rob D2 Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Hi, I was just watching some of the excellent 90s period videos by RUss and Tilly on youtube. Especially lots of engineers stuff going through ealing Broadway in 91-93, got me thinking..... With the break up of the railway into sectors - who did the drivers work for ? Sectors or depots ? If you were , say, an OOC man driving mainly HSTs could you be called upon to drive one of these knackered 47s on a ballast job ? Or would you decline as it's not your sector ? Were depots still arranged in 'links', was there a pecking order apparant still ? There is alot of info on the current scene in terms of driving/pay/conditions but this period doesn't seem to have much factual gen on these sort of things. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leon Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Been trying to find the videos on YouTube, can you send me the link, it the erea I'm modelling? Thanks Leon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
roythebus Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 Up till 1988 when i parted company with BR, the drivers were all employed by BR at their home depot. At Waterloo, an NSE depot, depending on what link the driver was in, he could cover any work at that depot which "could" be from the Waterloo & City to driving a 50 to Exeter! It depended on his link, route knowledge and traction knowledge. Everyone there knew the standard EMU stock except REP/TC, which were in links 1,2 and 3. Those were "mixed traction" links and learnt 33, 73, 47, 50 and 08. Only link 1 went to Exeter. All could do grotty ballast work whenever needed. hope this helps. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Parkinson Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 Likewise at Gillingham Kent where I was based until 1995. We were a mixed traction depot where every driver was EMU trained then there were seperate links for "juice" drivers only and mixed traction links for those trained on both multiple units and diesel locos which had both passenger and freight work. Although there had been sectorisation through Railfreight Distribution etc this only seemed to affect the type of work allocated to the depot and did not result in for example only certain drivers will drive certain trains, if for example a Railfright Construction train required a new crew as long as they had the relevant traction/route knowledge a crew from another sector could be used. It was only in the run up to privatisation that the true splits began with the freight work being transferred to a solely freight depot (Hoo Jcn) whcih then resulted in drivers only doing work for the "company" they worked for, this split resulted in the loss of both traction and route knowledge making it impossible for a flexible system as in BR days eg if the driver of a freight at a stand at gillingham became ill no longer would a spare man be found in the lobby he'd have to come all the way from the parent depot (progress!!). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob D2 Posted October 12, 2012 Author Share Posted October 12, 2012 Ok thanks, that all makes sense - was there a "seniority" issue involved. In other words did you need to be more senior to get ' mixed traffic ' or was there reasons not to be thus trained. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob D2 Posted October 12, 2012 Author Share Posted October 12, 2012 Sorry Leon , no link to hand , search for reading 1991,1993 or Ealing broadway 1993 and I'm sure you'll find it. Not fantastic quality, but good nostalgia.. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted October 12, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 12, 2012 On the Western we effectively began to sectorise depots (although we didn't call it that - partly because it wasn't pure sectorisation) in the early 1990s. Thus - for example - we took all the remaining civil engineering train work out of Reading and moved it to Didcot, where freight work had already been concentrated. There had been change earlier than that because a number of depots lost 'mainline' passenger work when it was decided not to train them on HSTs - Swindon and Taunton being the two depots most heavily affected by that decision. The main reasons we had for doing it in the early '90s (although we were in any case usually supported by the nascent business sectors) was for route knowledge and train handling reasons as well as traction training. Reading thus became a wholly dmu depot although I think for a while they might have had a bit of cross-country work. What it also meant was that when we divided into 'proper' business sectors in 1992 there was very little impact on WR depots as most of the work was already sorted along suitable lines. The same was not the case on the LMR where there was considerable pressures against such changes so it came more slowly. The Southern was, incidentally another area of some resistance and it caused a major upset at Brighton when we took the Ardingly branch stone working off them and moved the work to the Western. And there was a bit of tidying up to do on the Southern after 1992 but we adopted the simple expedient of refusing to pay for freight work in non TLF depots along with moving all the freight traincrew diagramming into one office and away from the passenger businesses at quite a considerable financial saving because we found that in effect TLF had been subsidising some of their spare traincrew capacity. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob D2 Posted October 12, 2012 Author Share Posted October 12, 2012 Interesting stuff SM. So who sponsored the engineering work ? I've seen Bachmann CE limpets in Dutch with intercity branding - did they sponsor the upkeep of the GWML ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted October 12, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 12, 2012 Interesting stuff SM. So who sponsored the engineering work ? I've seen Bachmann CE limpets in Dutch with intercity branding - did they sponsor the upkeep of the GWML ? Prior to 1992 it was regional budget then from 1992-94 it was the owning business sector's budget. On the Western we were specialising depot driving workloads in the years prior to 1992 and that effectively carried on from 1992-94 as the work had already been concentrated and in any case the civil and S&T engineers already had their fleets sorted. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
roythebus Posted October 13, 2012 Share Posted October 13, 2012 The link system was a throwback from the steam days. Senior men, senior work! so at Waterloo for example, "senior" work was Salisbury and from about 1984, Exeter and was done by men in link 1. 2 link done Bournemouth/Poole and all other electric routes; 3 link Bournemouth/Poole and all other electric routes including the W&C; link 4 didn't do Bournemouth/Poole, or even Basingstoke. Similarly at Kings Cross,link 1 was Newcastle, Link 2 Leeds, link 3 main line to Doncaster, link 4 mainly suburban and everything else! Most SR suburban depots didn't have links. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted October 13, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 13, 2012 Links are only really needed at larger depots with a variety of work and routes. If you only have 30 odd men at a depot and sufficient work over various routes to maintain their knowledge then they all go into one link although there might possibly be certain jobs kept out for men on restricted work (if you happen to have any yard pilots for example or particular hours to accommodate a domestic situation). Larger depots need links to get the road and traction knowledge balanced out to keep costs down and knowledge up plus the staff side of the LDC will have their own aims - such as 'senior men senior work' as noted above by Roy, or 'no night turns' for senior men, or - in some cases - trying to get a reasonable balance of earnings between the various links. (Mind you things were a bit different I suspect at Kings Cross where the Newcastle link was at one time on what was called 'contract mileage' which meant they worked a short week in order to keep their earnings down - Roy will probably know some detail on that). At Old Oak Common most links had Paddington ecs turns in them in order to keep earnings for the upper link men down to a level much nearer that of the lower links. Practices also varied between the BR Regions in respect of how links were arranged although by 1990 we were moving to getting some things more standardised between Regions - especially working over frequencies (i.e.the number of times a Driver would work over a route in a specific period) as that could come into play - and did - when we started taking certain types of work away from depots and moving it elsewhere. It also helped to avoid the cries that the management were favouring certain depots - for instance the Reading staff reps were very strong in their view that when we took away their last two ballast turns we were doing it because management favoured Didcot over Reading. On another occasion a Souther Region depot manager threatened me with a spot of violence - if I was prepared to step outside - at a meeting where we were moving freight work from a Southern depot (they only had one turn and a huge link which meant that any one Driver would work it about 2 - 3 times a year) while we would be putting it into a dedicated freight link where each Driver would work it much more frequently - the dedicated freight link later became a separate freight depot once the sectors really got underway in 1992. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Saunders Posted October 13, 2012 Share Posted October 13, 2012 Under sectorisation all parts were allocated to a sector. Traincrew depots were allocated to a sector and work for other sectors was off costed to other sectors. Routes were allocated to each sector and even signalboxes recognised with their sectors. New depots were created such as Cleethorpes which took Drivers from Immingham. Thornaby lost the passenger work to Darlington and drivers were relocated. Some new depots were created to prevent the need for hiring/off costing from existing ones. A new Regional Railways North East Depot was opened in Manchester so as to avoid using North West Drivers on Trans Pennine trains. Engineering was sectorised and there were pools of locomotives created for weekend only working along with the maintenance depots. Speedlink was survived untill Metals pulled out. Every bean was allocated and accounted for! Mark Saunders Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rugd1022 Posted October 13, 2012 Share Posted October 13, 2012 Mike - quite a number of those ecs turns at Old Oak were attached to the start or the end of some the higher link diagrams if timings allowed it. Even on some of the Summer Saturday Only extras you'd prep your own loco, take a set of stock up to Padd then work your own 'SO' train as far as Exeter, with another back to Padd if it could be fitted in after the requisite PNB. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Parkinson Posted October 13, 2012 Share Posted October 13, 2012 The Southern especially the South Eastern division had a different attitude to seniority and the work that went with it, eg on most other regions "top link" work would probably have been seen as InterCity duties etc then suburban and finally freight as per steam days. At Gillingham we had no such demarcation on passenger work, every driver learnt all the passenger routes and the mainline and suberben duties were shared throughout the links so a newly qualified driver could find himself on suburban commuter duties one week then mainline turns the next. It was the freight work at our depot which was governed by seniority and was seen as the prestine duties, a newly qualified juice driver would progress into the mixed traction links by seniority this was probably because the juice duties were seen as mundane and certainly as a new driver in 1991 I personally intended to progress to mixed traction duties as when I was a secondman but was thrwated by privatisation. By the early 90's only 2 depots on our division had M/T duties (Gillingham/Tonbridge) with Hither Green being unique as it was freight only. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted October 13, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 13, 2012 Under sectorisation all parts were allocated to a sector. Routes were allocated to each sector and even signalboxes recognised with their sectors. Every bean was allocated and accounted for! Mark Saunders Not just routes and signalboxes but every single point end and siding (which then allowed signalling costs to be apportioned as well). And although it sounds horrendous it was not a difficult task if you knew your way round the railway - we did the entire former Western Region, plus the bits further up the North & West Line that came back under 'Western' control in 1992, in a couple of afternoons' Inter City were not the happiest bunnies in the world by the time we had finished. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
roythebus Posted October 14, 2012 Share Posted October 14, 2012 Contract mileage, I've heard about it but think it had gone by the time I was at KX. Generally top link men would do 2 Newcastle turns a week, out one day, lodge for 8 hours on more, then retune the next day. So that accounted for 4 days work, the fifth day would be spare or ECS! Sundays usually ballast work. Link 2 would do 2 Leeds returns a week, then 3 days ECS. but all these were "mileage" turns, over 200 miles a day and would only be rostered every other week to even out the earnings.Link 3 and 4 would do Cambridge, Peterborough and all the suburban stuff, with link 4 specialising in the cross-London freight transfer work to Temple Mills and the like. As Mike says, it all depended on traction and route knowledge. In about mid 1976 they change it all to one big link for the secondment with something like a 400 week roster!! Needless to say this was unpopular for all, especially the drivers who were used to working with a regular secondman. This changed again back to the previous ssytem and lasted until well after electrification, by which time I'd got promoted to driver at Addiscombe!. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob D2 Posted October 15, 2012 Author Share Posted October 15, 2012 Interesting that the longer distance stuff was the top link, I guess that was financially based. Would have thought the more mature guys would be happy On an 08 round the yard and local stuff.. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
roythebus Posted October 15, 2012 Share Posted October 15, 2012 Some were quite happy on an 08. the Clapham shunters were medically unfit men, that is unfit for main line duties for whatever reason. otherwise, it was always senior man, senior work, sometimes financially motivated. At least on the Clapham pilot, the driver usually had every day as a POETS day!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted October 15, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 15, 2012 Interesting that the longer distance stuff was the top link, I guess that was financially based. Would have thought the more mature guys would be happy On an 08 round the yard and local stuff.. Partly financially but also a good reflection of best use of years of experience in many cases. And as Roy has already mentioned pilot jobs and things like Shed Ferry were often used for men who were medically restricted or needed what was known as a 'Domestic Turn' for some very good (and invariably well tested) reason. But lots of men did not like working on diesel shunters which were regared as uncomfortable, awkward, and draughty, plus they had to pump fuel up to the header tank every now and then. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
roythebus Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 That was usually the secondman's job! As was making the tea. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talltim Posted October 16, 2012 Share Posted October 16, 2012 What is the origin of the term 'link'? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted October 16, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 16, 2012 What is the origin of the term 'link'? As far as I have ever ascertained - and it goes back a very long way on Britain's railways - it is quite simply exactly what it says, i.e a pattern of work linked together in some way or work arranged into such groupings or links. The French equivalent is roulement (meaning a rotation) which is another way of describing it because usually that is also what it is, people rotate through various jobs. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob D2 Posted October 17, 2012 Author Share Posted October 17, 2012 Thanks for all this, gives me an insight which hopefully will help the realism on what would and would not happen in the real world. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swindon 123 Posted October 17, 2012 Share Posted October 17, 2012 I started at Kings Cross as a D/A in May 1979 on the day lodging finished and contract mileage started for the drivers in the top two links. No1 link was the Newcastle link and drivers in it usually worked a 3 or 4 day week depending on the number of Newcastle jobs they had that week. Two days where usually spent as either A or B driver on a train with a third day as cover for the A/B driver. If a 4th day was rostered it would be "general spare". This arrangement was to stop the No1 link drivers earning excessive mileage payments compared with the rest of the depot. No2 link had the same sort of arrangement but working extra days as the mileage payment was not as much as the Newcastle link. No3 link was the Doncaster link and was not a contract mileage link so subject to the normal rostering arrangements. It was these drivers along with No6 link drivers that I usually worked with as a D/A, No4 & 5 links where the electric links so we only saw them generally when a buckshee Sunday was going. In late1984 I moved to Hereford where in BR days there where no defined bounderies in what link worked what althought only No 1 link went to Brum on the passenger work, but that was probably because of the small amount of work involved. When sectorisation came along in the late 80's it didn't have much effect except we lost most of the Crewe-Cardiff passenger work, although that had started before sectorisation. It was only in 1992 when, as mentioned earlier in the thread, the sectors started in-fighting that we saw a real change. As much of the depots work was involved with steel traffic between Dee Marsh and Sth Wales we became a Metals Sector sponsored depot. In fighting berween Metals and Regional Railways Midland resulted in the depot loosing its remaining passenger work to Birmingham, effectively becoming a "Metals Only" depot, although we still did some "contract work for some of the other freight sectors, RFD and RES on occasions. On creation of the three companies pre-privatisation we became a Transrail depot but where still contracted out on Mainline, Loadhaul and sometimes Inter-city trains. Then came EWS and thats where I gave up trying to undestand the logic of a lot of things on the railway. Paul J. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted October 17, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 17, 2012 It was only in 1992 when, as mentioned earlier in the thread, the sectors started in-fighting that we saw a real change. As much of the depots work was involved with steel traffic between Dee Marsh and Sth Wales we became a Metals Sector sponsored depot. In fighting berween Metals and Regional Railways Midland resulted in the depot loosing its remaining passenger work to Birmingham, effectively becoming a "Metals Only" depot, although we still did some "contract work for some of the other freight sectors, RFD and RES on occasions. Paul J. No 'infighting' Paul - we all (well most of us) simply moved the work whenever we could to our own depots, sometimes because it immediately saved money but mainly because it gave far better control of workloads on our own traffics (although that of course also impacted on costs). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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