Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 9, Issue 8 (November 1, 1934)

Leaves From an Old Rule Book

Leaves From an Old Rule Book.

One of the first studies that has to be undertaken by every railwayman is the careful digesting of the mass of instructional material contained in the official Rule Book. The 300-page Rule Book in operation in Britain covers almost every phase of operation, and has rightly been termed the “Railwayman's Bible.”

The Rules and Regulations of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, dated August, 1851, is a particularly interesting publication dealing with the duties of railwaymen of an older generation. Here we find one of the duties of permanent-way men defined as follows: “To scrape and sweep the rails, so as to keep them clean.” Every guard of those days had to find security for £50 “for the honest and faithful discharge of his duty”; while guards, drivers, “stokers” and pointsmen were instructed “to apply, not later than the last day but one of the month, at the superintendent's office, for a time-table of such Companies' workings as affect their part of the line for the ensuing month.” Should it be necessary for an engine to travel along the wrong line, the engineman was instructed to send his fireman or “stoker” back for some 600 yards, and the fireman had then to run or walk at such a speed as to maintain this distance between himself and the locomotive, stopping any train approaching from the opposite direction. “Good old days,” indeed, were these; but in 1934 railway working is certainly both safer and saner!