Longest serving driver?

Scottychoo · 12 Aug 2020

InOban said:
Correct. Compulsory retirement ages are now illegal.

Wrong! Have you not heard of EJRA that ASLEF are insisting companies now adopt?

RailUK Forums

43066 · 12 Aug 2020

bramling said:
I must admit I do find it surprising that many would *want* to drive past mid-60s, unless there were specific financial pressures forcing them to do so. Shift work is hardly healthy, so unless someone's managed to find some sort of sweet-spot where they manage to tame the extreme shifts element of the job, personally I'm not sure it's a good idea -- especially when railway pensions can often pay as much money as being at work!

The drivers I’m aware of who have continued working beyond retirement age have all been doing it for financial reasons. Usually it’s because they’ve lumbered themselves with financial obligations in order to help family members out etc.

I completely agree, shift work isn’t healthy, and I wouldn’t want to continue doing it into old age - a job share might be an attractive option (albeit a very long way off for me).

bramling said:
I've certainly seen a fair share of people who have worked right up until 66-67, had their leaving do, and then seemingly next minute the notice goes up in the office to say they've sadly passed away.

Another way of looking at that, though, is that people often seem to drop dead very soon after they stop working. Retirement appears to be almost immediately fatal in many cases!

baz962 · 12 Aug 2020

bramling said:
I must admit I do find it surprising that many would *want* to drive past mid-60s, unless there were specific financial pressures forcing them to do so. Shift work is hardly healthy, so unless someone's managed to find some sort of sweet-spot where they manage to tame the extreme shifts element of the job, personally I'm not sure it's a good idea -- especially when railway pensions can often pay as much money as being at work!

I've certainly seen a fair share of people who have worked right up until 66-67, had their leaving do, and then seemingly next minute the notice goes up in the office to say they've sadly passed away.

Personally, I'd only contemplate working past 60 if on some kind of job share to be honest.

Maybe the passing on itself is a reason. I have often thought that a few people retire and pass almost straight after. If I'm going to pop off a week after retirement , then I'm going to keep driving lol.

43066 · 12 Aug 2020

baz962 said:
Maybe the passing on itself is a reason. I have often thought that a few people retire and pass almost straight after. If I'm going to pop off a week after retirement , then I'm going to keep driving lol.

Not if ASLEF gets its own way you won’t.

greatkingrat · 12 Aug 2020

43066 said:
Although another way of looking at that, though, is that people often seem to drop dead very soon after they stop working. Retirement appears to be almost immediately fatal in many cases!

I think it only seems like that because you only hear about the people who die shortly after leaving. You don't hear about the people who live into their 90s, because by the time they eventually do die, they are no longer in contact with anyone at their old place of work.

ExRes · 12 Aug 2020

greatkingrat said:
I think it only seems like that because you only hear about the people who die shortly after leaving. You don't hear about the people who live into their 90s, because by the time they eventually do die, they are no longer in contact with anyone at their old place of work.

Agree with you 100%, when I started in the Post Office as a teenager there were dozens of men in their 60s, a handful died soon after retirement but the vast majority lived for years, and that was with 1970s/1980s medical knowledge, these days so many people retire and move away from their old areas that you're hard pushed to know what becomes of them

Horizon22 · 12 Aug 2020

bramling said:
I've certainly seen a fair share of people who have worked right up until 66-67, had their leaving do, and then seemingly next minute the notice goes up in the office to say they've sadly passed away.

Personally, I'd only contemplate working past 60 if on some kind of job share to be honest.

I too have sadly seen this. A lot of these people seemed to "live to work" and I guess the change in their physical routine after say 20+ years appears to sometimes have permanent and unfortunately fatal consequences. People need hobbies outside of work, and a fair few in the railway don't seem to.

ungreat · 13 Aug 2020

If (and it's a big if) I stay on until 66 I will have 50 years on the foot plate, having started at age 16 as a secondman

the sniper · 13 Aug 2020

Horizon22 said:
I too have sadly seen this. A lot of these people seemed to "live to work" and I guess the change in their physical routine after say 20+ years appears to sometimes have permanent and unfortunately fatal consequences. People need hobbies outside of work, and a fair few in the railway don't seem to.

Indeed, pretty common. An unhealthy relationship with alcohol, to a greater or lesser extent, exaggerated by no longer being constrained by railway employment, often hasn't helped though.

ungreat · 14 Aug 2020

the sniper said:
Indeed, pretty common. An unhealthy relationship with alcohol, to a greater or lesser extent, exaggerated by no longer being constrained by railway employment, often hasn't helped though.

Loss of a long standing camaraderie as older railway staff retire doesn't help either. You have to remember the railway was a way of life in older (even my time) times on the railways. You ate, worked and partied together. You were literally a family. It's similar still now but a long way from what it was.
Alcohol...maybe a small factor. Certainly not a massive one in reality.

Efini92 · 14 Aug 2020

Wyrleybart said:
I think you are incorrect or misled.
An XC Longsight driver retired in the last year or so who I think was aged 70 or 71.

They definitely have it. Colin Smith championed it before he retired. I think there was a grace period before it was implemented.

6Gman · 14 Aug 2020

43066 said:
16 years to go from second-man to driver. Seems unbelievable these days, but quite possibly common under BR.

My father joined the railway in 1947. Got a driver job in 1966, but only by applying for a job at another depot (staying at his first depot would have meant at least another three years).

ChiefPlanner · 14 Aug 2020

6Gman said:
My father joined the railway in 1947. Got a driver job in 1966, but only by applying for a job at another depot (staying at his first depot would have meant at least another three years).

Not unknown to have 50 year old second men in say Radyr in the 1970's , - any chance of a drivers job was removed by service reductions and depot closures. So staying in your local area meant no possible promotions then - till the "trainman" concept changed things for ever.

Those with lesser family ties or a sense of wonderlust went to places like Salisbury (nice enough) , or Slade Green / Waterloo Main where there were plenty of driving vacancies and hoped for a move "home". A good number settled in nicely at the new depots and stayed there .....Slade Green had way back , (I am told) a good core of Welsh drivers forced out by closures in South Wales who made careers there. Possibly explains why the depot shunt engine was named "Ivor" ...

tiptoptaff · 14 Aug 2020

ChiefPlanner said:
Not unknown to have 50 year old second men in say Radyr in the 1970's , - any chance of a drivers job was removed by service reductions and depot closures. So staying in your local area meant no possible promotions then - till the "trainman" concept changed things for ever.

Those with lesser family ties or a sense of wonderlust went to places like Salisbury (nice enough) , or Slade Green / Waterloo Main where there were plenty of driving vacancies and hoped for a move "home". A good number settled in nicely at the new depots and stayed there .....Slade Green had way back , (I am told) a good core of Welsh drivers forced out by closures in South Wales who made careers there. Possibly explains why the depot shunt engine was named "Ivor" ...

Those kinds of moves even go back as far as steam days. I know an ex-BR fireman who was a Taunton boy born and bread, but had to go to STJ to get his firing job, and if he'd stayed long enough for driver, he'd have had to move again. Chasing the job as they once did seems very strange these days, but no doubt it would still happen if we were all employed by the same people

ChiefPlanner · 14 Aug 2020

tiptoptaff said:
Those kinds of moves even go back as far as steam days. I know an ex-BR fireman who was a Taunton boy born and bread, but had to go to STJ to get his firing job, and if he'd stayed long enough for driver, he'd have had to move again. Chasing the job as they once did seems very strange these days, but no doubt it would still happen if we were all employed by the same people

That is right - plenty of firing vacancies and takers - in the London area say for the Welsh at OOC and Southall (with lodging hostels available) , - and the bright lights not too far away , shift work permitting. The chances of getting home were not too good though. (a good number went back to the National Coal Board) .....some like my drivers at Watford were lucky in that they comfortably managed the steam / electric / diesel transition as the work was always there - so a 50 year career from 15 to 65 was possible with a clean record and a bit of flexibilty. As I used to say at their well earned retirements , they were the last of a kind.

Taunton · 14 Aug 2020

tiptoptaff said:
Those kinds of moves even go back as far as steam days. I know an ex-BR fireman who was a Taunton boy born and bread, but had to go to STJ to get his firing job, and if he'd stayed long enough for driver, he'd have had to move again. Chasing the job as they once did seems very strange these days, but no doubt it would still happen if we were all employed by the same people

This was mainly because the number employed at the depot fell way down from the early 1960s for about 25 years, when the depot finally closed. All the branch and local services went, but it also had a significant number of remanning turns on the main line, being a convenient halfway point between Paddington and Plymouth for there to be round trips to these points. As things speeded up crews worked through, while DMUs and freight diesels were single manned. For many years nobody was taken on in the loco grades, indeed across the spectrum; until the 1960s the railway overall was far and away the largest single employer in the town - as well as the operational side there was the concrete works factory and the track preassembly depot.

SlimJim1694 · 15 Aug 2020

ChiefPlanner said:
Those with lesser family ties or a sense of wonderlust went to places like Salisbury (nice enough) , or Slade Green / Waterloo Main where there were plenty of driving vacancies and hoped for a move "home". A good number settled in nicely at the new depots and stayed there .....Slade Green had way back , (I am told) a good core of Welsh drivers forced out by closures in South Wales who made careers there. Possibly explains why the depot shunt engine was named "Ivor" ...

Loads of Scots went to Slade Green too. According to some of the old hands it was known as "Little Glasgow" back in the day. Having previously worked out of Sludge Island myself, I'd say anyone uprooting hundreds of miles to work there must have been desperate! As was said above though... last of a kind, and great history too.

43066 · 15 Aug 2020

SlimJim1694 said:
Loads of Scots went to Slade Green too. According to some of the old hands it was known as "Little Glasgow" back in the day. Having previously worked out of Sludge Island myself, I'd say anyone uprooting hundreds of miles to work there must have been desperate! As was said above though... last of a kind, and great history too.

Good to hear you’ve been preferring the West Midlands for the last few years :lol:

.

Jona26 · 17 Aug 2020

ChiefPlanner said:
Not unknown to have 50 year old second men in say Radyr in the 1970's , - any chance of a drivers job was removed by service reductions and depot closures. So staying in your local area meant no possible promotions then - till the "trainman" concept changed things for ever.

Those with lesser family ties or a sense of wonderlust went to places like Salisbury (nice enough) , or Slade Green / Waterloo Main where there were plenty of driving vacancies and hoped for a move "home". A good number settled in nicely at the new depots and stayed there .....Slade Green had way back , (I am told) a good core of Welsh drivers forced out by closures in South Wales who made careers there. Possibly explains why the depot shunt engine was named "Ivor" ...

And many years before this firemen from London were moving north.

My grandmother (who died this year) was born in 1921 in Chesterfield. She was the 2nd of 5 children but all the rest were born in the Neasden/Willesden area.

My Great Grandfather was told he would reach driving grade sooner by getting some time in working as a fireman in Chesterfield and then moving back down to London as a driver.

It must have worked because my uncle (child 3) was born in Willesden 2 years later. He also had a full career on the railway and retired as a driver out of Marylebone.

Longest serving driver?

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