Train drivers booklet !!??

[RAF96]

I could not find the pictures .
Jim.

In the OP...

[twalton1145]

Very interestig thanks for that just wondering now how to find decendants

Hi eagle 125, there a quite a few members who publish their family trees on Ancestry. Other members can approach them and ask questions about their ancestors. I will do some more research.
Ted

[twalton1145]

Sadly I have had no response from anyone regarding Thomas Carter on Ancestry.com.
Maybe they no longer do family history searches.

Ted

[LC&DR]

Route learning remains an essential part of driver's competence. What many people fail to appreciate is that unlike cars, HGVs and model trains a real train is incredibly difficult to stop accurately, and to maintain accurate timekeeping.

The condition of the rail head, and the performance of the locomotive and the vehicles can be highly variable, sometimes the weather can have a severe effect, and unless you are aware of where you are, and the severity of the gradient and curvature of the track, you can be badly caught out and overshoot platforms, pass signals at danger and I the very worst case lose control completely and become a runaway.

Some years ago I went with the local Driver Manager and Operations Manager to undertake a risk assessment of a particular stretch of railway. We had a class 25 running light so it was a reasonably simple task, the weather was fine and dry, so it ought to be a doddle. After completing the assessment we had to return the loco to the shed and the pair of them suggested that I took a turn in 'the chair'. I had never driven a real locomotive before but the opportunity was too good to miss. I found it very difficult to get the loco to stop precisely where I wanted to because of the inertia,even though there wasn't a train attached! The response of the brakes was slow at first and could take quite a time to become effective, and if you didn't apply them enough you sailed past the stopping point, but if you put the brake in too hard the stop was incredibly uncomfortable, and you stopped too short. You had to get it right because the delay in the system did not allow you to compensate. It certainly made me realise just how skilful a driver had to be and just how much knowledge he needed.

When driving you have to remember to acknowledge the driver safety device (DSD) and the advanced warning system (AWS), and if you are too slow the brakes come on and bring you to a sudden stop. On lines fitted with TPWS if you approach a signal at danger too fast or enter a speed restriction too quickly the same happens, you stop and then you waste lots of time resetting the system.

It was quite a lot of fun, but I realised I wasn't cut out to be a driver!

Some time later I had the opportunity to try out some of the driver training simulators now coming into use. I have driven them on the Dublin Area Rapid Transit, GNER, and Transpennine Express, so all quite different to the class 25. These replicate the performance of the real thing quite well though.

[Tinker]

LCDR noted your comments about braking with trains, various train did require different braking techniques, a route you would know the up Dartford Loop, the train Cliffe to Uddingston,2 X class 33's and 30 X Silver Queens ( 30 tonne Cement Tanks) these had 2 Vaccuum Cylinders on each wagon and to stop at Hither Green the brake would start to being applied at Mottingham, very difficult train to drive, and the other end a training trip with a Class 56 and 10 X coaches with triple valve, had a week routed from Basingstoke to Eastliegh then Salisbury back to Basingstoke, the Salisbury to Basingstoke i had for the exam day, so approaching a 4 car length platform (the station name i can't remember) up a slight incline under a road bridge then the platform, running at 70 mph i said the instructor how about a single brake application to stop at this station, ok he said, so just before the bridge shut off power put the brake into notch 5 (next is the emergency position) half way down the platform release the brake and the train stopped at the top of the ramp, a perfect stop bit of luck but some skill as well, todays train are safer but no where near as much fun.....

[LC&DR]

Hi Tinker,

The 'Silver Queens' were a remarkable vehicle, very light when empty, they were made almost entirely of aluminium, but when loaded were equivalent to a normal Presflo. I modified a whole bunch of the old Triang Cemflos recently trying to get them to look like the real thing. However the Irish firm Accurascale is about to release their better detailed ready to run version. Looks like the wallet will be a bit thinner soon!

[Mountain Goat]

Mind you, with the price of the new versions, I would be inclined to stay with your Triang versions. Also, you can store things in the Triang versions. I used to keep my track pins and railjoiners in mine.

[LC&DR]

Yes I keep a Peco track rubber in one.