100 defining aspects of BR

[hq1hitchin]

A lot of this seems like yesterday


http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/town/sq ... d%20BR.htm

[stembok]

Excellent: B R and its strengths -and there were many - and weaknesses over the years.
No 35 and the attempts to forge that untidy conglomerate the LMR into an efficient unit, resulting in transplanting of ER managers in to the top management posts early in Beeching's reign, with H C Johnson and W G Thorpe amongst others sent over to Euston. Beeching was obviously dissatisfied with what he saw and demanded changes, he did the same on the
W R with Stanley Raymond. The subsequent career records of ex LNER trained railwaymen, Johnson ,Fiennes, Reid etc, says much about the strengths and success of that company's management training schemes.

[hq1hitchin]

Yes, I think it a fair assessment of how BR coped. History is a wonderful thing, people are coming round to thinking that BR, especially in the later years, didn't do too bad a job at all, given the fact they they were continually hard up. The LNER traffic management training scheme ('traffic apprentices') was a real winner, far ahead of its time, and prepared young men (no women needed to apply in those days - I think they must have known that) for careers which could, and did, take them to the top. A retired railway officer once told me that he was advised to join the LNER in preference to any other company as it was 'run by gentlemen'.

[brsince78]

90) Standard Steam Locomotives
One reason for the fiasco that was diesel traction under the 1955 Modernisation Plan was the mechanical engineers' obsession with building better steam locomotives than their forbears in the privatised railway. That the LMS, LNER and the Southern were all looking forward to dieselisation at Nationalisation seemed to have passed CME Robin Riddles by.

Too true.....

[Bullhead]

A few I'd like to add:

Alcohol - despite the BR87109 Rule Book's stipulation that it was an offence to consume alcohol or to be under its influence whilst on duty, there were bars at The Grove and Webb House at which drinks could be purchased during working hours. I recall going on a CE inspection tour in the early 1980s, lunch having been arranged at a pub in the Lothians. Everyone had a pint. And attending the ceremonial opening of a new Red Star office at Paddington, where there was a free bar. The Transport & Works Act saw the end of this sort of thing, and about time too.

Bardic handlamps - about the size of a house-brick, and capable of showing four colours of light for handsignalling purposes as well as having a bracket to allow use as an emergency tail lamp. Solidly cast in aluminium, and with an individual serial number stamped onto the case (which was theoretically meant to be recorded when the lamp was issued), electrolytic action meant that the interior could often be the scene of strange chemical reactions if the lamp wasn't scrupulously cared for. Bardics could also be used as improvised weapons, like a medieval club.

Form Ones - Started with the ominous but quaint "You are charged with the undernoted irregularity", followed by a large gap where details of the offence(s) could be listed. Rule Book Section H clause 6.4.1 was my personal favourite. Had to be handed over at the end of the intended recipient's shift to avoid potentially distracting anxiety.

Railnews - the BR in-house newspaper. Although a bit red-top it seemed far less filled with "spin" than the glossies I'm used to nowadays. Also had lots of small adverts for guest houses, cheap Dr.Martens, and prophylactics in bulk.

Red Star Parcels - briefly very successful, probably because the use of marginal space on passenger trains didn't cost anything. I remember the Station Manager at Edinburgh Waverley grumbling about a BT Police operation which had nabbed a couple of guys who were using Red Star to convey drugs: "that's another customer lost".

[Malcolm]

83) TOPS

Licenced from Southern Pacific in the USA in 1971, BR's total Operations Processing System brought the computer into the marshalling yard office. Shunters with hands like a bunch of bananas were among BR's first computer literate employees.

What about the TOPS clerks? People forget that the hard part of this was getting younger/older people, shunters, supervisors, loco foremen, guards, drivers, clerks, and let's not forget the wonderful Texas instruments (size of a small bus) computers, all to work together. I seem to remember that we had the computer whizz kids in the office at least once a week to fix the damn things. I also remember being told (I was a TOPS clerk) by a guard or a shunter on more than one occasion what he was going to do with his shunting pole if I didn't shut up about what had been moved to where from where. However, I wouldn't have changed it for the world. Great guys all (well nearly all).

Malcolm

[hq1hitchin]

I was sitting in the TOPS office at Temple Mills the morning one of the clerks managed to tip a 'yard file' (a couple of wooden boxes full of punch cards showing details of wagons we had on hand and in which siding they were standing, and in which order) onto the floor. Oh calamity!! Nothing else for it but to send 'the validators' (no, not some East End gang ) out to laboriously go up and down the roads recording the number of each wagon. How we cheered when we heard that cardless TOPS was coming - hooray!

[Malcolm]

Hmmmmm. I also seem to recall that happening at Tyne Yard once on my shift.
Learnt a lot of new words that day (none that could be considered nice you understand).
Supervisor bumped into the clerk who was feeding the whole yard into the card reader to get a printout of what was where. (Oops!?)

Malcolm

[Bullhead]

Another one I've just thought of -

High Visibility Vests - although the first ones weren't much more than orange sports bras, and it was considered uncool to have a clean one, they did actually make people working on the track easier to spot and "blow out". Drivers were fulsome in their praise, but wouldn't wear them themselves. The ones with Velcro attachments (in case you were snagged by a passing vehicle) were less macho than the ones with three buttons up the front. Nowadays, of course, you can't set foot on the ballast without being attired more or less completely in orange with reflective strips.

[52A]

And a hard hat to protect from woodpeckers and low flying aircraft!

[52D]

Woodpeckers and low flying aircraft and hard hats you will need them maintaining the ECML through Northumberland. Plenty of trees for woodpeckers and you are in one of the RAFs major low flying areas.

[hq1hitchin]

Ah yes, h.v. vests - certainly not thought of as a desirable fashion accessory but more as an irritant by the passenger shunters at Crewe Station, of which there were a great multitude at the time, until the closure of the station for remodelling in 1984. The logic in not wearing them was that the line speed, with the exception of 5 Through, was only 20 mph, they got dirty quickly (true) and that they might catch on a projection while you were in between vehicles. In consequence few bothered to put them on. We always carried Bardics with us on nights and, incidentally, about that time a Holyhead guard did in fact use his Bardic handlamp as a club so as to maintain order in the refreshment room on Platform 4 with a troublesome passenger. This resulted in the guard being charged with g.b.h. or similar, which surprised a lot of people. However, the magistrates considered that he had been doing a reasonable job and dismissed the case. Phew!

[52A]

Yes the good old bardic, an old colleague of mine returning home passenger from Doncaster laid out a passenger with his after he went for him with a knife!

[stembok]

I remember the railways and a track worker parting company over the issue of wearing a high vis vest in the early days. After several reminders both parties dug their heels in which eventually led to his departure from the service. They were /are a good idea. In the 1950s there were unfortunately several fatalities among track workers on the ECML between Darlington and York and anything which might help was all to the good. Speaking of head protection: a track worker at Wiske Moor water troughs in the late 1950s suffered severe head injuries when a setter of coal was washed off the tender in an overflow and struck him on the head, possibly fragmenting and ricocheting on hitting the ground and there was a least one case in the 1960s when a driver of another train was struck by a part flying off the bogie or brake gear of - I think - a Deltic passing at speed, so you never know.

[brsince78]

One from me:-

The BRUTE parcels trolley......

I've spent many a wasted hour eating sandwiches sitting in an empty one of these watching the trains go by.