I was lucky really. The last 3 years of steam provided a mixed work environment. One week you may be on a steam shift. Blue overalls, physical exertion, coal, grease, oil and sweat. The next week you maybe Secondman wearing a light green jacket, clean trousers, on a leisure ride. Mental reaction was different though. Mentally an 8 hour shift as Secondman felt the equivalent to 12 hours on steam. All of my trips to Reading were Secondman duties on Crompton Diesels. For passenger trains entering Reading from the Southern Region it was easy. You were separated from GWR Reading. The platforms were set as an annexe to the station. On freight trains arriving at Reading it was different though. You had to enter the GWR main line and pass through Reading Station to access the freight yards. Until my last trip it was all semaphore signals with signal gantries everywhere. It was nearly always at night and it seemed just a mass of small dotted green, yellow, red and white lights. You certainly needed to know your route when driving through Reading. My last trip as Secondman to Reading there was a massive change. Colour light signals had replaced semaphore signals. Many of the gantries had been replaced with stemmed colour light signals with junction indicators. What had been so complex before was now a simple drive-through.
Looking back I don’t think I would have been a particularly good Driver. Most of my Cleaner colleagues were given the opportunity to drive engines, steam, diesel and electric, under Driver supervision. I didn’t seem to pass over a sense of confidence to my Drivers to allow me the chance to drive. On one rare occasion when I did drive it was almost a catastrophe.
It was a long, heavy, partially fitted freight train from Reading to Tonbridge. From Wanborough to Guildford there is a steep decline down to the junction with the London to Portsmouth/Southampton main line. I had the train well under control. About 3 miles from Guildford and the junction I noticed that the speedometer was showing zero mph. What’s happened here?” I asked the Driver. “You’re slipping” he panicked”. “Take the brake off”. I took the brake off. Before the slip we were travelling at about 20mph. Now, after gaining grip with the rails, we were doing 40mph. We came round a bend and there was a signal displaying 2 yellows. When we passed the next signal showing 1 yellow we had reduced our speed to 20mph. As we approached the signal protecting the junction we were down to 10mph. There was no way we were going to stop before the signal. A signal passed at danger (SPAD) seemed inevitable. There was a huge sigh of relief from both of us when 100 yards from the signal it changed from red to 1 yellow. Phew. The Driver took control from there. It wasn’t just that incident that made me decide to call it a day. I couldn’t see myself as a Driver and became bored Secondmanning. I had some great experiences on Motive Power and to cap it all I had learned Railway Signalling from a Drivers point of view. This was a great advantage in my future career on the Railway.
Well that’s it for this blog. Watch out Signallers, P-Way, S&T and others. I’m on my way.
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