A train driver or locomotive engineer is a person who operates a train, railcar, or other rail transport vehicle. The driver is in charge of and is responsible for the mechanical operation of the train, train speed, and all of the train handling (also known as brake handling). Train drivers must follow certain guidelines for driving a train safely. [1]
A train driver is also called locomotive engineer, engine driver, engineman or locomotive driver, commonly known as an engineer or railroad engineer [2] in the United States and Canada, and also as a locomotive handler, locomotive operator, train operator, or motorman. In American English, a hostler (also known as a switcher) moves engines around rail yards, but does not take them out on the main line tracks; the British English equivalent is a shunter.
For many American railroads, the following career progression is typical: assistant conductor (brakeman), train conductor, and finally the engineer. For many years the fireman was next in line to be an engineer, but that classification has been eliminated. In the US, engineers are required to be certified and must then be re-certified every two to three years. [3]
The traditional career progression in the United Kingdom (for steam locomotives) was engine cleaner, passed engine cleaner (i.e. the employee has passed the assessment for fireman), fireman, passed fireman (i.e. passed assessment for driver), and driver. Michael Reynolds, locomotive inspector of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway proposed a system of locomotive driving certificates, as a stimulus of improvement of service and competency. [4] However, no such system was ever universally adopted by the railways of the UK.
In India, a driver starts as a diesel assistant (or electrical assistant for electric locomotives). They then get promoted on a scale: goods, passenger, mail express, and the Rajdhani, Shatabdi, and Duronto express services. [5]
The British transport historian Christian Wolmar wrote in October 2013 that train operators employed by the Rio Tinto Group to transport iron ore across the Australian outback were likely to be the highest-paid members of the occupation in the world at that time. [6]
Rail transport is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road transport. It is used for about 8% of passenger and freight transport globally, thanks to its energy efficiency and potentially high speed.
A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material to heat water in the locomotive's boiler to the point where it becomes gaseous and its volume increases 1,700 times. Functionally, it is a steam engine on wheels.
A conductor or guard is a train crew member responsible for operational and safety duties that do not involve actual operation of the train/locomotive. The conductor title is most common in North American railway operations, but the role is common worldwide under various job titles. In Commonwealth English, a conductor is also known as guard or train manager.
John Luther "Casey" Jones was an American railroader who was killed when his passenger train collided with a stalled freight train in Vaughan, Mississippi.
A dead man's switch is a switch that is designed to be activated or deactivated if the human operator becomes incapacitated, such as through death, loss of consciousness, or being bodily removed from control. Originally applied to switches on a vehicle or machine, it has since come to be used to describe other intangible uses, as in computer software.
A tender or coal-car is a special rail vehicle hauled by a steam locomotive containing its fuel and water. Steam locomotives consume large quantities of water compared to the quantity of fuel, so their tenders are necessary to keep them running over long distances. A locomotive that pulls a tender is called a tender locomotive. Locomotives that do not have tenders and carry all their fuel and water on board are called tank locomotives or tank engines.
Rail transport terms are a form of technical terminology applied to railways. Although many terms are uniform across different nations and companies, they are by no means universal, with differences often originating from parallel development of rail transport systems in different parts of the world, and in the national origins of the engineers and managers who built the inaugural rail infrastructure. An example is the term railroad, used in North America, and railway, generally used in English-speaking countries outside North America and by the International Union of Railways. In English-speaking countries outside the United Kingdom, a mixture of US and UK terms may exist.
A train simulator is a computer-based simulation of rail transport operations. They are generally large complicated software packages modeling a 3D virtual reality world implemented both as commercial trainers, and consumer computer game software with 'play modes' which lets the user interact by stepping inside the virtual world. Because of the near view modeling, often at speed, train simulator software is generally far more complicated software to write and implement than flight simulator programs.
A motorman is a person who operates a tram (streetcar), light rail, or rapid transit train. A motorman is in charge of operating their train, applying power to traction motors, in the same sense as a railroad engineer is in charge of the engine.
A fireman, stoker or boilerman is a person who tends the fire for the running of a boiler, heating a building, or powering a steam engine. Much of the job is hard physical labor, such as shoveling fuel, typically coal, into the boiler's firebox. On steam locomotives, the title fireman is usually used, while on steamships and stationary steam engines, such as those driving saw mills, the title is usually stoker. The German word Heizer is equivalent and in Dutch the word stoker is mostly used too. The United States Navy referred to them as watertenders.
A motive power depot (MPD) or locomotive depot, or traction maintenance depot (TMD), is where locomotives are usually housed, repaired and maintained. They were originally known as "running sheds", "engine sheds" or just "sheds". Facilities are provided for refuelling and the replenishing of water, lubricating oil and grease and, for steam engines, the disposal of ash. There are often workshops for day-to-day repairs and maintenance, but locomotive building and major overhauls are usually carried out at locomotive works.
The Stéblová train disaster was a railway accident that occurred on 14 November 1960 at 17:42 CET on a single-track railway in Stéblová in Eastern Bohemia, Czechoslovakia. At 17:42 CET, a passenger steam train 608 traveling at a speed of 55 km/h collided with a diesel railcar 653 traveling at a speed of 60 km/h. 118 people died as a result of the accident and 110 were badly injured. It remains the deadliest accident in the history of Czech railway transport.
Push–pull is a configuration for locomotive-hauled trains, allowing them to be driven from either end of the train, whether having a locomotive at each end or not.
A brakeman is a rail transport worker whose original job was to assist the braking of a train by applying brakes on individual wagons. The advent of through brakes, brakes on every wagon which could be controlled by the driver, made this role redundant, although the name lives on, for example, in the United States where brakemen carry out a variety of functions both on the track and within trains.
This article contains a list of jargon used to varying degrees by railway enthusiasts, trainspotters, and railway employees in the United Kingdom, including nicknames for various locomotives and multiple units. Although not exhaustive, many of the entries in this list appear from time to time in specialist, rail-related publications. There may be significant regional variation in usage.
One-person operation (OPO), also known as driver-only operation (DOO), one-man operation (OMO), single person train operation (SPTO), or one-person train operation (OPTO), similarly to driver-controlled operation, is operation of a train, bus, or tram by the driver alone, without a conductor.
The Thirroul Railway Depot, at Thirroul, New South Wales, opened in about 1917 and closed in April 1965. During that time it was a major servicing destination for the steam locomotives that ran on the Illawarra Line. The depot was located a little north of Thirroul station and was bounded by Church Street and the lower part of Sea Foam Avenue. After its closure most of the buildings and structures were removed. Only the crew barracks remain on the site at the corner of Church Street and Lawrence Hargrave Drive. The depot area is still owned by the Transport Asset Holding Entity and is used as a storage facility. Since 1998, the barracks have been rented by artists, firstly Barracks Artists Incorporated and then from December 2012 Barracks Art Studios Thirroul Incorporated.
Steele v. Louisville & Nashville Railway Co., 323 U.S. 192 (1944), is a United States Supreme Court case, concerning U.S. labor law, specifically, the responsibility of every formally recognized labor organization to equally represent all the members of their class or craft, under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). In particular, the Court ruled that the Act covered employees regardless of whether any particular individual(s) are, or are not, members of the duly recognized labor organization labor unions.
Hugo Erikovich Jalava was a train driver and carried out administrative tasks in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). He is known for his role in the Russian Revolution, when he helped Lenin flee Finnland in July 1917 and then return to Saint Petersburg shortly before the October Revolution.
The following examine the role of the railroad engineer from 1890 to 1919, discussing qualifications for becoming an engineer and typical experiences on the job:
Wilson David C Forward! The Revolution in the Lives of the Footplatemen 1962–1996 Published by Suttons ISBN 0-7509-1144-1
