LOCOMOTIVE MEN’S CONDITIONS.

Evening Star, Issue 22576, 18 February 1937, Page 16

LOCOMOTIVE MEN’S CONDITIONS.

TO THE EDITOR. I Sir, —I read with interest a column j in your paper referring to the New I Zealand railway engine drivers, firemen, | and cleaners. I myself am an engine , driver. I will here give a not© of some of the conditions under which the above work. Lately the foremen in Dunedin have been taking on the pick of our i youths to learn driving under the name of cleaners. These lads are only IS years of age, and are made to crawl round inside the filthy smoke boxes and wash out the boiler. These young fellows are called on at 5 a.m., and arc sent inside the furnace with a hose of water fed with terrific pressure to clean the boiler tubes. The result is that they are soaked and cramped, and their eyes begin to suffer. Can anyone expect Nature to make a boy stand up to it? Some of the lads finish at midnight on Saturday and start on Sunday night at midnight, which means the boys are not getting enough rest. How can anyone expect their health to hold ? No matter what time of night or day or what kind of weather, these youths have to go out and empty the furnace of red hot fire, the result being that their eyes are filled with red hot sparks that have to be got out. To see them dancing in agony is enough to break one's heart, and yet the Government will not supply goggles. Is this fair play and proper conditions ? The foremen in charge force these youths under the engine to do jobs in filth and darkness, and they refuse to give them a light. Who can expect their eyes to stand it? The sheds are a disgrace to put any human being in. There is very little, if any, light, and the air is foul. The hoys frequently bleed at the nose from irritation in the chest while cleaning the smoke boxes. The foremen refuse to supply coats for the boys, who work out in the worst of nights while most are snug in bed. These lads on certain shifts never get a meal hour. Then the poor firemen have to fire their furnaces for. 16 or 18 hours some days in order to get home to their families. The foremen are giving them cheap coal to use, and that means twice as much firing. Who was meant .to fire a roaring furnaco for 16 or 18 hours on end? Then, after 30 odd years of this misery, some become drivers, and suffer many illeffects from exposure, cramp, and other things they have to put up with. I will ask your thousands of readers if anyone can be expected to he alert and fit to be in charge of a train full of human beings under these conditions? —I am, etc., Bring In the New. February 16. ,