Why did I quit BR?

Having found a job I really enjoyed, I need to explain why I then resigned my post after such a short time and left BR, and indeed left the UK, though the fact that I left the UK kind of explains it.

By the time I started work at BR my girlfriend had become my fiancée and neither of us expected that Teresa would get offered a job in the Netherlands, and when she did get the job and moved abroad it made things a bit complicated.

Teresa accepted the job and moved abroad in November 1983, while I was still doing my training. We thought we’d give it a go and getting to see her regularly was not that difficult as I used my ability to get cheap or free rail tickets to visit her. And she came back to the UK to see me a few times too; the combined effect of our travelling being that we saw each other about once every two or three weeks.

We were, however, planning to get married in 1984 and started doing a few sums about incomes and quality of life and our thoughts about where we wanted to live etc. It was terribly complicated for us to get married if we were not both resident in the same country. And Teresa’s local Catholic Church in London wanted us to attend six weeks of pre-martial counselling before they’d agree to us being married in London. In the Netherlands a church can perform a service, but it has no status in law, so you have to have a civil marriage ceremony.

When it came to the money her income was more than four times mine. My pay was so low that even after I got my job the Department of Social Security said that I was still entitled to receive (housing) benefit, which was just as well, as the cost of living in London was high (50% of my income was going on rent, and that excluded gas and electric, and while Teresa’s rent was similar it was all inclusive!).

Some guards were better off than me, financially that is. One of the guys I trained with still lived with his parents, and he paid his mother £12 a week rent, and that included food, heating lighting laundry etc.
Many guards didn’t seem to care about family life and willingly worked loads of overtime that brought in extra cash.

And then there was the big difference between what guards at different depots could earn due to mileage allowances and on-train ticket sales. Guards at a depot like mine spent most of their time on inner suburban services, which meant you never travelled very far in terms of distance and, due to the type of rolling stock, you rarely ever had an opportunity to sell tickets. However, if you worked at a depot where you worked on Intercity trains, then you’d be paid a mileage allowance due to the distance you went on a shift, a concept that never made any sense to me: if you’re working a train for two hours it doesn’t make sense to get paid more if it goes two hundred miles in that time rather than forty! And, of course, walking up and down an Intercity checking and selling tickets could earn you a decent bit of commission, enough to more than double your weekly income.

The cost of living in the Netherlands seemed much better. Life in general where she was seemed better, so much so that we decided to get married in the Netherlands rather than in the UK!

As for the incentive to stay at BR, well there had been an issue with my prospects at BR. As previously mentioned in theory it was possible to rise through the hierarchy at BR, for example my supervisors and manager had all previously been guards. It wasn’t an idle ambition as Robert Reid the man (click here) who’d just replaced Peter Parker as chairman of BR had himself started as a traffic apprentice at the LNER! And he too had been to public school etc.).

However, the newly discovered reality was that promotion was never really going to happen, for in the first instance, as London Bridge still continued to have a shortage of guards, they were not prepared to let any guards be promoted to other positions until the vacancies were filled. And Southern Region was still a very long way from filling those two hundred and sixty vacancies mentioned in that Daily Telegraph article! And then I was told that any promotions at some future date would be on the basis of seniority anyway, and there were about forty guards at London Bridge that were senior to me. The job has thus become one with very limited prospects, and there was no way I would have endured just being a guard for year after year.

I was also in two minds about the thorny issue or strikes. There were no strikes during my time at BR, though there was an unofficial overtime ban at London Bridge in an attempt to get them to fill the vacancies rather than just rely on existing staff to work the extra hours to cover the turns in question. There was however a hint of industrial unrest to come, and I was really not sure if I would have joined a strike. The last thing I would have wanted would be to have ended up as ostracized and reviled as the guard who had not joined in the previous strike. I was though fully aware of the fact that without the union’s previous efforts my income would have been a pittance, for while my basic pay was abysmal the union over the years had seen it supplemented by extra allowances for working antisocial hours, working irregular hours working in London, etc. If I didn’t stay at BR I could avoid this issue all together.

So I handed in my notice and quit on 14^th April 1984. I thought it would be difficult seeing I’d only been working for a couple of months, but they understood the situation vis-à-vis a fiancée abroad. And as for parting on good terms, well, my manager said to me that, if things didn’t work out abroad, then they’d have me back, and if I was back within a year I wouldn’t even have to redo the guards’ exams.

While I never worked on the railways after this, I kept up my interest; for a start two months after leaving BR Teresa and I had a railway honeymoon travelling with Interrail tickets. Our honeymoon took us to Copenhagen, memorable for not even having to get off the train when it went on the train ferry from Puttgarden to Rodby. We went to Hannover, then down to Munich, and from there to Salzburg & Innsbruck. Back up the Rhein valley to the Netherlands. And then we had a few other mini trips to Koblenz, Paris, Tours, Bruges, Luxembourg, Trier etc. and went to the UK too. On one of the days that Teresa was working, but my Interrail was still valid I popped over to Cologne buy some cream cheese!

Here are a couple of photos from that honeymoon with a railway element, though it’s from a time when I/we still did not have a very good camera.

Our view from our honeymoon train in June 1984 as the carriages were loaded onto the ferry at Puttgarden on the way to Copenhagen.

Evening departures at Innsbruck on a June evening in 1984

The view from our train while heading up the Mosel valley in June 1984

Things found on the Internet related to my time as a guard.

While writing this I’ve been looking through loads of my old BR things that I’ve had kept in a box, but I have also been searching the web for any useful additional info and have found all sorts of stuff.

Other people have written about their time as a guard for example, they describe many of the things I experienced.

This account here is by the first female guard on the SR about her time training to be a guard; she was based on the SW Division at Wimbledon Park depot where I went to practice dropping a Buck-eye coupling.

And here is her account of some of the things she did while working on the SW Division of the SR.

Here is an account by Bill, who was based at Grove Park Depot on the SE Division of the SR, of one of his typical days.

Obviously there are lots of images out there, but I don’t want to get into a mess with copyright of other people photos and videos etc., so I’m just going to give the links to the site where I found things:

Here’s a video clip of the final set (s) of 4-EPB stock. 4-EPBs were the trains I spent most of my time working on, though spent a lot of time on the smaller 2-EPBs as well.
Note how many doors there are on these trains!

The colour scheme of the units as they were in my day was the blue/green as can be seen at 3:57, also at 4:40 where you can also see inside the guard’s compartment (situated behind the driver’s compartment.).

At 5:25 you can see them in silhouette and how there is not corridor connection between the carriages.

There is an EPB set in use as a route-learning train at 9:20, though in this case it’s for driver training (Driver training and route learning is, of course, a very different matter, as unlike the guards just having to know the geography side drivers also have to know at which speed they have to go at every point, where to brake in time etc., and how to do all sorts of things with the mechanical side of the trains).

This next video I found here is of a cab ride of one of the routes I did frequently: London Bridge to Victoria (calling at South Bermondsey, Queen’s Road Peckham, Peckham Rye, Denmark Hill, Clapham High Street, Wandsworth Road, Battersea Park.

Note that despite going through a densely-populated part of London there are few stations, not even at Brixton! This is also in a very short 2-car train where the driver and guard are at the same end of the train, hence the guard sometimes rings the bell to tell the driver to set off and sometimes just gives him a verbal OK as they are only a few feet apart.

This video clip is of a fast service on “Our” Main Line: London Bridge to Brighton. I say fast, but with the speed limit given on the right of the screen you’ll see that it is not that high! But you can still see how many times it overtakes a stopping service on the slow lines.

Most of this part of the network still looks like it did in my day apart from a section near the beginning before New Cross Gate where new tracks have been added to connect the East London Line, and where a few stations have been rebuilt e.g. Gatwick has an additional platform, and of course the track-side vegetation has grown!

this clip is the run north from Brighton to London Bridge

and this clip is of the view going from Gatwick to Victoria

Railway Anecdotes and Stories

This is an example of a spot of customer service that shows how the simplest things get taken seriously as well:

A man getting into a Charing Cross bound train while putting away his ticket dropped his wallet onto the tracks while I was working on the London Bridge platforms. The platform staff saw it happen and told him not to worry. He stayed on the platform and as soon as the train had pulled out the Chargeman got on the phone to ask the signalman for assistance. Thus the signal outside the station was held at red; someone on the platform was put on watch and the Chargeman put on his high visibility jacket and climbed down onto the tracks and retrieved the wallet. The Chargeman climbed back onto the platform phoned the signalman to say that the tracks were clear again. The signal was released, the next train arrived with almost no delay and the man was on his way on a train about five minutes after the one he’d tried to catch.

Another similar example:

A rather smart lady got out of the train in a slightly agitated state as on getting into the train at Tonbridge her shoe had slipped off and gone through the gap onto the tracks. I think she had simply got on the train and not considered the idea of staying in Tonbridge to wait while the shoe was retrieved, so the first person she had told was the guard of the moving train. The Chargeman took her into our little room so she could sit down rather than perch on one shoe. He phoned Tonbridge and was told that the shoe was already on its way up to her on the next train. (I think perhaps the guard had passed on a message of some sort at Sevenoaks.) Anyway a few minutes later a train pulled in with the guard holding the shoe out in his hand.

Coincidence 1 - when working on the platforms at London Bridge I saw someone from university get out of one of the trains. He said Hi and dashed off to work.

Coincidence 2 - when working as a guard on a train near Croydon I checked the ticket of someone I went to school with, a boy two years above me. I called him by his nickname, “Boot” much to his surprise and the surprise of those sitting beside him.

I never did anything specifically wrong, but I was involved in one minor cock-up, and in one sneaky thing.

The sneaky thing was to get a lift on a train home to Greenwich, thing being that the train, a service from Charing Cross to Dartford via Greenwich had been cancelled due to a defect, but the stock was still going to have to go through Greenwich, as it headed non-stop to the depot at Slade Green. (I was at Charing Cross having been doing some shopping after my shift. I’d already been waiting at Charing Cross for ages before this train was cancelled and really didn’t fancy waiting another half hour till the next train to Greenwich so, as I was in uniform, I nipped down to the front of the train and found the driver talking to the repair men and asked the driver if there was any way he could drop me off at Greenwich as he went through. Thing was he said he obviously couldn’t actually make an official stop at Greenwich or the people waiting at the station for this train would try to get on. (Remember we’re talking about a train with old fashioned slam-doors so there was no way to stop people getting on simply by not releasing the door mechanism.) He offered to take me if I was willing to jump out as the train went through Greenwich! It wasn’t quite as nutty as that sounds. As the train approached Greenwich he slowed down to walking pace and I opened the inward opening door of the guard’s compartment, then, when the train reached the first bit of the platform, I stepped off at walking pace and continued along to the exit while the train accelerated back up to speed and disappeared. The railway man on the barrier for whom I was now a regular was slightly confused as to how I could just have appeared at the station when no trains had stopped there.

The cock-up, of sorts, happened at Redhill, and officially what happened was wrong. And I hope I can explain it in a manner that makes sense. It was not a big deal, but I will go into detail as a means of explaining how the railway worked.

The schedule job was for the train to go from London Bridge to Redhill and back to London Bridge. The means it arrives at the Down platform the announcement says “Train terminates here”. The empty train then does a back and forth shunting manoeuvre to the south of the station to cross over to the Up platform from where it can set off again northwards.

The back-and-forth shunting manoeuvre was where things went wrong. The normal procedure was for the driver to get out of the cab, (Let’s call it cab A) and for the guard to get in and sit in the driver’s seat. The driver then walks down the platform and gets in the other cab. (Call this Cab B).

The driver will then reverse out of the platform when he gets a signal from the guard that the guard can see from Cab A that the appropriate signal is showing the appropriate message. The guard gives a blast on the horn and the train then moves slowly out of the station and across several points to the designated track; here the driver goes far enough past another signal, which is the one that will presently change to tell him when it is safe for him to drive forward into the Up Platform. The guard has nothing very much to do other than stand by to make an emergency brake application if he sees danger or similar. (e.g. passenger falls of the platform or guard notices that although the signal says the train is to go to the track to the right the points are actually set to send it to the left.)

I am thus sitting in Cab A waiting for the signal in front of me to change, and the driver is in Cab B waiting for me to ring the bell to tell him it’s okay to reverse. But the signal doesn’t change. Now if you are waiting at a signal and the signalman knows you are there, then the rules say that you don’t need to do anything immediately, so neither driver nor me do anything. After a while everyone starts to do things, because in a minute we’re going to be late to set off back to London. The driver buzzes me on the intercom to check what’s up, at the same time as I’m buzzing him. We then both get out of our seats and go to a door and look at each other. And then there’s a raucous incomprehensible announcement on the tannoy and a member of the platform staff comes out of a door with an equally incomprehensible message, though the driver understands it. He talks to me on the intercom again and tells me that the manoeuvre is going to be via the points and signals at the northern end of the station instead of the south, and we should thus change places, but to save time he stays in Cab B. (otherwise he will first have to switch everything off, come down to Cab A, switch everything ion again, then after the manoeuvre, switch everything off again and go back to Cab B to switch everything on again to head for London.) I see that the signal is clear for us to head north and give him the sign to set off: two pings on the bell. We sail past the signal box where the signalman is giving us a funny look! I then sit in the driver’s seat and wait for the points and then shunting signal to change, whereupon I buzz the driver to say he can reverse. (Two pings on the bell). I give a toot on the horn and we set off for the correct platform. So far so good until I see that there is already another train in the other platform. This is not a problem per se, it’s common at some stations to allow two trains to stop at the same platform when they are going to head off in opposite directions or at different times. Redhill is also a very long platform and this other train is a small train only taking up a bit of space at the far end, so there is space for us to fit in front of it. Indeed the driver stops about a hundred yards short of the other train. However, the rules say that a guard should not be in the leading cab when a train is being reversed towards another train, especially not one containing passengers. However, as soon as we stopped we were ready to leave which was handy as our departure was now almost not going to be late, so with passengers aboard and a green signal we left the scene. Back at London Bridge the driver thanked me for whatever it was I’d done and suggested it would be best not mention who was in which cab when. He also explained that we were indeed meant to be going via the southern end, but had been messed up by the signalman putting the other train in the way, as that was due to go south.

I mentioned giving “pings on the bell”. When in an electric multiple unit “Two Pings” was the official signal from a guard to a driver to say that he may set off, you could not give two pings unless you were sure that the train was okay to go, that meant that all the doors were shit, that it was the correct time to depart and that the right signal was clear. One ping on the bell meant stop. You could give the pings either using a special switch above the door in the guard’s compartment (so long as you had used your special BR key to switch on the power supply for it in that compartment). And in the instance at Redhill I described you could also use the intercom (loudaphone) call button in the cab to give the driver two “buzzes”. If you wanted to use the intercom to talk to the driver, then you buzzed three+three pings.

Giving signals to the driver was a different story if you were in a train of carriages being hauled by a locomotive, then when it was time to go you had to signal the driver with a green flag or a green light from your lamp (red flag and red light to get him to stop). To use the flags and lights you had to stand on the platform to be sure that the driver could see you clearly and that you could see his acknowledgement as well. Then when the train started to move you had to hop onto the train. (We heard stories about guards getting left behind.). If you needed to tell the driver to stop, then a red flag or light was no good as the driver would not usually be looking down at you after you’d set off, so it was then simply a case of you stopping the train yourself by applying the emergency brake in the guard’s van.

The only time I worked with locomotives was on services to Uckfield, a line, which to this day remains one on the only lines in the area that is not electrified! After arrival at Uckfield the Class 33 loco had to “run round”. This means that it had to be detached from the front of the train; move over to the other track via a set of points; go along past the carriages; move back to the same track as the carriages via another set of points; move up slowly towards the carriages and then couple up again. I merely had to watch as there was a shunter in grubby overalls to do all the clambering about between the carriages and locomotive to disconnect and then reconnect all the pipes, couplings etc. and move the red lamp from one end to the other. Usually when going down to Uckfield or East Grinstead I went with 3D Diesel Electric Multiple Units, like this, whose main characteristic from a guard’s point of view was that the guard’s van was next to the engine compartment, hence warm on a cold evening, but noisy at all times.

Given I started this blog at a time of year when Dutch trains have been in the news for having trouble with slippery tracks due to leaves on the line I’ll also mention the “fun” of being in a train that slid through the station it was trying to stop at when we were on our way to London Bridge. Luckily it was at Brockley which is not a terminus, and we didn’t slide into the way of something else, or through a set of points not set the right way, but we went so far past the stopping point that I was only just able to step onto the end of the platform from the very rearmost door. I had to get out in order to phone the signalman and obtain permission for the train to reverse back past to where it was meant to stop. It wasn’t just a requirement to get permission to reverse, but also necessary to be officially told that it was okay to go back past a signal at the end of the platform that had already gone red. I also had to sit in the rear cab with my hands on the brakes and the horn to act as the driver’s eyes while he reversed. Then, before we could set off again, the driver had to get out to get permission from the signalman to go forward past the signal. We also had to report what had happened to the supervisor when we got to London Bridge

I have various notes in my log book about delays and the reasons therefore (more of my trains were late than on time, and genuinely never my fault I might add): one of my trains was delayed at Sutton for a few minutes while the platform staff searched for some missing French children! Another was delayed due to problems with a lady with a pushchair; a train at Gypsy Hill was held up due to helping a man on crutches. Trains were late leaving due to the stock being in the wrong place, or the driver being in the wrong place, or late arriving due to another train he’d been on running late, or we left somewhere late because Post Office staff taking too long to load/unload mailbags. Another one was late leaving as when a long train was brought in from the sidings it still had all the doors locked, meaning they all had to be unlocked manually, that’s eight doors on each side of each carriage of an 8-carriage train, I make that 128 doors and that took quite a while! My trains were often held a signal due to a train in front of us being slow or stuck at a signal, so that we were all just queuing at signals, though often a signal seemed to stay at danger/red for no apparent reason.

A couple of times a train was delayed due to a defect, and by that, I mean one where the brakes did not seem to be working, the driver could not get the compressor to make them pump up properly and it was impossible to do a brake test. However, I never bothered about cancelling a train due to a minor problem like some nonsense like it having a broken lightbulb.  

I found that drivers tended to look out for guards, and were usually incredibly helpful. I thus took note when I jumped off the bottom step when getting out of a train only to receive a lecture from the driver behind me: “Always step down. Never Jump,” he’d cautioned. “If you jump you might slip, and end up on the live rail or under the wheels of another train on the adjacent tracks.” Slipping over was a definite hazard and it is worth mentioning that if you had to walk between the tracks you should walk on the stones, the ballast, not on the sleepers as (wooden) sleepers could be dangerously slippery. The drivers often let me sit in the cab when I was learning with another guard and that made it easier to see things out of the window. And many’s the time that a driver was good company to talk to during those brief gaps when waiting for a train to set off on a return journey when there was no point in shutting down the train and leaving it to go to a rest room.

Occasionally the train crew had a better idea how to run a railway than the timetable makers. A good example being an early morning train from Epsom Downs to Victoria, a train that was due to arrive at Sutton one minute after a train for London Bridge left Sutton from just across the platform. However, the whole week I worked that train my driver managed to get to Sutton a couple of minutes before our scheduled arrival time, and the driver of the London Bridge train managed to delay his departure by a fraction too; the passengers on our train new this was likely to happen and were in just the right carriage to have a very short walk across the platform and save themselves a long wait for the next London Bridge service. I even made an announcement for them to let them know that the other train was still there as we came into the platform. And talking of announcements they had only just added a PA system to these old trains and I expect some regular commuters were a bit startled to suddenly be getting a guard welcoming them on board such a service at the crack of dawn.

Guards also occasionally worked out ways to swap part of a duty to make it easier for both of you, for instance at a busy station there might be a train about to head for Victoria with a guard who was based at London Bridge at the same time as another train was about to head for London Bridge, but with a guard based at Victoria, after which both guards would be at the end of their shifts. By swapping they could both obviously be finished half an hour earlier. (Though you both logged it as having done what you were meant to have done).

Starting work as a guard

I took charge of my first train as a proper qualified guard on 14th February 1984: it wasthe 14:20 service from London Bridge to Sutton via Norwood Junction, calling at New Cross Gate, Brockley, Honor Oak Park, Forest Hill, Sydenham, Penge West, Anerley, Norwood Junction, West Croydon, Waddon, Wallington, Carshalton Beeches and Sutton. We arrived right time at 14:58!

(Later that day, however, the 16:18 from London Bridge to Tattenham Corner via Purley arrived 8 minutes late after we were held at signals at Windmill Bridge Junction north of East Croydon: I found the details in my old logbook!)

The work you had to do each week as a guard was called a Turn. Each turn had a number and you did them in sequence, so that if you were doing say turn 301 this week then you’d be doing turn 302 next week, 303 the week after and so on, and would know thus what duty you were on for months in advance. The details of all the turns were listed on a board in the guard’s room at London Bridge and it was up to you to make notes about where you had to be at what time, and what train you had to look after etc.

The duties were now part of “flexible rostering”, thus the work was irregular, i.e. not every day of the week would necessarily involve the same number of hours/minutes, and you would not always get the same day(s) off each week, and you had to work weekends. At the end of a week all the minutes should add up to 39 hours, And, while things varied, on no one day would you have had to work more than 9 hours.
The time you were meant to be at work also included the minutes required to find out what was going on etc. before you worked on a train and the minutes at the end of the day to hand things in, make any reports if needed etc. The turn’s timings also included all the time needed to walk between places or, when necessary, travel as a passenger between stations or depots.

It took a vast amount of planning to work out how to ensure there was a guard in the right place at the right time, and it was soon obvious to me how vulnerable the whole system was because of this, especially as there were separate turns for guards and drivers. It was not the case that you and a driver turned up at the same time went to a train and then the two of you and the train stayed together all day long driving it about until another crew took over from you, (remember that guards fell under the auspices of the Traffic Department and drivers under the Motive Power Department).
The planners don’t just have to work out the turns to match services required as even empty trains had to have a driver and guard or shunter on them to be moved about.

There are also schedules, called Diagrams, for working out where all the bits of rolling stock have to be at different times of day, and they can be really complex.

I’ll invent a fictitious example of some train movements etc to give the idea:

It’s half past three in the afternoon. At platform 10 at London Bridge is a 4-car unit that has spent the day being used mainly on services between Holborn Viaduct and Wimbledon and has just arrived from Sutton. It will soon be headed for Crystal Palace, from where it will head to Victoria. But, by the time it leaves Victoria with a service to Epsom, it will be the start of the evening rush hour and will need to be a train with 8 carriages not 4. Thus, before it even leaves London Bridge for Crystal Palace, another empty 4-car unit will need to be coupled to it and thus have to be moved to Platform 10 at London Bridge from New Cross-Gate sidings (where it was taken to be parked in number 3 siding after being uncoupled from another 4-car unit at the end of the morning rush hour). From Epsom it will work back to Victoria as a fast service not carrying passengers, and then form another rush-hour stopping service back to Epsom. By then it will be the end of the evening rush hour and the train will work as a stopping service back to London Bridge where the two 4-car units will be split apart. One of the units will run empty back to New Cross Gate sidings to be parked in siding 2 till an hour before the rush hour the following morning. The other unit will get taken down to Selhurst maintenance depot for the equivalent of its MOT as it’s been six months since the last one. Meantime another 4-car unit that has been having its MOT during the previous 24 hours has run empty from Selhurst Depot to London Bridge and will spend the evening working back and forth between London Bridge and Sutton, and will be parked over night at London Bridge.

As I say it was complicated.

One week my duty turn was just to be “Cover/Spare” i.e. sitting in the canteen near the supervisor’s office waiting to be summoned by him to take over when something went wrong. I was hardly needed all week apart from one train. There was no guard for a fast service to Brighton during the evening rush-hour; it was a 12-carriage train completely stuffed with people, so they were probably grateful for me that day. There were some turns – known as short turns – where you would work on specific trains for say five hours and then report to a designated Train Crew Supervisor at say Victoria or Selhurst depot to act as cover and await instructions if you were needed to work on a train where the guard was absent. Sometimes there were trains perhaps from a depot to a siding that did not always run every day and were marked in the working timetable with a Q and thus known as “Q-trains.” If they were running that day, then you took them, if not you reported to a supervisor to see if there was anything else he needed you for.

I’ve found some examples of actual Guard’s Turns:

Turn 386 - Rest day Friday and Saturday

Sign on duty at 12:52

Dep London Bridge 13:12 to London Bridge* (via Wimbledon and West Sutton) arr. LB 14:33

Dep London Bridge 14:42 to London Bridge (via Wimbledon and West Sutton) arr. LB 16:03

Take Break at London Bridge

Dep London Bridge 16:50 to Battersea Park arr. 17:08

Dep Battersea Park 17:20 to London Bridge arr. 17:43

Dep London Bridge 17:50 to Battersea Park arr. 18:09

Dep Battersea Park 18:19 to London Bridge arr. 18:42

Dep London Bridge 18:57 to London Bridge via Hackbridge, Sutton & Wimbledon arr. 20:18

Sign off duty 20:38.

(*known as a “Rounder”)

Turn 387 – rest day Monday

Sign on duty at 05.55 (for me that meant that long cold walk with all my gear from Greenwich to New Cross to catch a staff-only train to be there on time)

Dep London Bridge 06:15 to Epsom Downs arr. 07:04.

Dep Epsom Downs 07:10 to Victoria arr. 08:00

Dep Victoria 08:19 to Smitham arr. 08:56

Dep Smitham 09:06 to Selhurst arr. 09:23 (train taken over by another guard)

Take Break at Selhurst

Dep Selhurst 10:07 to West Croydon arr. 10:10 (take over from the original guard)

Dep West Croydon 10:24 to Holborn Viaduct arr. 10:57

Dep Holborn Viaduct 11:05 to Selhurst arr. 11:37 (train taken over by another guard)

Mon & Thurs stay on same train as a passenger to West Croydon

Travel as passenger on 11:49 from West Croydon to London Bridge.

Report to Train Crew Supervisor London Bridge as spare.

Sign off duty at 13:29

Tues, Weds and Fri at 11:37 report to Selhurst depot and

Dep Selhurst Depot 12:05 with empty stock to New Cross Gate arr. 12:20

Dep New Cross Gate 12:20 to sidings arr. 12:30

Travel as passenger from New Cross Gate to London Bridge on 12:57

Sign off duty at 13:29

Turn 418

Sign on duty at 14:55

Dep London Bridge 15:55 to Three Bridges arr. 17:00

Travel as passenger on 17:13 to Gatwick

(Relieve guard of the train you’ve travelled on at 17:37)

Dep Gatwick 17:37 to Barnham arr. 18:32 (Unit detaches)

Dep Barnham 18:36 to Bognor arr. 18:42

Take Break at Bognor

Dep Bognor 19:30 to Littlehampton arr. 19:44

Dep Littlehampton 19:57 to Gatwick arr. 21:01 (Portion attaches)

Dep Gatwick 21:05 to Victoria arr. 21:46

Dep Victoria 22:16 to London Bridge arr. 22:36

Sign off duty at 22:56

Now, despite the system having devised all these Turns and knowing what Turn you had been assigned each week, your wages were not calculated automatically and you still had to fill in a time sheet to get paid. When I’d been working on the platforms and on the courses it had been enough to fill out a time sheet once a week as each day was the same. As a guard, each day was different, but, rather than just have to fill the varieties of times you started and finished work, you also had to fill in details for every train you worked on etc. break times, travelling time etc., (i.e. you basically had to transcribe the details for the turn, but the reality thereof rather than how it was on the noticeboard.). This obviously meant that for a whole week there was far too much detail to fit on one sheet so you had to fill in a time sheet at the end of every shift!
The sheets were A4 in size and there was nothing printed on them in advance like your own details to make them simple quick or easy to fill in, it was no wonder that part of your paid time at work included a certain amount of time to fill in forms. (I think I had it quite easy as, while on the training course, it had become clear that a number of the other guards had trouble with their literacy and numeracy skills).

You posted your time sheet in a special letter box by the supervisor’s office at the end of each shift; it was collected and dispatched to somewhere like Brighton (via the internal post of course) for the information to be entered into a computer such that you’d get your wages at the end of the week.

When I worked for BR I used to take food and drink to work, as the canteen was invariably not open when I needed food, and the food it offered was not terrific, and back in 1983/4 the catering available in the public parts of stations was very limited, and hardly cheap or healthy, (though the grilled burgers at Casey Jones at Charing Cross were tasty and in my opinion vastly superior to those offered by McDonalds and Burger King). Taking drinks and sandwiches to work was no big deal when I worked on the platforms or was on the courses, as I didn’t have to take much else and didn’t have to carry things about all day once I’d got to work. However, once I was a guard I had to carry everything with me, for although I had a locker at London Bridge, my meal break (known as a PNB = Personal Needs Break) was invariably never anywhere near at London Bridge, and I occasionally became a bit fed up with the weight I had to carry.

My supplies usually consisted of a thermos of coffee, liver sausage sandwiches, a banana and a Twix or Mars, though it could feel a bit weird eating this sort of food early in the morning when on an early shift or late in the evening when on a late shift. Shift work generally played havoc with all my meals and mealtimes and found it easiest to transpose a whole day and thus have a late breakfast after getting up late before a late shift and an early evening meal before going to bed early before an early shift. The biggest help on the catering front was that between Greenwich station and my flat I had to walk past two small supermarkets (a Coop and an International Stores) and a Fruit & Veg man and a newsagent. (That newsagent was where I bought my first copy of Modern Railways Magazine! I have been getting it monthly since then, and have also got hold of a couple of dozen old back issues, so I now have quite a collection. It never occurred to me, however, when buying that first magazine that I would later become a regular supplier of information to the magazine about matters relating to Dutch Railways, nor that they’d publish several of my photographs!)

The reason lugging food and drink about all day was an issue was because, in addition to the food and drink, one also had to carry about a vast amount of stuff when working as a guard: whistle, flags, lamp, padlock, timetables, ticket manuals, ticket punch, rule book, regional appendixes, log book, note book, route book, high-visibility vest, and of course a pocket watch on a chain and a tin of detonators!

Mentioning the padlock reminds me that a guard might be called upon to lock a set of points in place in an emergency situation. If your train had to be moved across a set of points that were not normally used in the direction you were going to travel in and could not be locked in position, then they had to be clamped and padlocked (“C&P”). Reason being that if a point was not locked in position, then it could wobble about and move while a train was going over it, so that one wheel might go one way and another wheel the other way, known as “splitting the points”, something which can derail a train, or, at best, badly damage the wheels/bogies and points.).

My life had thus become all about the railway and routine, albeit an irregular routine.

Route Learning

From the class room it was out into the real world to start route learning.

Learning the track layouts and signalling descriptions was one of the key parts of the training program. In the beginning this was done by all of us heading to New Cross Gate station each morning to join a special train that was running just for us, a train that went all over the place so we could see the tracks, junctions, stations etc. for real in addition to the maps diagrams and written descriptions (all of which I still have). We also got to practice things in the real train from simple things like checking all the doors to more complex things such as balancing between two units to separate them and all the associated pipes and cables.

I sort of knew a few things before starting, most people knew that trains drive on the left in the UK, though many simply assumed that would be the case without actually looking or thinking. Some people learning to be guards had no idea that and an Up line is going towards London, and a Down line is going away from London, though in the case of lines going in strange directions, then you need to know what it says in the paperwork that defines such things. The books and appendixes also tell you about Fast and Slow lines etc. the one is usually for non-stop services the other for stopping services, but not always.

We were asked whether trains go faster on the fast lines or the slow lines. And, while the answer was that they can go just as fast on both I tried to be a Smart-Alec and explain that there is usually a speed difference on the two and lots of trains used on stopping services actually have a lower top speed than those used on long distance services.)

In many places there were four tracks on a mainline, but the tracks were not always arranged the same way. It might be:

     Up Slow, Up Fast. Down Fast, Down Slow

     or

     Up Slow, Down Slow, Up Fast, Down Fast.

And that was something you had to watch out for, as on one section the trains on the second track in from the fence might be coming from the right while on another they’d be coming from the left.

There was a lot to learn besides station names, you need to know how many platforms there are, which tracks you have to be on to get into sidings etc. then there are junctions, and every junction gets a name (e.g. Pouparts, Longhedge, Falcon, Stoats Nest, etc. a name that often relates to something that has long since disappeared) and every section of track has to be identified.

Fortunately, since my time one area of confusion has been removed. There were some sidings on the Up side at New Cross Gate that were sometimes known as Gatwick Sidings. And yes. You can guess, there was indeed once a guard that went all the way down to Gatwick airport to fetch a train when he was only meant to go to New Cross Gate!

And, of course, when there are loads of track e.g. at Clapham Junction, one of the busiest railway places in the world, which of course we also had to learn about, simply having Fast and Slow and Up and Down are not enough as there are and you end up with:

Up West London Line

Down West London Line

Up Windsor Main

Down Windsor Main

Up Windsor Local

Down Windsor Local

Up Waterloo Local

Down Waterloo Local

Up Waterloo Through

Down Waterloo Through

Up Brighton fast

Down Brighton Fast

Up Brighton Slow

Down Brighton Slow

Up Battersea

Down Battersea

Battersea Reversible

Chatham Reversible

Up Chatham

Down Chatham

Up Stewart’s Lane

Down Stewart’s Lane

Up Ludgate

Down Ludgate

Up Kensington

Down Kensington.

Up Atlantic

Down Atlantic

I saw a lot of the above close up, as one day one of the inspectors/instructors took a small group of us to walk around that area. We had to done our high visibility vests, step off the end of a platform at Clapham Junction and then pick our way carefully along and around several of those tracks to walk from the north side of that station all the way to Wandsworth Road station. (Try clicking here to see it on Google Street View; you can zoom in for quite a lot of detail).

That walk included having to go through Longhedge Tunnel, a short by still not very pleasant narrow rail tunnel under the main lines. The tunnel was so narrow that there was not enough space between the wall of the tunnel and a passing train for a person to stand, and there was, of course, also third rail between the tracks. In longer tunnels elsewhere in the network there are little alcoves in which you could take refuge if a train came, but in this tunnel the only safe place if a train came on the track you were next to was on the other side next to the other track. Thus you had to keep a good look out, and fortunately trains were not frequent on those lines. We were told that if a train came and we were in any doubt about where to stand we were just to lie down in the filthy drainage ditch (the “cess”) at the bottom of the tunnel wall.

There were all manner of other places besides tunnels with very limited amounts of space beside the tracks (e.g. on bridges and viaducts) thus one of the important rules was that you did not go on or by any tracks unless absolutely necessary, and to help keep you safe there was thus usually a designated safe walking route to get somewhere such as when you were walking round in sidings (And you didn’t risk shortcuts even if the safe route was invariably not the shortest route.)

We were also asked how do you know if something is a tunnel, and again the answer was that if you looked in the “book” describing the network in detail, then it would tell you.

 

Here’s a scan of a small part of the Battersea area track diagram: one of the many we had to learn:

And here are some scans of the written descriptions of the signals etc.

This is for getting from Victoria to Stewarts Lane:

And this one is for the up lines between West Croydon and London Bridge:

In the special train the instructors talked to us about where we were and what to look out for out of the window etc. and we took it in turns to be tested on particular sections when we thought we had learnt them.

While a lot of the stuff relating to signals affected the driver and the way he drove the train it was still imperative that the guard knew about it to. There was one day when I was working a train and the driver stopped where we were not meant to and when I looked out to see why also saw that he’d stopped at a green signal. It was, however, a signal ahead of a junction. The driver called me up on the intercom to confer with me as he felt the signal was set the wrong way for where we were meant to be going at the said junction. If I remember correctly we were on the fast lines and were meant to be switched to the slow lines, and this was important as at the station ahead, where we were meant to stop, there were no platforms next to the fast lines. I thus knew enough to confirm that he was correct.

The driver got out and used the phone to speak to the signalman. He was told that there was a problem on the slow line and were being routed down the fast. This meant that we would not be able to stop at that particular station and I then had to make an announcement telling any passengers travelling to said station that they would have to stay on the train as far at the following station, cross via the footbridge and catch a train back in the opposite direction. (There was a bit of joined up thinking here too, as the signal-men were also in touch with the trains going the other way and held the train at the next station to wait for any passengers off our train!

We had to learn track layouts and signal details of the whole Central Division, a bit like the stuff a taxi driver has to learn. The instructors provided detailed information on scores of A4s, one file contained diagrams of the racks, another the written descriptions of the signals and when you learnt a section you could recite it to one of them and have it ticked off you list. (I’ll look for some and copy them). You couldn’t pass out until you had everything ticked off on the list, which also included all the sidings and depots.

For anyone not familiar with which area the Central Division used to be, perhaps this (slightly simplified) diagram of all the Central Division tracks will help

An inspector might also test you on a route by combining several routes or just taking one section of a route to make you think, rather than just recite the text; perhaps saying: “Describe the route from East Croydon to Gatwick if you are going via the Quarry Line.” Your answer didn’t just have to include listing the stations you’d go through you’d have to list tunnels and level- crossings (if any) along with all the junctions, and details of signals that could indicate if you could change onto another track, perhaps a reversible one. For the route mentioned you’d have signals south of East Croydon that could indicate that the points were set to take you down the line to Oxted, at Purley there were signals that could tell you that the junction was set to take you to the Caterham Branch, and south of Purley signals related to the points to switch you to the Redhill route.
And of course, the trip in the opposite direction was regarded as a separate route, and had to be learn as well.

And having referred to reversible tracks that is an important matter that you have to think about, both in terms of which direction(s) you have to look in, if you are forced to walk about by the tracks, but also about which track you may have to be routed onto or via if, say, your train is due to stop, but then depart the way you came.

The main reason for learning the tracks everywhere was so you know exactly where you were, and what was around you and would then be in a position to take the appropriate action in the event of trouble, and crucially be able to tell others where you were with no element of ambiguity in the event of a problem. There are no road signs on the railway and also, very little in the way of lights at night. And it was not a static situation. Lines got rebuilt, points moved signals altered, and if there had been major engineering works somewhere that resulted in a different track layout or new signals, then you received a thick hand-out with all the details of the new situation shown on a diagram (they were known as Yellow Perils as they had yellow covers – I found one for the changes in the Croydon area in April 1984 where the diagram required 16 A4’s glued together! When I joined BR they were remodelling a lot of “Gloucester Road Triangle” the Y-shaped junction north of East Croydon station.)

Here's a photo I took to try and show how big those 16 A4's are (That's a 30cm ruler)

And here's a close up of the Croydon station section:

In addition to the general instructions about tickets that we received in the class room, I also spend a couple of days of my training period travelling all over the place with a Travelling Ticket Inspector (TTI). I was taught more about how to check tickets, but also how to issue tickets to those without a ticket. The trouble was that, in those days, if someone didn’t have a ticket, then you had to work it all out yourself. You had to carry a fares book and ticket forms and small change and more. You naturally hoped that you’d only have to issue tickets for the simple local journeys, i.e. Single to Victoria, single to Brighton etc. and the details for most of the basic fares for the Central Division stations fitted on a single page of the book. A monthly return to St Ives with a railcard was, however, clearly a bit more complicated, but unofficially this could be solved by asking the passenger concerned if it would be all right to issue them with a ticket just to get them to London and for them to get the other part of the ticket once there.

On-train ticket checking did mean that you got a set of ticket clippers to nip bits out of tickets: “Click click!”. There was also the slight bonus that you were paid commission for any fares you collected. However, nearly all the trains we worked on were suburban trains, which in those days had no corridors between carriages and sometimes not even a connection between compartments, so you had to stay in the guard’s compartment when the train was in motion. And even if there was a train such as a 4VEP or 4CIG with corridors, then it was noticeable that nearly everyone on it had a season ticket. The only problem I ever had was a train to Brighton with a lady in First with a Second-Class Season. The trains used to have four first class compartments at one end and three First and one second at the other and she thought she had sat in a second-class compartment.

After being ticked off for the majority of the routes on your list and having reached a certain level of competence we began to be moved on to the final stage of training, and this was as individuals rather than as a group, as people learned the routes at different rates. Now, rather than go in the special train with the others, I was just assigned to shadow a proper guard each day and go where he was booked to go and they obviously picked a guard with a duty schedule that would involve trains to places I still needed to visit and learn about.

This on-the-job training was also doubly useful, for, in addition to the route itself, the guard showed you exactly what to do at each station, pointed out things like the position of the way-in or the stairs from whence a passenger might come running at the last minute and try and get on (remember you could not lock the doors so passengers could still open the doors to try and get on even after the train had set off.) You obviously had to be sure that the signals you’d been learning about were showing the correct colour before telling a driver that it was safe to leave, but now you the guard looking after you actually showed you where the signal was, or the “repeater”. A repeater was a sort of signal, but one that merely duplicated the state of the signal ahead of it and was placed in locations where it was difficult to see the actual signal, such as when there was a curved platform or when a footbridge was in the way. s footbridges etc.

You now also got to learn how to spot if a door had been left open. If a door was wide open, then it was usually easy to see, but the doors had double catches on them and sometimes a door would be not closed all the way. The trick was to look along the surface of the side of the carriage. If it was all neat and flat, then all the doors were shut. Some doors hinged one way some the other: if a door was on the catch and with the catch facing you, then you’d be able to see a dark vertical line, a clear break in the uniformity of the side of the carriage. If the catch was away from you then it was much harder to spot and was more about there being a slight vertical distortion as you looked down the side of a carriage.

The guard would thus give tips on where to stand to make it easier to spot half-closed doors, handy knowledge with so many curved platforms. And with no automatic doors an open door meant you had to go along and shut it, something that happened a great deal.
Doors getting left open actually made trains late. It could easily take at least fifteen seconds to walk down a long train to shut a door, add another fifteen to walk back, thus it was thirty seconds later than intended before you gave the drive his signal to leave. A stopping train could easily make a dozen stops, and if you were delayed by open doors at every intermediate station then you’d arrive at your destination 6 minutes late.

After half a day with a guard, he’d usually managed to size you up and, if it was not the rush-hour, he would then let you take over, while he kept a close eye on you, so that you’d be the one to ring the bell to let the driver know it was safe to leave.  

When shadowing a guard, it was also helpful that they showed you the location of all the places like guard’s rest rooms, supervisor’s offices, toilets etc. as, once working, you might be assigned to take your (meal)break at a station other than London Bridge, or report to a supervisor other than your own. It came as a bit of a surprise that, not long after I qualified as a guard, I then found myself having to act as the guide to a trainee guard learning the ropes.

Having finished the training there was one final hurdle to deal with to get passed out and that was to have an oral exam with the Chief Guards’ Inspector, and this could involve questions about anything you’d learnt at any stage of the training. I was not certain when I entered his office how it would go, as this was a fellow with a reputation, but as it happened it was more of a chat about railways in general as he said he’d had good reports about me and I was indeed able to answer his initial questions knowledgably. However, he did still manage to catch me out and make me feel like I’d got my ideas all wrong when he held up a leaflet about some trackside signs and asked me what they were. I hadn’t a clue. It turned out that the signs had not yet been brought into use, and he had just wondered if I was sufficient of a bright spark that I might already know about them! He then handed over the leaflet that explained what they were and when they would come into use.

I was passed out, was issued with my kit and proper guard’s uniform and sent out to work on the real railway. (The uniform was a terrible fit, and not really fit for purpose, the rumour was that BR had bought up the surplus Laker Airways uniforms when that airline went bankrupt, it was a good job you were entitled to a new uniform every year as I was doubtful they would have lasted any longer! The hats were just about okay, the same sort of style as a French policeman, but my head is so large that hats are rarely a good fit. Sadly, nobody ever took a photo of me in my uniform!)

It was by now February 1984; it had taken about four months to train me.