4am spare!

So at interview they ask 'how would you cope with the shifts' to which most give a reply about having worked shifts before and give examples of coping mechanisms.

Mine was my previous job of 11 years working 12 hour rotating nights and days! I almost laughed when the manager interviewing me told me 9 hour shifts on the railway can be demanding having been in a very high pressure job before!

So this week I've been on our early turns.
The earliest of which is '0415-1215 Standby'
Now working shifts is one thing but getting up to start work at 0230 takes some effort! You don't know if your late for nights or early for days!!

Basically your the first guard in the depot and first reserve just incase anyone goes sick. Now this again is one of those marmite shifts, love it or hate it, it's got to be done!

Booking on with the depot manger and due to the shortages on our depot usually sees you being given work to do immediately but at the moment things are quite settled and with our newest guards now in the saddle as permanent surplus staff until the timetable change in May I'm told to 'take rest'.

I collect a float and ticket machine and take it up to the mess room upstairs, check my cash and machine are in fully working order and log on. Watching the coming and going of the early staff is funny virtually everyone asks the same question 'You spare??'
It's something of a novelty to have spares on the depot you see and sometimes it can work in your favour if you have a particularly grim job!

Eventually I retire into the TV room until I'm joined at 0605 by one of the newer guards who is also spare! (You can now see the older guards literally doing the maths at what job your going to be covering for them at this point!)
We're now joined by a few of the drivers who are coming in for breaks having started at 0330 ish and also a couple of spare drivers. The atmosphere is jovial as we chew the cud over various trivial matters and current affairs!

At 0745 the tannoy crackles into life 'Conductor *the guard* to the signing on point please' duty calls. I collect my machine and make my way down one floor to the signing on point. One of the other guards has become sick on duty and I'm to cover his last two trains. However because he is coming in from Crewe and he was due a break my first train is not until 9ish then it's a quick trip to New mills followed by a trip to Hadfield!
A quick pit stop to Greggs is now on the cards then and after a bacon barm and a coffee (black no sugar thanks!) I'm off on my first trip and its a double 142 set upto New Mills with a 'sleepover' in the sidings.
I'm not keen on double sets out of the peaks worse because we are restricted to the back two coaches and our fare dodgers know this.

People think I'm ticket mad but as a fare paying passenger before joining the railway it gets my goat seeing people get away with it!

As it happens I check the front coach before departure and despite no barrier on platform 1 all have tickets. Then my driver draws up as far as possible at stations enroute which encourages all but one determined soul to join us in the back set. Had a little walk round New Mills on arrival and the back to Picc!

My Hadfield was equally as uneventful with the vast majority having tickets or 'blue wrinkly passes'!! Managed to keep to time all the way back but got held up again by damn TPE at Guide Bridge and then held for what seemed like an age outside Picc for a platform!

The best bit about being standby is the possibility of going home early and sure enough on arrival at The depot I'm told I can go home around half hour early! Not my best result to date but an early finish all the same! There is something satisfying about driving home and getting paid for the privilege!

Photo. Old style blind on one end of the 142 had some fun putting some odd destinations up! (Small things and all)!!

Recovering from lates and a trainee driver!

Sorry I've not been around for a week or so! I was worried that I wasn't going to entertain folks! But evidently I've been getting complaints about not blogging!

So I'll recap my last shift! The latest job in the depot! This is a shift which involves going on one of my fav routes for a double round trip! We talking about the Mid Cheshire line to Chester via Altrincham!

The lower links* of the depot do a lot of Chester work as Chesters tend to start very early and finish very late and we wouldn't want the old boys finishing after 10 would we?

Anyway tonight's episode of conducting gives us a 1hr break in Chester. The unit we bring up goes to bed in the bay platform ready for service the next day and we wait for the last train of the night from Manchester to come up before all piling on together for a empty stock move back to Manchester!

Tonight like I suppose a lot of passengers do I sit with The national rail enquiries app open on my phone chatting to my driver in the hideous 70's inspired mess room that is Chester. We note that the service is steadily losing time and is currently around 15 minutes late at its last timing point! We ponder the reasons for this. We know its a double set (booked 150 + 142) so are they having trouble. Have they an engine out? Passenger problems? Just like everyday passengers there is no information to tell us. My company issue Blackberry also stays silent with no updates so its unlikely to be a signalling/permanent way issue.

Anyway 16 mins late she rolls into Chester (2x142) and we note a trainee in the drivers seat. After the 5 of us (2 Guards + 2 1/2 drivers) empty and secure the train and the trainer advises Chester signal box we are ready to start we get the signal and depart. We chat to the incoming guard who is himself reasonably new. He tells us that the journey has been a bit slow due to the trainee being spoon fed route instructions (he's fresh from the school by all accounts) but the main reason was passengers unable to find/press the door open button on his units. This had caused 2 pass com (alarm) activations as panicked passengers realised that the train was setting off with them still on it!

He has then had to reset these alarms open and close the doors again (twice) and this is what has caused his delay (and the fact he was 4 late leaving due to a bloody TPE getting in the way)!!

All in all we got back to our Home Depot 10 minutes late after a pretty rough ride home in a luke warm 142 at around 0210!!
Then the red eye drive home and bed where I'm now having a few days off!

Thanks for reading

The guard!

*Links - groups of set rotas in the depot which run over about 30 weeks. These advise of your duty number, start time and finish time.

We have 5 links, the bottom link (link 5) does all of the earliest starts and latest lates. Link 5+4 work all routes that our depot sign excluding Buxton.
As you work in the depot longer you progress up into the higher links where the work is more 'cushy'. In Link 3 you learn Buxton and in link 2 + 1 you lose Liverpool (unless you specifically keep it on your card through overtime)
Link 1 also benefit from no starting before 6am and no finishes after 10pm. These are blokes that have done 10 years + and although this splits opinion I believe this is fair as they have done their amount of the crap work!

Photo. Chesters beautiful crew room!

Earlies and travelling 'pass'

I'm working on our early shifts this week and they're a bit like marmite! You either love them or hate them.

Personally I like early turns generally the people are nicer (and less likely to be drunk and abusive!) and while the weather is nice like today the views on some of our lines are simply stunning!

The earliest starts at our depot are 4am for Guards like myself and 3am for the drivers. These shifts mainly involve taking empty trains to there start points around the north west. Sometimes you get a nice treat travelling passenger on another operators service for an hour or so as the train is left there overnight. Usually you get treated well by other operators staff and can usually sneak a cheap (read free!!) brew! Just a shame we can't offer the same gratuities to them back!

I'm currently travelling 'Pass' on one of our services at the moment enjoying the beautiful weather here in the north west off to bring a service back. 'Pass' is the code on our work sheets for 'travel as a passenger' which is always nice to see!

Anyway a little game to get you commenting today and I'm trying to make this one easy......What station is the picture from?

See you on the train soon
The Guard!

So what does a conductor do then..?

The vast majority of the public see the role of the conductor as the person who comes bugging you for tickets, makes announcements and presses that little buzzer to start the train from a station.

But there is a little bit more to it than that.

Firstly it's worth pointing out that all areas are different and each train operating company (TOC) will have different rules and job roles!

In Manchester we have two different types of conductor. The smaller operators have the traditional conductor, the bigger express companies have 'Train managers'. Whatever we are branded in the main we all do the same role.

Our top three priorities in the main are the same though. In this order.

Safety
Performance and punctuality
Revenue protection

and for that the role of the conductor can take around 12 weeks of basic training followed by another 7-8 weeks of depot specific knowledge.

So not quite the ticket checker and door closer now then!!

Guards have to follow a set of procedures set down in the national 'rule book' and then the rules laid down by the individual company they work for. In general a guard will have to learn and be tested competent in the following subjects.

•Personal Track safety (known as PTS)
•First aid
•Company specific rules
•Railway signs and what they mean (sounds simple?) take a look here first!!
British rail signs!


•The different types of signalling used on the railways and how to read signals correctly.
•Traction knowledge (that's knowing all about the trains you work) 5 types at my depot! Knowing them inside out so that when someone locks themselves in the loo you know which cupboard to go in and free them!
•How to operate the doors safety and communicate with the driver using the bell buzzer or platform staff.
•Protection of the train in an emergency. This is actually what you learn first but it is a vastly important part of the guards role and is drilled in at every opportunity!
•Route knowledge is next. Most people will say to you 'surely you just follow the track?' Again in the main we do. But signallers are also humans and occasionally make mistakes and if you take a 'wrong route' like for example taking a electric train down a non electric line.....well your all going to be moaning about delays arn't you now!!
For that reason we have to learn and be tested on every bit of line the we 'sign'!
We have to know every station, signal, junction, level crossing, viaduct, siding, loop and more so that we can keep you on the right track and more importantly so we can tell where we are in an emergency!
•Last but not least we learn 'revenue'.
If you've ever looked how to get from one place to another you'll know you can be presented with many routing options, fares and other supplements. We have to know all of our 'local' fares rules and also the rules of every ticket type, railcard, time restriction, OAP and disabled passes and also staff passes!

Thats just a brief snapshot of the role. There is still loads more than that but I hope this post goes to show that the role of the guard/conductor/train manager isn't all....."tickets and passes please!!"

As always questions welcome.
See you soon
The Guard

Welcome!

Hello,

Welcome to my blog 'Single to Mauldeth Road'. This blog intends to be a light-hearted view of the goings on of a conductor on the railways in and around Manchester. Some informative, some funny, some just down right stupid.

Its my first blog and I don't really know what to expect. I'm open to suggestion and if anyone wants to see anything specific or ask any questions please feel free to do so.

The title of the blog is a tongue in cheek mention of what I like to call our  'most popular ticket'. Its the cheapest fare from Manchester Piccadilly and we sell loads of them. Primarily because people are trying to dodge the barriers and then hoping they don't bump into the conductor on the train. Our railways lose thousands in revenue every year like this and as nice as it is to get something free in life we'd probably have much better railways, better stations, better trains if people actually paid the correct fare!

The usual rant applies....Anything I say on here is my view. It is not associated or affiliated by any train operating company nor other company for that instance. Its my words, my opinion and no one elses. If anything offends you please let ME know and we can have a chat about how i'm right!! ;-)

Thats all for now

The Guard