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Freight Secondmen

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TheEdge

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Just a thing I've been wondering while watching freights in and around Ipswich.

Are secondmen still a thing used by freight companies? Noticed that quite a few of the freights carry two people in the cab. Is this secondmen in the proper sense or more just a social way of freight drivers getting from depots to outstations and berthing points rather than on duty passes on normal services?
 
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cf111

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Could be someone route-learning/conducting?
 

TheEdge

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Will he not be a shunter/ground staff?

Most likely on the short little moves between yard and depot but less likely I'd have thought on the trains heading through the tunnel.

Could be someone route-learning/conducting?

I thought so but it would seem to imply an awful lot of FOC drivers need a lot of conducting and route learning.
 

DarloRich

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Most likely on the short little moves between yard and depot but less likely I'd have thought on the trains heading through the tunnel.

You might need a shunter at a remote location if no one else was qualified to undertake the role i suppose.

I am thinking, for instance, of the stone terminal at Bletchely. The stone train comes down from Peak Forest and has to be shunted on site. I would bet no one at the Cemex plant can do it and a guess DBS guy has to undertake the work.
 
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Jamesb1974

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Just a thing I've been wondering while watching freights in and around Ipswich.

Are secondmen still a thing used by freight companies? Noticed that quite a few of the freights carry two people in the cab. Is this secondmen in the proper sense or more just a social way of freight drivers getting from depots to outstations and berthing points rather than on duty passes on normal services?

It could be a trainee driver, accompanied by a mentor driver.
Or a qualified driver having a manager ride with him as part of the ongoing assessment program.
Or a qualified driver with a member of groundstaff/shunter or a fitter riding to identify a fault.
Or a route learner or route/traction conductor.
Or just a member of staff hitching a ride.

There are numerous possibilities, but being a secondman is not one of them. The secondman's grade disappeared many many years ago.
 
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ChiefPlanner

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As indeed did freight guards ......(bar Nuclear flask trains for a while) - to be honest , a pretty boring job once fully fitted freights came the norm. Alone in the back cab - staring at the first wagon .....
 

33056

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I am thinking, for instance, of the stone terminal at Bletchely. The stone train comes down from Peak Forest and has to be shunted on site. I would bet no one at the Cemex plant can do it and a guess DBS guy has to undertake the work.
I would hazard a guess that the DBS shunter at Bletchley drives there by road, the one for the stone terminal at Watford certainly does.
 

tsr

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The DBS shunter for Redhill sometimes arrives by train. (I have seen such a spectacle once or twice at about 0400hrs... to be honest, I think we were both surprised to see each other...!)
 

Rocket

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Just a thing I've been wondering while watching freights in and around Ipswich.

Are secondmen still a thing used by freight companies? Noticed that quite a few of the freights carry two people in the cab. Is this secondmen in the proper sense or more just a social way of freight drivers getting from depots to outstations and berthing points rather than on duty passes on normal services?

Ipswich have a number of trainees going through at the moment with intermodal.

We have had some trainees that have passed as drivers in the starters link, but some are not yet passed out to go to London/P'boro.

Some passed drivers haven't signed all traction.

We have some trainees that are still going through brake handling.

And as other drivers move up into the main links, they will have to learn and sign the main routes going North

There is quite a lot going on at the moment, that's why you will see quite a few doubling up at the front.
 

TheEdge

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Ipswich have a number of trainees going through at the moment with intermodal.

We have had some trainees that have passed as drivers in the starters link, but some are not yet passed out to go to London/P'boro.

Some passed drivers haven't signed all traction.

We have some trainees that are still going through brake handling.

And as other drivers move up into the main links, they will have to learn and sign the main routes going North

There is quite a lot going on at the moment, that's why you will see quite a few doubling up at the front.

Thanks. I'd guessed some would be trainees but I'd thought I'd seen so many that it didn't fit for all of them. That explanation covers it though!
 
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