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Last Big Four employees?

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Journeyman

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Does anyone know when the last member(s) of staff to have worked for a Big Four company left railway service?

I wonder if any made it all the way through BR service to the modern privatised era. It seems possible to me. If you started at the age of 15, say, in 1947, you could easily have notched up fifty years to retire from a TOC. Did anyone do this?
 
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Springs Branch

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I do remember reading about an ex-LMS man who was retiring and had done just that.

I don't think the story made any claim about him being the very last of these, just that it was a notable achievement.

It was a while ago though, and I can't remember where I read it, so maybe not much help to you.
 

Ashley Hill

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We had a driver who had started cleaning with GWR and made it into Great Western Trains. GWT made a bit of a publicity thing about it at the time.
 

ChiefPlanner

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That generation would have been retired in / around 2000 , if they started before 1948.

Certainly had staff who were of the late 1940's , and on retirement you always got their files out for the inevitable farewell meeting , and a lot of them had headed paper and job titles for pre-nationalisation organisations. E.g drivers (or would be drivers were seen by the Shedmaster or Divisional Motive Power staff, clerical officers by the Divisional Operating Superintendant , other jobs by the Station Master etc)

Fascinating reading in all respects. One set of papers for a drivers - who had spent his entire career at Watford , had a letter - written to him , but not sent due a 4 min delay caused on a Tring- Southern excursion n 1954 - when he left the engine to fill his tea can. A perfect record.

And no - I did not bring it to his attention.
 

Taunton

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Although school leaving age was 15 then, If I am not mistaken there was a higher limit for jobs on the "loco" side at the sheds - was it 16 or 18? A number who were keen however might start for a year or two at a station as a porter.

Could this just have been a GWR thing? I vaguely recall some yellowing notice in the stationmasters' office at Taunton, giving a list of jobs that "lad porters" were not allowed to do, including "starting the engines of road motors", from the times when railway road vehicles had crank handles to start.
 

ChiefPlanner

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Although school leaving age was 15 then, If I am not mistaken there was a higher limit for jobs on the "loco" side at the sheds - was it 16 or 18? A number who were keen however might start for a year or two at a station as a porter.

Could this just have been a GWR thing? I vaguely recall some yellowing notice in the stationmasters' office at Taunton, giving a list of jobs that "lad porters" were not allowed to do, including "starting the engines of road motors", from the times when railway road vehicles had crank handles to start.

16 probably as a "Loco cleaner" ,- but in post war , labour starved Austerity Britain , - a cleaner would soon be out on the road firing with an 8F or similar taking 70 gas works empty wagons to Northampton. (for Toton) , a trip that would take most of an 8 hours shift for various reasons. Hard work.
 

Taunton

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Were "passed cleaners" paid a fireman's wage for the day, or throughout? I get the impression the loco side paid significantly better than at the station.
 

LowLevel

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I would imagine there have always been odd people with long lengths of service by exception so it wouldn't he surprised. Our most senior guard started as a steam engine cleaner in 1965 and is in his 55th year of service. He was going to retire a few years ago but his wife sadly passed away so he chose to stay on at work with his mates instead for something to keep him occupied.
 

LOM

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The thing that has always interested me working alongside those old boys is that when they started they would have learnt their trade from railwaymen who started around World War 1, and they in turn would have taught by grizzled old timers who started as lads in the 19th century. So you only need to go back four or five times to get to Stephenson’s Rocket!
 

ChiefPlanner

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Were "passed cleaners" paid a fireman's wage for the day, or throughout? I get the impression the loco side paid significantly better than at the station.

Pretty sure they were , plus any allowances and a careful record was kept of the number of turns they worked out on the line so as to count for their eventual progression to fireman.
 

ChiefPlanner

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The thing that has always interested me working alongside those old boys is that when they started they would have learnt their trade from railwaymen who started around World War 1, and they in turn would have taught by grizzled old timers who started as lads in the 19th century. So you only need to go back four or five times to get to Stephenson’s Rocket!

A good point - some of these old boys saw more change in the railway than many of their predecessors - from the Big 4 to Nationalisation , to "modernisation" , diesel , .electrification , Beeching and later, several recessions - privatisation , break up of BR.

Whereas you could have stayed as a Postman say in one place for 40 years.
 

topydre

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Although school leaving age was 15 then, If I am not mistaken there was a higher limit for jobs on the "loco" side at the sheds - was it 16 or 18? A number who were keen however might start for a year or two at a station as a porter.

Could this just have been a GWR thing? I vaguely recall some yellowing notice in the stationmasters' office at Taunton, giving a list of jobs that "lad porters" were not allowed to do, including "starting the engines of road motors", from the times when railway road vehicles had crank handles to start.

This perhaps?
1589238947141.png
From The Great Western Railway: 150 Glorious Years (Whitehouse & Thomas)
 
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