A secondman or second man is a railway employee who assists the driver of a train. For this reason the term driver's assistant is also used. In this role, the second man could learn the duties of the driver and on passing the relevant tests and examinations become a driver himself.
With the ending of steam traction on many railways, the job of fireman or boilerman was made obsolete. However, there were still many duties to be performed with diesel and electric traction that the driver could not do by themselves, such as preparation of locomotives, operation of train heating systems, shunting duties, and many others.
With increasing automation of rolling stock, many trains today only require the operation of a single driver, and thus this post has started to disappear. However, it remains in many places, especially on heavy freight, express routes and night trains. Trainee drivers (often known as traction trainees) may also act as secondmen in order to learn routes and operating methods.
Certain railway lines in the UK (for example, the East Suffolk Line) are not approved for driver-only operation. Passenger trains will usually have a driver and a guard, but empty stock movements would require a secondperson (usually a second qualified driver) or a guard to accompany the driver.
On heritage railways, where the older types of locomotives are still in use, the position of second man is still an important role filled by volunteers, and usually part of the training to become a driver.
A multiple-unit train or simply multiple unit (MU) is a self-propelled train composed of one or more carriages joined together, which when coupled to another multiple unit can be controlled by a single driver, with multiple-unit train control.
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.
The vacuum brake is a braking system employed on trains and introduced in the mid-1860s. A variant, the automatic vacuum brake system, became almost universal in British train equipment and in countries influenced by British practice. Vacuum brakes also enjoyed a brief period of adoption in the United States, primarily on narrow-gauge railroads. Its limitations caused it to be progressively superseded by compressed air systems starting in the United Kingdom from the 1970s onward. The vacuum brake system is now obsolete; it is not in large-scale usage anywhere in the world, other than in South Africa, largely supplanted by air brakes.
Brake van and guard's van are terms used mainly in the UK, Australia and India for a railway vehicle equipped with a hand brake which can be applied by the guard. The equivalent North American term is caboose, but a British brake van and a caboose are very different in appearance, because the former usually has only four wheels, while the latter usually has bogies. German railways employed Brakeman's cabins combined into other cars.
A tank locomotive or tank engine is a steam locomotive that carries its water in one or more on-board water tanks, instead of a more traditional tender. A tank engine may also have a bunker to hold fuel.
A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotive have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving wheels.
Rail terminology is a form of technical terminology. The difference between the American term railroad and the international term railway is the most significant difference in rail terminology. There are also others, due to the parallel development of rail transport systems in different parts of the world.
A railway has two major components: the rolling stock and the infrastructure.
On trains, the expression emergency brake has several meanings:
In railway signalling, a token is a physical object which a train driver is required to have or see before entering onto a particular section of single track. The token is clearly endorsed with the names of the section it belongs to. A token system is more commonly used for single lines because of the greater risk of collision in the event of a mistake being made by a signaller or traincrew, than on double lines.
The Weka Pass Railway is a New Zealand heritage railway based in Waipara, North Canterbury. It is operated on a 12.8 km length of the former Waiau Branch railway between Waipara and Waikari. The railway is operated by an incorporated society whose members come from all walks of life and are largely resident in the city of Christchurch, 60 km to the south. The railway began carrying passengers in 1984 and is now well established locally and nationally.
The motive power depot is the place where locomotives are usually housed, repaired and maintained when not being used. They were originally known as "running sheds", "engine sheds" or, for short, just sheds. Facilities are provided for refuelling and replenishing water, lubricating oil and grease and, for steam engines, disposal of the ash. There are often workshops for day to day repairs and maintenance, although locomotive building and major overhauls are usually carried out in the locomotive works.
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 earliest known use of the term to describe this occupation occurred in 1833. 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 in the United States where brakemen carry out a variety of functions both on the track and within trains.
This page contains a list of jargon used to varying degrees by railfans, 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.
On the UK rail network, multiple working is where two or more traction units are coupled together in such a way that they are all under the control of one driver.
Railmotor is a term mainly used in the United Kingdom for a railway lightweight railcar: that is, a railway carriage with a small steam traction unit or diesel or petrol engine integrated into it.
One-man operation (OMO), also known as driver-only operation (DOO), one person operation (OPO), 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 engineer or motorman alone, without a conductor.
A Bahnbetriebswerk is a German railway depot where the maintenance of locomotives and other rolling stock is carried out. It is roughly equivalent to a locomotive shed, running shed or motive power depot. These were of great importance during the steam locomotive era to ensure the smooth running of locomotive-hauled services. Bahnbetriebswerke had a large number of facilities in order to be able to carry out their various maintenance tasks. As a result, they needed a lot of staff and were often the largest employers in the area.
Buffers and chain couplers are the de facto UIC standard railway stock coupling used in the EU and UK, and on some surviving colonial railways, such as in South America and India. These couplers are an assembly of several devices: buffers,hooks and links|screws).
Although steam locomotives were withdrawn from normal railway service in Great Britain in 1968, due to sustained public interest including a locomotive preservation movement, steam hauled passenger trains can still be seen on the mainline railway in the present day.
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