Welcome to “A Life on the Railway Blogged”. This is the story of my life on the railway. 50 years from a Junior Porter, Engine Cleaner, Fireman/Secondman (seeing off the last 3 ½ years of steam) and then onto the S&T where after working my way through the grades spending the majority of my working life involved in Training. The Railway is full of personalities, changes and incidents and I have recorded these into a series of Blogs. There is plenty of humour but also incidents and major changes within the Industry over the 50 years and there is also tragedy. For those of you who have read some or all of these Blogs I have added photographs, images and cartoons to enhance the experiences of a working life on the railway. I hope that you enjoy these Blogs reflecting an enjoyable career in a great working environment. You work a third of your life, it’s important that you enjoy it. I certainly did and would not have changed it. I hope that you all enjoy your working life as I have done. A good working life to you all.
Blog 1 Near Miss
The term “Near Miss” is a well-known term within the Rail Industry. The way it’s used however is poor English. In correct English it means you HIT it but nearly missed it. In railway terms it means the opposite. You were missed but nearly hit. The railway has been and always will be a dangerous place to work.
Back in the days before Margaret Thatcher the coal mining industry was thought by the public as being the most dangerous place to work. Statistically though, in percentage terms, more staff were killed working on the railway than down the mines. After Margaret Thatcher and the destruction of the coal mining industry the public turned to North Sea Oil Rigs as being the most dangerous. Again though, statistically, more staff were killed on the railway than on the oil rigs. Tremendous improvements have been made in the rail industry to protect staff during my working life. When I started as an Instructor, back in the 1970s, I asked my trainees how many of them had been involved in a “near miss”. On average I would say 9 out of 10 responded with having been involved one. At the end of my training the trainee response to this question was almost zero. During my service on the railway I was involved in 2 near misses.
The first was a near miss involving a 750volt conductor rail. I was a fireman/secondman in the Motive Power Department (more about this in later blogs). I was 16 years old. My shift started at 3.0 am. I didn’t have transport then and lived 14 miles away from my depot in Tonbridge, Kent. I used to travel on the last train of the night and sleep on a bench in the staff room until awakened by the foreman when it was time to start. This wasn’t unusual. Many other young staff did the same. I was woke up at 3.0 am and had to walk from my depot to the sidings where my diesel engine and driver awaited. It was very cold and the sleepers were frosty. As I was crossing the main line I slipped on a sleeper and fell over the 750volt conductor rail. I didn’t fall right onto the rail. Both feet were behind the rail and my stretched arms in front of it. My whole body was looped over it. Using my arms I managed to push myself back and away to safety. I don’t know if I actually came into contact with the conductor rail. I do know that I didn’t get a shock and I was very lucky.
The second was a near miss with a train. I was in my mid-20s. A Senior Technician involved in signalling maintenance. My shifts covered 24hrs a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. During night and late shifts we covered fault finding covering about a 40 mile radius. Penny pinching within the industry was becoming norm at that time and one of these nips was involved in this near miss. Renewals were normal on Saturday nights but being on fault finding you couldn’t carry out renewals to equipment in case a fault occurred on your district. Management came up with the idea of combining 2 districts. 1 district team could cover both districts for faults which released the other for renewals. There was good and bad on both sides. If you were faulting both districts you could have a nice quiet night. You were however there until relieved at 8.00am in the morning. If you were on renewals you may be out in the cold and dark but could go home when the work was completed. In this case I was on renewals but was told that I was fault finding from 10.0pm when I started until the renewals worked was due to start at 12.30am. At 11.30pm it was all quiet. My whole team was booked in ready to start. I received a telephone call from the signalman telling me that I could have possession of the points an hour early. My decision. Well I went for the “let’s get home early” option. Wrong decision because at midnight I received a call to say that there was a track circuit failure at the adjoining signal box. The points we were working on were all stripped down. I made the decision to attend the fault on my own and left the team to carry on with the work. The faulty track circuit was close to the signal box. Work was being carried out in sidings on the other side of the track which involved use of on track machinery using strong lighting and lots of loud noise I stepped into the middle of the track and connected the meter leads to each rail. I got a correct voltage. I moved further down the line, knelt down and connected the meter across the rails again. Correct voltage again. I looked up and there it was, the headlights of a train heading towards me. At a guess I would say 40mph, 20metres away, 2 maybe 3 seconds from certain death. I didn’t have time to think. I would say it was a pure reaction move. Imagine premier league football. It’s a penalty. Goalkeeper dives to tip the ball around bottom of right hand post. Well that was me on the night only it wasn’t the ball going past my right hand post it was the train going past my feet on the left. I picked myself up from the ground as the train passed. Staff from the worksite came running over. They witnessed it and thought I was a goner. I’m OK” I said. Half an hour later I was shaking like a leaf. As far as the fault was concerned it had self-rectified itself. The signaller thought I had rectified it and sent the train through. The real fault was me. I shouldn’t have done what I did. Safety comes first.
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