THE MAN IN THE ENGINE

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 24, 29 January 1938, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE MAN IN THE ENGINE

W'a H <,tnn™V7>, nd ? r "'* eiP, " " Wee ? S r ° Un<l th * dist * nt " d *~« *» a sop at the station platform. The driver, high up in the cab of his panting en-nnc, pushes his cap from his forehead and gknees at his watch On time! e = The passengers stream out from the carriages. Most of them spare no thought for the driver. It is Ins job to get them to their destination safely and on time, and the onW occasion on which they have anything to say about the man in the engine is on those verV rare days when something goes wrong. Some people, however, are young enough to feel a touch of envy when they look up at the blue-cla.l driver whose hand rules the giant of the iron roa.l •Most of us have thought at some time that we would like to be eno-ine-drivers have idled with the thought of how thrilling it must be to stand in the cab. a stron-r hand on the throttle, with the safety of a hundred or more passengers entrusted to us Wβ may have thought of the wild joy of a nigilt ride, the powerful headlight of the engine ighting up the track ahead, the bright windows of the carriages making a glowino- necklace behind as the train pounds on through the quiet night. Some of us, of course, have done mere than dream of being engine-drivers. If this wt>re not so there would be no engine drivers. How, then, does a boy become a driver! that his application to the Railway Department is successful, what happens to him* As with other walks of life, the boy who wants to drive an engine starts at the bottom He joins the service at the age of eighteen as a cleaner. On his first spell of dutv in the great murky sheds where engines are housed when off the road he has as his guide* a more experienced boy who shows him how to fill boilers with water, how to bank fires" how to clean all the rods, levers and wheels that are covered with dust and grime when the engine comes home after a long run. ° At the end of three months the young cleaner, if he seems to be takin- to the work sits for an examination. He has to answer questions about what he has been°taught F*aminations are frequent in the life of the budding driver. Actually, he leaves school to start lessors. If he parses his first examination he ie put in charge of a boiler himself—that is to sav that he is responsible for an engine, in which st;am is kept up all night so that a quick start mav he made in the morning. - -i About this time, the young man it giren his school book*. He is watching and listening while at work, and studying his text books at night, so you see learning to be an en<nne-drivef is not all fun. One subject -which he must study very closely is signals. He must" know all nbout them, what they moan and how they work. He has to understand the sort of signal that is most familiar to you—the arm on a post, and also the more complicated automatic liffht signal* °

A few months more and there is another examination. We shall assume he passes, for our student is a bright young- man. Then comes his first big thrill. He is put on a shunting engine, one of those fussy little engines that rushes al>out the station yard, shifting trucks and being generally useful. The first time the cleaner goes on a shunting engine he is an extra man. learning by watching the regular fireman and driver. Later he goes out as fireman with a foreman travelling as third man or the engine to see how the newfhaticl is shaping;. Xearly a year passes, and along comes another, examination. This is the fireman's exam., and a pas: means that our young man Is now a second-class fireman. He starts to go out <-n short nine ■β-ith goods trains. If report* of his work are satisfactory, he {roes on to mixed trains, which are trains composed partly of trucks and partly of passenger carriages. By this time he is no longer a new hand. He knows all the things a good fireman should not do. Here are some of them. He must not fire the engine so that heavy clouds of smoke scatter soot over people in a. station: he must not have so hi? a head of steam up on arrival in a station that the engine Mows ofT when stationary. He must not forget to keep a proper look-out on hi? side of the engine, as he is required to watch for signals and careless people who drive over level crossings when trains are approaching. By this time the fireman is ready for promotion. Some days he is s»>nt out himself as driver of a shuntiiiz engine. When a vacancy occur* he is appointed as a driver, his first work being with suburban trains and shunting engines. Three or four Tears of this work and he may sit for his first grade examination. This is his most important examination, and it is a difficult test indeed. The driver has to answer a hundred written questions. He has to prove to the examiners that he can meet any emergency, that he knows hn-sc to look after an enjrine. how to drive it. how to repair it. and. if at all possible, how to bring it home when it has had a breakdown. There are questions anont the mechanism of engines, shout brake=. headlights, signals, boilers, and lot= of other things that we could not nnderstand unless we had Keen trained as the driver had during the previous few years.

: Drivers are usually in their thirties J when they pass this important exami- | nation. Once successful in satisfying his superior officers, the driver i.- within reach of satisfying , his early ambition to drive an express train. He ha? to wait for a vacancy so that he ni«y be placed on what i? known as "Number 1 R^ter,' , whi<-h means, expre**; train-- and fast g'jod.-s trains. A man i? not allowed to drive an e.V'rf-- Iniin U!ii(-~> he ha; given full urr\:>i that h<? is in every way rapd'.iU-. When von think that New Z»-«iand'e main PXprsfs train? often run for a year without ever beinz a minute late in arriving at their 'ie?tination«. you can &ee how much defends on the driver. The great day arrives. The driver arrives at. the engine . s he<J punctually in the morning. He «eeks out his engine—and it is his own engine, for rno*t driver? in this drive • >n? rnj\nf continually—thoroughly examines it. t**t= the brakes, that the fireman has filled the boiler properly, that the cr>al supply ig right, that there is =and in the .«and dnnie and a dozen other things. Satisfied at last, he drives out to the platform and couples the engine to the train. The minute of departure arrives. The griard blows his whittle and waves a gr»-en fie ,7. The signal shows that the line ahead in. clear. The driver's hand reaches for the throttle. There is a."puff r>f «moke and a hiss of fteam. The big engine moves j]owly and irteadily away— The boy who used to dream of railway engines ie driving the Limited Exprewe!