Starting work at BR

My contract says I started work on 5th September 1983. On that first day I had to buy a ticket to get to London Bridge because they did not issue me with my Domestic Travel Pass until after I arrived at work. I still have the ticket and here's a photo of it:

A Domestic Travel Pass entitling you to free travel between your home and work. (And it didn’t really matter where you worked given there were people I worked with at London Bridge that lived in Portsmouth!).

And when it comes to train travel when you worked for BR, then the perks were good, and in my case one of the reasons for enjoying the job, as it helped compensate for the pay being pretty abysmal. In addition to the Domestic Travel Pass you also had a Privilege Pass, this was basically just your BR ID card, but it entitled you to cheap travel on the whole network.

The longer you worked for BR the more free travel you were entitled to, but even as a new member of staff my Privilege Pass initially enabled me to make ten free journeys anywhere on the whole BR network per year with each such “Priv ticket” issued being valid for 48 hours. The pass also gave me 75% discount the rest of the time. I could even get a couple of free journeys on Sealink ferries per year if I paid £5 port taxes and otherwise got 50% off the cost of ferry tickets. (As an example of the reduction: a return ticket from Greenwich to Axminster was thus only £6.55). There was also a special rate for travel on the London Underground of 10p single and 20p return, and I often used that to get about or to go and visit Teresa’s sister Tina when she worked in Oxford Street. The discount certainly helped reduce the cost of living especially as spouses were entitled to the same free and discounted travel that you were, Though at this point Teresa and I had not got married.

Privileges increased over time and with promotions, such that you might end up with a senior management “Gold Medallion” entitling you and your spouse to free first class travel at all times.

Another bonus with working at BR then was that after a few years you’d also be entitled to get cheap rates and some free tickets on the Continent too!

I can’t include any photos of my special passes as they had to be handed in when I stopped working for BR.

  

Needless to say that, while I started working for BR just eleven days after the interview, it was not as a guard. There was also a substantial amount of training involved and so I’d have to do something else while I waited till the next intake got sent to the training “school”. My job “title” was Learner Guard, but I actually started work as a junior dogsbody on the platforms at London Bridge.

The only slightly daft thing about this was that they allocated me to the platforms serving a part of the Region where I would not be working as a guard. I therefore started out by learning all manner of things about the South-Eastern Division’s train service, when I was actually due to become a guard on the Central Division!

London Bridge is currently undergoing a massive rebuilding as part of the Thameslink project so bear in mind that my descriptions of the platforms services etc. relate to how things were in 1983, though a lot is nonetheless very similar.

There were and are two very distinct halves to the station:

The northern section for the through lines of the South-Eastern Division (the tracks ones nearest the Thames); these handled the trains from Charing Cross and Cannon Street to Kent: Rochester, Chatham, Gillingham, Ashford, Tonbridge etc. and the assorted suburban services to Orpington, Gravesend, and Dartford (via Greenwich, Bexleyheath, or Sidcup). Note that the mainline services to Canterbury, Ramsgate, Dover etc. and the narrow-bodied diesel trains to/from Tunbridge Wells and Hastings did not stop at London Bridge.

Note that the Hastings line had not been electrified at this time and was still served by diesel trains; they were also narrow-bodied trains. There had been a problem years before with a tunnel on the route and the remedy had left it too narrow for trains of a standard dimension to fit through it. When the line was electrified they also resolved the problem with the tunnel and the special stock needed by putting a single track in the middle of the tunnel connected to the double track at each end! click here for more info.

There were six tracks next to a platform (platforms 1 to 6) plus the Up Passenger loop line south of platform 6, a through line that enabled trains heading for Charing Cross that were not stopping at London Bridge to “overtake” a train waiting at platform 6.

To the south of the through lines were/are the terminus platforms of the Central Division with services to Surrey/Sussex: Croydon, Brighton, Gatwick, Redhill, Lewes, Eastbourne, Dorking, Horsham, Uckfield, East Grinstead etc. and the spaghetti of suburban routes to and via Tulse Hill, Streatham, Crystal Palace, Norwood, Sutton and Wimbledon etc. There were nine terminus platforms for these services.

The rebuilding of London Bridge for Thameslink has been done to increase the number of through lines and through services and reduce the number of terminus platforms and terminating services. (East of the station they are also building a flyover so that trains from the Central Division can cross over to the through tracks without getting in the way of the SE trains.)

(Victoria station also served both the SE Division routes to Kent and the Central Division routes to Sussex and was similarly actually two stations next to one another. And still is.)

In the four weeks that I worked on the platforms on the SE side I thus learnt the backbone of the timetable and the stopping patterns etc. of all the SE trains serving Charing Cross and Cannon Street! I could reel off the order of stations on a Sidcup Line service to Dartford, rush-hours only service to Bromley North etc., but did not have a clue where somewhere like Honor Oak Park was. All knowledge is useful knowledge though, for once a guard there was never a day went by without one getting asked “How do I get to ….”, so the more one knew about other bits of the network the better.

(In passing, I’m not sure why Honor Oak Park was the station that came to mind in the paragraph above, but perhaps it’s because of how excitedly my mother reacted to me mentioning that I went on trains through this station. My mother had then explained that when she was training to be a nurse at Guy’s Hospital next to London Bridge station she had wanted to go to use the hospital’s tennis courts at Honor Oak Park, but had thought it was miles away from London, as she’d been told that you had to be sure to get a train from the Brighton side of the station to get there - perhaps she thought it was similar to Devonshire Park in Eastbourne?? She was thus very surprised and, as a keen tennis player, frustrated to discover in 1983 that, far from being near Brighton, it had been just a couple of stops away and would have been quick and easy to get to!)

Working on the platforms meant doing five eight-hour shifts per week: alternately 06:00 till 14:00 or 14:00 till 22:00, (but no nights). It did not however mean Mondays to Fridays, I had to work alternate Saturdays and/or Sunday, but this resulted in a routine over the whole month (and indeed over my while time at BR) that gave me a couple of long weekends. I’d put the long weekends to good use and pop over to Holland to visit Teresa. If I was working an early shift on Friday, and a last shift the following Monday, then I could go to Harwich on the evening boat train on the Friday, arrive in Holland on Saturday morning, leave Holland Sunday evening and be back in London on the Monday morning and able to work a late shift on Monday afternoon. (And all for very little money as I only had to pay 25% of the full fare.)

To work on the platforms I needed a uniform so the lady in charge of such matters just looked for something/anything that would fit resulting in my being issued with a pair of dark blue trousers and a zip-up jacket with red trim, and the two bars of a senior railman’s rank to which I was not entitled. The “rank” made no difference, the only rank that really mattered was that of Chargeman, the equivalent of Sergeant.

The platforms, as is the norm, were arranged in pairs either side of an island platform, and I worked on different ones at different times depending on how busy it was or who else had come to work.

In the rush hours trains used all the tracks (note that 2, 3, 4, and 5 were reversible and trains heading in either direction could stop there), but during most of the day the platforms were used as follows:

Platform 1     could only be used for Down services from Cannon Street (“CS”).

Platform 2     for Up services to Cannon Street.

Platform 3     spare (e.g. trains carrying just mail bags could stop here to unload).

Platform 4     for Down services from Charing Cross (“CX” or “The Cross”, though King’s Cross is also known as “The Cross”).

Platform 5,    spare, though used by the trains from Charing Cross to Caterham and Tattenham Corner, as these were actually Central Division services and if they stopped on platform 4, then they would not be able to get to the right set of points to the east of the station to cross from the SE tracks to the Central tracks.

Platform 6     could only be used for up services to Charing Cross.

With platform 3 and 5 spare and with 4 reversible tracks it gave a flexible set up that was useful when trains got delayed etc. and thus missed their allocated slot.

I had a very friendly Chargeman in charge of me most of the time, but one nastier, stricter fellow on a couple of occasions. The nice guy told me not to get in a state about going to a load of bother to get to work by 06:00 when the earliest train from Greenwich could not get me in till 06:10 as 06:10 was fine with him. The nasty man, however, gave me a dressing down for coming on the 06:10 and being late resulting me having to get up at 04:00 so I could walk a couple of miles to New Cross to catch a staff train that then got me to work half an hour early. Fortunately, I had late shifts next time Mr Nasty was in charge and getting in in time to start at 14:00 was no bother. (And don’t think I’m moaning because I was trying to fiddle the system either because, seeing that I was contracted to be working 39 hours and five eight-hour shifts added up to 40 hours, I think I was entitled to arrive at 06:10, and should have been booked to arrive then!). Luckily when my shifts ended at 22:00 there was a train to Greenwich at 22:04.

Later on, when I worked as a guard, I was not so bothered about the timing of my trip to and from home and always arrived at work early, and usually left late, so as not to have to do anything in a hurry. I did though often have to do that early morning walk to get a train from New Cross. I had a bicycle and did try cycling from Greenwich to London Bridge, but the roads were a nightmare. A car was not an option as there was no money to buy one and nowhere to park it either in Greenwich or at London Bridge.

This might be an appropriate point to mention that I had almost no problems with late running trains getting to work, and only one problem with a late running train on my way home apart from one afternoon, the details of which I’ll go into in another post. However, some trains on the Greenwich line was disturbingly overcrowded, and I was glad of the perk of being a member of staff that meant that guards would always let you into their guard’s compartment where there was plenty of space although it was usually the compartment in the middle of the train. And drivers would be okay with you using the special BR key to get into the empty front compartment next to the driver’s cab. It was however, always important to ask the driver first, and to make sure that he knew that you were just a passenger on his train and not the guard in charge!

Guards often helped relieve over-crowding by letting passengers into the guard’s compartment: it could hold about thirty people! However, a guard was not allowed to let passengers into a guard’s compartment that they were not travelling in themselves, as there were assorted levers and equipment you really didn’t want them fiddling with.

What did the work involve?
Each pair of platforms on the South-Eastern side of London Bridge was manned by three or four men (most of the staff at BR in this region were men apart from office staff. There was supposed to be one older female guard on the Central Division based at Victoria, but I never saw her; there was another younger female guard on the South Eastern, who was, I think, based at Selhurst, and she occasionally worked one of the trains I travelled on to or from Greenwich.).

The platform staff “lived” in a tiny room under the stairs of the footbridge. Everyone else working with me swore, smoked, read the Sun, gambled, and went for a drink as soon as they got off work, but I liked them and they liked me, even if they initially had trouble getting to grips with me working there when I had a bit of a posh voice and was not exactly working class. Besides the Sun other newspapers were available and I could usually take my pick; in those days, the newspapers were still delivered by train and staff were issued with complimentary copies (stamped thus in red by the printers) to prevent people being tempted to pinch copies from the bundles that were on their way to wholesalers and newsagents. If you were working a late shift you would often be able to pick up a free copy of an early edition of the next day’s paper before heading home.

When working as a guard, I found it incredible just how many people left their papers in the train, and did so deliberately, having read all they wanted during the journey. At the end of the morning rush hour you’d nearly always be able to find a paper to read during your break, and usually one in very good condition. And at the end of the evening rush hour there would usually be hundreds of copies of the Evening Standard abandoned in every train! Someone pointed out to me that lots of men used to buy both a copy of the Sun and the Times or Telegraph, and then read the Sun in the train to discard it and continue to the office with just a quality paper in their possession!

In addition to transporting newspapers the railways also still deal with a load of post, and in addition to post trains, a lot of mailbags were moved about on the regular passenger services, though not usually during the rush hour. In those days there was still a large guard’s van or compartment on every type of train, and you could pack a lot of mail bags into them.

The mail was moved about according to a timetable as well, so at certain times through the day half a dozen post office guys with hand carts would appear on the platform in anticipation of a service from somewhere like Tonbridge where there was a main sorting office. Within seconds of the train stopping, the guard would help fling open all the doors of the guard’s van; the men would spread out and start flinging the bags out to get the train emptied as quickly as possible. It would usually take just a few seconds, even if the bags were stacked right to the ceiling. Rail staff were meant to help, and they often did, I did, as the less time the train remained stopped at the platform the better as the timetable was very busy, even off peak there could be a more than a dozen trains per hour needing to stop at the busiest platforms.

That reminds me, I should have listed the basic pattern of service at London Bridge SE. Per hour there were three train on each of the following routes at 20 minute intervals, with two starting out from Charing Cross and stopping at Platform 4 and one starting from Cannon Street and stopping at Platform 1.

Dartford via Greenwich;

Dartford via Bexleyheath;

Dartford via Sidcup;

Hayes;

Orpington;

Gillingham;

2 Caterham & Tattenham Corner services per hour.

There was one Charing Cross to Ashford service per hour that stopped at Platform 4. And note that three fast services to Hastings, Dover and Margate/Sandwich didn’t stop at London Bridge, and could bypass Platform 6 on a through track.)

I.E. even off-peak, a train was due to stop at platform 4 approximately every four minutes!

In addition to carrying Royal Mail post, trains were also used to deliver BR internal post. When a train stopped, a guard would often be handing over a large reusable envelope that needed to be passed on. When I worked as a guard I hardly ever went anywhere without having to deliver internal post. There was also the matter of Red Star. BR didn’t do door-to-door deliveries like the old days, but would shift parcels about between certain busier stations on the basis of them being sent on the first available train and then being available for collection at a specific time, so you often had to sign for parcels as they were brought to your train or find a member of staff to hand over something and get it signed for. Several times I remember having to unload expanded polystyrene boxes of live lobster back in ice; I think it was at Balcombe near Three Bridges.

The people in charge of me were very helpful so that, when they realised at the end of the first week that I had no idea about how to collect my wages, one of them saw to it that I had all the right papers to go to a special room to get what was owed me. I can reveal what the system was as it is no longer used, but it was kept secret a secret to prevent the risk of robbers doing a wages snatch or similar. say room but it was actually more of a tiny hole in the wall in one of the many underground passageways at the station. The door was solid to say the least, with a tiny little window in it and heavy, and you had to ring a bell to get it unlocked so you could go inside. It was like a bunker or air-raid shelter. Then you had to slid your British Rail ID through a tiny slot to a creepy, but very efficient, bald man behind a thick sheet of bullet proof glass. His hands would whizz through cards and papers like a conjuror and a small envelope with cash and pay slip would be returned with your ID.

Platform duties mainly involved being on the platform when a train arrived and left to make sure everyone got on and off safely, none of the trains had automatic doors so it was important to get open doors closed quickly so the guard could give the signal to leave. The timings were so tight that almost no train had to wait until it was time to leave, they usually only had to wait till the signal cleared. The rush hours were fun, with so many people changing at London Bridge as you can get to Cannon Street, Waterloo and Charing Cross. Despite the rules saying you had to wait till the train had stopped before opening a door, but commuters were very skilled at ignoring this so a train would glide to a gentle stop with almost all the doors already open and some people even alighting before the train stopped. With 8 doors on most carriages this meant a lot of people could get out of such a train very speedily, and I never saw anyone trip or fall! Then the train would start to fill but it was usually already time for it to be going so the guard would blow his whistle and then others including me would blow theirs and as people still tried to board you’d shout “Stand clear!” and help the last runner in and close the door behind them. People were always in a terrible hurry to catch a Waterloo and Charing Cross service even though there was a constant stream of trains one after the other from London Bridge. The platform was so long and thus busy that there might be as many of four of us posted along it to marshal those getting on and off, with the guard in charge. In those days it was often the case that the guard would let a few people travel in the guard’s compartment when things were very busy and as the trains usually stopped with the guard and guard’s compartment positioned near the bottom of the steps to the footbridge it was often the case that the last passenger down the steps when all the doors were shut would be allowed to hop into the guard’s compartment as its doors opened inwards and were a lot easier to shut when the train was in motion.

During the rush you’d be at it for perhaps an hour and a half or more, then, as things quietened down, you could take it in turns to deal with arrivals and departures though the only real difference was that the passengers fewer in number and the trains were shorter (One 4-car instead of two coupled together.). The shift system also meant that, mercifully, you’d only have to deal with either the morning peak or the evening one and never both on the same day. 

If working a late shift on the platforms then one “fun” activity near the end of the day was to have to sweep the platform, (I’m still a dab hand with a broom thanks to this). With the footbridge being half way along the platform, one person did one half, the “London” end, and one the other half, the “Country” end. I was more than happy to do this, you’d start at the far end of the platform and work your way to the bottom of the stairs, and then do the stairs, but not the footbridge. Then the muck you’d collected was swept up and put in the bin.

It was a strict rule that you did not sweep stuff onto the tracks: the rubbish on the tracks was all stuff thrown there by passengers. Passengers were a filthy bunch; in fact, it’s worth mentioning that passengers made trains so filthy and carriage cleaning deemed so unpleasant that “6 months carriage cleaning” was sometimes given as a punishment following disciplinary action. (Someone was pointed out to me doing this punishment duty who was a driver that had been suspended from normal duties for coming in to work drunk.).

Platform staff also had to make announcements and deal with the departure board when it was not being operated by the signal box. I had a go at making announcements, but never got to hear what it sounded like of course as the microphone was in the little room.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time working on the platforms! The only thing I regret was that, unlike me stuck on the SE Division side, the trainees who had been assigned to working on the Central Division platforms were regularly allowed to go up to the massive signalling control centre to watch all the goings on.

I was surprised, and from a certain perspective disappointed, that in the four weeks I worked on the platforms, and my months as a guard, that I only once saw the London Bridge Station Manager (complete with hat with gold braid) when he made one visit to the platform during the rush hour, it was also hardly a “visit” as he simply came down the stairs from the footbridge and walked along to the subway saying hello to each member of staff in turn, but without even pausing let alone stopping long enough to have a conversation with say the chargeman to ask if everything was okay! I never saw him again. To my mind a sign of not showing nearly enough interest in the sharp end of the railway: the staff, passengers, station and trains.

I didn’t take photos of my own, so here’s an oldish photos of London Bridge from Wikipedia taken before the Shard was built and long before work started on rebuilding the station.

The photo is taken from the dge of platform 4 on the SE side looking across 5 & 6 where the man is standing towards the old Central Division terminus platforms, complete with the old roof, that since been demolished.

Click here for the full Wikipedia entry for London Bridge Station.

Now, rather than infringe copyright by copying and pasting photos, click here to go to the Thameslink project website, which has several aerial photos of London Bridge station during reconstruction. You can clearly see where they have dug up some of the old Central Division terminus platforms on the south side to build additional through platforms on the north side. They have also added an additional pair of tracks for Charing Cross services on a new viaduct to the west of the station, and will soon be working on rebuilding the other platforms. Soon this is going to be one of the biggest stations in the UK.

And of course you can Google images of "London Bridge station" and find all sorts of things.