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.