return journey, the secondman was at the controls while the driver slept it off in the shotgun seat, with the result that the train did not slow for a speed restricted curve and tipped down the embankment.  Both men's bodies were found to be well over the limit for car driving, and there is little doubt that they had abused the situation and paid the ultimate price.

 

I think we all realised that the writing was on the wall for the old ways after that, and some self-examination was in order and, for most of us, undertaken!  Random breathalyser testing was introduced shortly afterwards, which some men took as a personal insult to their common sense, but mostly we could see which way the wind was blowing and that it was inevitable.   This was the root of the current situation, when random testing for both alchohol and narcotics is standard practice, substance abuse is not tolerated at all, and the railway is safer for it. 

 

I have plenty of 'drunk on duty' stories nonetheless, such as the Canton guard (in my link) who had overdone it in the staff club at Temple Meads and tw^tted the SM out on the platform when he was remonstrated with (night in the cells, instant dismissal, quite properly), and drivers brawling in the street outside the 'Windmill' in Gloucester.  Happy days; well, not all the time, not entirely...

 

 

*Traincrew in the 70s had to fill out a daily return sheet with details of how they had used their time on duty, 'awaiting orders', walking time, preparation, train working with details of timings and loads, PNB, travelling or working home etc.  This was the basis of recording running details and of calculating pay and bonusses.  You were supposed to hand it to the roster clerk when you booked off duty, but it was normal practice if you wanted to get away a bit earlier to give it to a man who was going back to the shed anyway, and he'd hand it in with his.  This practice, actually fraud but nobody worried much about it so long as the job was done properly, was called 'flogging your ticket'.  It would be impossible nowadays, but was part of the 'different world back then' that everybody tells youngsters about now...

 

We were mostly unsupervised, being out on the road working trains, and trusted to do the job according to the rules.  Plenty of minor infractions of those when authority wasn't looking which they weren't as a rule, but in general that's what we did.  There was a sort of quid pro quo 'traditional' attitude that supervisors were expected to simultaneously tolerate the minor infractions and early finishes but keep a lid on anything dangerous; I'm sure Stationmaster Mike will have more to say on this aspect of the job.  We got on with, tried not to kill anyone, and the managers covered our sittydownbits and took the rap as much as they could if anything did go wrong, for which we respected them in due measure.  It sort of harked back to the days when railway managers considered themselves to be 'officers and gentlemen', and some of them still were.

 

 

 

 

how were BR not sued into bankruptcy after that crash with one of their drivers driving drunk killed a bunch of people?

[Enterprisingwestern]

11 minutes ago, OnTheBranchline said:

how were BR not sued into bankruptcy after that crash with one of their drivers driving drunk killed a bunch of people?

 

Primarily because it didn't happen yesterday, believe it or not a lot was tolerated with a shrug of the shoulders back in the day, not a phone call/video to the newspapers/internet/television, oh, and then eventually the police.

 

Mike.

[Mark Saunders]

11 minutes ago, OnTheBranchline said:

how were BR not sued into bankruptcy after that crash with one of their drivers driving drunk killed a bunch of people?

Judging yesterday by the standards of today!

[LMS2968]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

He must be knocking on a bit; I'm 71 on Monday and he's got a good ten years on me!  Not sure I'd want to be touring, that's a young mans' game.  Good for him, he's a decent sort for a chat in the Bridgnorth station bar... 

Yep, my next door neighbours went to see him in October last year. I'd have gone too had I known in time.

[OnTheBranchline]

24 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Primarily because it didn't happen yesterday, believe it or not a lot was tolerated with a shrug of the shoulders back in the day, not a phone call/video to the newspapers/internet/television, oh, and then eventually the police.

 

Mike.

 

That doesn't make it right.

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, MJI said:

 

GWR150. I am sure Clun Castle was doing well over 60 on the Gloucester Swindon line nearer Swindon end, I would guess at least 70, been in the front seats of a DMU along the same line watching the speedo and rev counter, 90 and in the red, I thought Diesels were governed.

Er 'no specificcomment' -- In view of what happened as a result of that train's early arrival at Swindon I was closely questioned regarding its speed between leaving Kemble and arriving at Swindon.  Ths was because I had planned the trips, and therefore had a measure of responsibility for them particularly if - as on that occasion - it resulted in delay to other trains.  However, of course, all working speeds were the responsibility of the Inspector travelling on the engine and not my responsibility.  My answer now is exactly the same as it was then - 60mph and that was calculated from times recorded on a stopwatch and checked against my own watch.  However I did not record anything other than start, pass, and stop times so the 60mph was arrived at by calculation from those times.

 

What I will say is that on the climb up to Sapperton 7029 beat the booked running times for an HST by soime minutes but then madea slow approach towards the signal stop at Kemble.  I have a very detailed log of that run carefully stashed away with my logs ov  f various other runs over the route ias part of the FW150 celebrations and the trains were very conservatively timed to ensure reliability hence it was very easy to gain time.

6 minutes ago, OnTheBranchline said:

how were BR not sued into bankruptcy after that crash with one of their drivers driving drunk killed a bunch of people?

Because there was considerable care in the wording of the report and of course there was no legal definition applicable to the railway of what counted as 'intoxicated to a level where someone was unfit to carry out their work in the correct manner'.  Any such claim would have been on a hiding to nothing.

 

The other problem back then was that although the Rules forbade drinking on duty there was no clear  requirement not to drink alcohol before going on duty (that changed with the issue of the 1972 Rule Book).  It was always extremely difficult to ascertain if a hardened regular drniker was unfit for work and having known a couple of alcoholics (one of whom was a Driver and was noticeable after drinking a couple of bottles of scotch) beer drinking alcoholics were not easy to pick out as being under the influence.  The only way you could normally catch them was if you caught them red handed drinking on duty - as I did purely by chance late one evening with a member of platform staff who I suspended from duty on the spot (he was summarily dismissed the following day).

 

While things tightened up somewhat after Eltham Well Hall, especially in respect of supervisory checks for staff booking on duty and keeping an eye out for the likely miscreants drinking while on duty the real change didn't come until nearly a couple of decades later when it became a criminal offence for safety critical railway employees to report for duty under the influence of drink or drugs (and subject to professional testing including calling in a door to take a blood sample.  Plus BR added a requirement for those addicted to either alcohol or illegal drugs to declare itand be prepared to accept treatment or become subject to dismissal if it later came to light that the were addicted and were found out.  And of course it also became a criminal offence for such people to drink alcohol etc while on duty.  (Section 27 1992 T&W Act).  And in implementing it BR applied even stricter measures than those spelt out in the Act..

[OnTheBranchline]

23 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Er 'no specificcomment' -- In view of what happened as a result of that train's early arrival at Swindon I was closely questioned regarding its speed between leaving Kemble and arriving at Swindon.  Ths was because I had planned the trips, and therefore had a measure of responsibility for them particularly if - as on that occasion - it resulted in delay to other trains.  However, of course, all working speeds were the responsibility of the Inspector travelling on the engine and not my responsibility.  My answer now is exactly the same as it was then - 60mph and that was calculated from times recorded on a stopwatch and checked against my own watch.  However I did not record anything other than start, pass, and stop times so the 60mph was arrived at by calculation from those times.

 

What I will say is that on the climb up to Sapperton 7029 beat the booked running times for an HST by soime minutes but then madea slow approach towards the signal stop at Kemble.  I have a very detailed log of that run carefully stashed away with my logs ov  f various other runs over the route ias part of the FW150 celebrations and the trains were very conservatively timed to ensure reliability hence it was very easy to gain time.

Because there was considerable care in the wording of the report and of course there was no legal definition applicable to the railway of what counted as 'intoxicated to a level where someone was unfit to carry out their work in the correct manner'.  Any such claim would have been on a hiding to nothing.

 

The other problem back then was that although the Rules forbade drinking on duty there was no clear  requirement not to drink alcohol before going on duty (that changed with the issue of the 1972 Rule Book).  It was always extremely difficult to ascertain if a hardened regular drniker was unfit for work and having known a couple of alcoholics (one of whom was a Driver and was noticeable after drinking a couple of bottles of scotch) beer drinking alcoholics were not easy to pick out as being under the influence.  The only way you could normally catch them was if you caught them red handed drinking on duty - as I did purely by chance late one evening with a member of platform staff who I suspended from duty on the spot (he was summarily dismissed the following day).

 

While things tightened up somewhat after Eltham Well Hall, especially in respect of supervisory checks for staff booking on duty and keeping an eye out for the likely miscreants drinking while on duty the real change didn't come until nearly a couple of decades later when it became a criminal offence for safety critical railway employees to report for duty under the influence of drink or drugs (and subject to professional testing including calling in a door to take a blood sample.  Plus BR added a requirement for those addicted to either alcohol or illegal drugs to declare itand be prepared to accept treatment or become subject to dismissal if it later came to light that the were addicted and were found out.  And of course it also became a criminal offence for such people to drink alcohol etc while on duty.  (Section 27 1992 T&W Act).  And in implementing it BR applied even stricter measures than those spelt out in the Act..

 

So two words: White Wash.

 

As well as the Cannon Street Crash made a push to any influences banned, right?

Edited February 23, 2023 by OnTheBranchline

[Wheatley]

2 hours ago, OnTheBranchline said:

 

Times have changed, haven't they? That wouldn't lift an eyebrow these days.

He'd have got away with it altogether if his moped hadn't been in one of the pics. In fact he got away with just the 5 days suspended loss of pay until it got in the national papers, then someone with a larger hat saw it and suddenly he was portering. Even his wife didn't know at first, he told her he'd been granted  five extra days off !

Copies of the mag were available from the P Way for a while, at several times the cover price. 

[LMS2968]

If you turn right out of Lime Street station, Liverpool, you will pass the Empire Theatre and come to the Legs of Mann pub on the next block; this was the unofficial train crew mess for the station. Since trains came and went all day (and night) long the landlord had ceased to concern himself with such minutiae as opening hours, and stayed open as long as men made the short walk from the station. It was inevitable that, sooner or later, Mr Plod should hear of this and arrived one afternoon when the doors should have been firmly shut, and arrested everyone inside.

 

There was chaos. Trains were marooned at platforms as their drivers or guards languished in the nick awaiting their turn to be charged, Since the platforms were well and truly occupied by trains that couldn't get out, the running lines were blocked back beyond Edge Hill with trains which could not get in.

 

Apparently, it took several hours to get relief crews and get the mess sorted out.

[Michael Hodgson]

Why do you think the now demolished pubs round here had names like The Talisman, the Railway Inn, The Railway Junction?

There was even one called the Six Bells !