Industrial Railway Crews

Now, I know that the 'progression' for 'mainline' railway steam crews is fairly well documented - cleaner to fireman then driver but what happened on Industrial lines?

Clearly some of for example the Colliery systems were very large so I assume would mimic this system. However what happened on smaller systems - some factories would only have had one locomotive.

How did they get drivers and maintain their locomotives? Did they recruit 'main line' staff?

 

My knowledge is limited but it was first hand.

My great Grandad was recruited from the loco department in the LNWR to become loco foreman of the Cadbury Bournville railway system, and I was told other staff on the Cadbury railway system would generally be recruited internally, so a deckhand (loading wagons) could move onto the locos with training from an experienced hand.

Also when I visited Littleton Colliery on its last day (in Dec 1993), Driver Ray Rushton who took me on a loco cab ride of the whole system said they had a period in the 196os when they would redeploy men from the pit coal face to fire the Littleton locomotives - he said all they knew initially was shovelling coal and would have to learn the art of firing and injectors!

With regard to the previous para, Ray said one day a miner firing Littleton number 5 as it left penkridge sidings with empty wagons - never stopped shovelling until he'd got to Littleton, with the bunker emptied - no.5 had to be left to coal down, with the fire bars melted. Said individual returned to the coal face according to Ray!

Paul

 

Quite often the men would start as a shunter which could involve some firing as industrial locos were often single manned. From this they would progress to driving but as it was usually 'dead men's shoes' this could take some time. Some systems had two shunters allocated, one who would stay with the loco and do the firing and one on the ground.

 

That was how I saw things at NCB Mountain Ash between 1974 and 1980. Back at the shed they actually had a small team of dedicated fitters.