Station Pilot - What Does it Do?

[The Stationmaster]

As there was a hearing test for safety of the line purpose it would be interesting to now how an MO passed as fit a Drver who was deaf unless he was required to wear a hearing aid while at work.

 

Incidentally 'Green Card' in this context had nothing to with the railway's use of a green card on a defective vehicle but stemmed from the days of National Insurance Cards when a green NI card was issued to people who were Registered Disabled.  There was (probably from post WWII?  and definotely until the legislation was altered by the Thatcher Govt)  a legal requirement on all employers to have a minimum percentage of Registered Disabled people on their books, I think it was c.2% but its many years since I was last involved with it.

 

But in reality as time went by the term was used in a much wider context and in respect of anyone who was medically restricted in some way.

[Michael Hodgson]

6 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

 

 

A tad O/T sorry

Limerick Jcn was a very well known example where every train had to propel back into the platform and I'm not sure that even after layout alterations some might still have to.   No station pilots seem to have been involved in the reversal working there

 

 

...even further off topic ...

 

I was lucky enough to get a visit to the boxes shortly before they closed.  They weren't block posts on the main line but essentially a hole in an otherwise CTC route, and the trains no longer had to back in. 

Minature ETS instruments were still in use for the Limerick-Waterford route however.

 

What surprised me was that they didn't employ signalmen as such.  The frames were operated by railwaymen, whose main job covered general duties in the station, but they took turns on a rota on a formula of something like one week in six on signalling.

Being Ireland, distant levers were  still green.

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

Incidentally 'Green Card' in this context had nothing to with the railway's use of a green card on a defective vehicle but stemmed from the days of National Insurance Cards when a green NI card was issued to people who were Registered Disabled. 

 

Funny you should mention that.  I was going through some old paperwork this morning and found a "green card" which we used to need to take a car to the continent.  Also my old red Driving licence issude before DVLA and my ration book issued in 1973. .. when there was an oil crisis!

[roythebus1]

Going back on topic, re the American idea with brake valve and whistle, I don't see how the whistle could be used without applying the air brake. Surely the drop in pressure, unless it was a long train as many were in the USA, would apply the brake!

 

Kings Cross had 2 loco spurs that were usually the haunt of 1 shunt or 2 shunt. These were in latter years up to electrification always a class 31, though others have said that an 08 was sometime used ex Goods Yard. It's been known for a 47 to stand in for one of the station pilots. The shunt locos at KX were used to shunt parcels stock, Motorail stock, sleeping cars, you name it...and sometimes shunt and release a loco from the stops. It was a relatively easy job in latter years especially during the day. The crew would often spend the middle of the day having shall we say a liquid lunch either in the Salaried Staff dining club at the end of Platform 1 (incidentally a Macmullens vendor), or at the BRSA round the corner! If a job needed doing the foreman would send a secondman out to tell the crew.

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, roythebus1 said:

Going back on topic, re the American idea with brake valve and whistle, I don't see how the whistle could be used without applying the air brake. Surely the drop in pressure, unless it was a long train as many were in the USA, would apply the brake!

 

 

The whistle would use realtively little air, though the conductor would probably have used it sparingly,  but the brake valve would release enough pressure in the train line to apply the brakes.

I found a patent from 1995 for improvements in the whistle produced by existing end of train air hoses

https://patents.justia.com/patent/5536076 

and if you look up BACKUP BRAKE AND WHISTLE
VALVE HOSE ASSEMBLIES in this catalogue you'll see a modern example

http://www.stratoinc.com/sites/default/files/brochures-downloads/strato_product_catalog_0.pdf

In this context backup refers to backing up or reversing.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Pacific231G

[The Johnster]

6 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

As there was a hearing test for safety of the line purpose it would be interesting to now how an MO passed as fit a Drver who was deaf unless he was required to wear a hearing aid while at work.

 

Incidentally 'Green Card' in this context had nothing to with the railway's use of a green card on a defective vehicle but stemmed from the days of National Insurance Cards when a green NI card was issued to people who were Registered Disabled.  There was (probably from post WWII?  and definotely until the legislation was altered by the Thatcher Govt)  a legal requirement on all employers to have a minimum percentage of Registered Disabled people on their books, I think it was c.2% but its many years since I was last involved with it.

 

But in reality as time went by the term was used in a much wider context and in respect of anyone who was medically restricted in some way.

 

If my memory serves correctly, and I'd be the first to admit it doesn't, always, he wore a hearing aid.  Not sure how much use it was, but he could hear the AWS bells and horns.  I found that attracting his attention sometimes required some fairly vigorous gesticulation, but that working with him presented no real problems.  That said, it was a situation within my comfort zone; my mother had been hard of hearing and had to lip read to understand what was being said to her, so I was used to clearly forming words and mouthing them to help him. 

 

The turn was a morning Valleys jobs with a 116, ecs Canton dmu-Cardiff Central-Penarth-Rhymney-Penarth-Cardiff Central for relief.

[Steamport Southport]

Many ex crew I've met over the years were deaf as posts.

 

My mate's dad definitely was and he was still working on the railways until the early 1990s albeit in a management role. Started on the LMS and when the shake up was happening he decided it was time to retire.

 

 

Many of them were a bit like Uncle Staveley.  

 

 

[pH]

On 03/06/2022 at 15:07, Pacific231G said:

I remember reading somewhere, possibly in one of Lucius Beebe's books, that backing entire passenger trains into downtown passenger termini was quite a common manouever on some American railways particularly in the deep south.

 

14 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

St Louis Union comes to mind.

Still happens. The ‘Rocky Mountaineer’ backs into its own station here in Vancouver, for example.

Another is the Edmonton VIA station - it’s a dead end and trains have to reverse either in or out.

 

I’m sure people could add more examples.

Edited June 5, 2022 by pH

[johnofwessex]

When I was driving at Wolsztyn we had a points failure at one of the intermediate stations, my command of Polish is limited to 'Oh Dear this doesnt seem to work' and 'Right Away!' so I was a bit surprised when the Polish driver took over and we shot out of the station backwards before going 'wrong line' through the loop.

 

 

[roythebus1]

Like backing empty stock into Euston in the 1970s fro the down side carriage shed, it was the custom for the station pilot (usually a 25) to propel the train into the platform and the guard or shunter would apply the brake lightly to bring the train to a stop short of the blocks. Except one day...

 

a new chap from "abroad" came a bit unstuck. The driver on the 25 got the road to set back into the station and thought "we're going a bit fr for 10 on, better BANG stop".... wanders down the back where the train had hit the blocks and there was this foreign gentleman still winding the handbrake on!! He failed to understand he should have applied the vacuum brake!

[The Stationmaster]

15 hours ago, roythebus1 said:

Like backing empty stock into Euston in the 1970s fro the down side carriage shed, it was the custom for the station pilot (usually a 25) to propel the train into the platform and the guard or shunter would apply the brake lightly to bring the train to a stop short of the blocks. Except one day...

 

a new chap from "abroad" came a bit unstuck. The driver on the 25 got the road to set back into the station and thought "we're going a bit fr for 10 on, better BANG stop".... wanders down the back where the train had hit the blocks and there was this foreign gentleman still winding the handbrake on!! He failed to understand he should have applied the vacuum brake!

It used to be done at Paddington with just handsignals between the Shunter and the Driver on one move in from Paddington Sidings which had a brakevan almost at the loco end of the stock.  But the Shunter needed to be near the front end of the move in order to see signals and so had to cross from side to side of the vestibule s to handsignal the loco as the the curvature changed.  Technically of course it broke the Rules because the Driver kept going when neither he nor the Secondman could see the Shunter😇