"Motorman"

I remember the day after her first, when it was reported that 'a few' passengers (dinosaurs?) had waited for the next train when they saw a female driver.

I'm not sure how true that was because not that many people peer into the cab of an approaching train. I know when I tried to spot a friend of mine who was a central line driver it was nigh on impossible to identify the driver (despite the clue of his extremely long hair) without gawking like an idiot.

I suppose it's easier in overground sections.

Train operators came into being with the opening of the Victoria line in 1968.

This was a big promotion at the time.

Talking of Hannah Dadds, a couple of years before that there was a severe shortage of guards on the Chingford line. When asked why guards' jobs were not open to women, a senior ER manager replied that they were, but no woman could pass the test of lifting a three-link coupling at the end of a four-foot pole.
I always thought the 305s had automatic couplers, but perhaps the men in suits didn't know that....

The term Guard/Motorman was still in use in the late 80,s early 90,s. I was one on the Central Line in 1990.

Surely Guard/Motorman was retained until a line went driver only when guards were no longer required.

When I was a depot clerk the senior yardmaster would allocate driving duties to of course rostered spare drivers first, then to Guard/Rated Motorman who were Guard/Motormen who had done enough driving duties in a year to paid as a motorman whether working as a driver or guard. Then to Guard/Motormen who were fully qualified as drivers and always looking for driving duties to get rated.

Guards would obviously do guard duties, but at Upminster you had four guard/shunters who worked around the clock in the control tower. there were other guards who could step up to do their duties for sickness and holiday cover. Finally there were Station/Guards who when not required as a guard worked at a station as a railman.

The system generally worked quite well as the yardmaster knew who he could rely on.

I always preferred Motorman to Train Driver or Train operator, though I thought my payslip always had MM02, don't know what the difference was between that and MM01 unless MM01 was a trainer.

I've always like the term Motorman. "Driver" to me implies the use of a steering wheel (it just does) and "Operator" sound too clinical.

My old mate Pete was a road sweeper in LB Redbridge in the early eighties although his official title was "Street Orderly". He hated the term and couldn't understand what was wrong with road sweeper!

Ah cross purposes here BF, he didn't regard the initial nomenclature as demeaning at all. He just thought it was pointless creating a description for "someone who sweeps roads that doesn't mention sweeping roads".

Nickf, and to take up your last point, Rhodesia became Zambia/Zimbabwe...

Who now has the job of dealing with buckeyes and emergency screw couplers on DOO trains - and do women drivers have any trouble in this regard? Or have women just got stronger since the 70s?

The only trains I can think of operated DOO that still have Buckeye couplers that can be lowered/raised are the Class 442 EMUs used currently on Gatwick Express and some Southern services. I'd assume it would be the Driver's responsibility to lower the Buckeye in case of emergency rescue by loco (not fitted with Buckeye) when the screw coupling would have to be used. Since they run normally with the Buckeye in the raised position the Driver would only have to lower it, which is alot easier than raising it and it would most likely be raised again by a Shunter back at the depot after the rescue loco has been uncoupled. The Shunter who comes with the rescue loco may also be the person who would lower the Buckeye coupler if the Driver hasn't done so already in a rescue situation.

'Motorman' surely came over with Yerkes. In the US, 'driver' was the name for a horse-car 'operator', and the new cable, and then electric cars needed a new term, there being no horse (or mule, in Dixie) to 'drive. 'Gripman' and 'motorman' fitted the bill nicely.

Wiki:

A motorman is the title for a person who operates an electrified trolley car, tram, light rail, or rapid transit train.

The term refers to the person who is in charge of the motor (of the electric car) in the same sense as a railroad engineer is in charge of the engine. The term was (and, where still used, is) gender-neutral. Though motormen have historically been male, females in the position (such as in the U.S. during the World Wars) were usually also called motormen as a job title.

The term has been replaced by more neutral ones, as gender-specific job titles have fallen into disuse, and because many systems employ large numbers of women in the position. On the New York City Subway and London Underground, the position is now called train operator (T/Op).

The operator of an electric locomotive or an electric multiple unit train on a commuter or mainline railroad is typically called an engineer or driver.

The term may also refer to a person on a locomotive-hauled train when the train is being propelled by the locomotive. The driver is responsible for applying power in the locomotive, while the motorman (usually in a specially-built or converted vehicle) at the front of the train, is responsible for obeying signals, sounding the horn, and applying the brakes where necessary.


I've definitely read but can't remember where, that Yerkes's takeover brought cars into the UndergrounD nomenclature for carriages, so the evidence points that way vide motorman.

I remember GT Moody's Southern Electric used this throughout its' text. Unfortunately, I need to get a new copy of that, without which I can't tell you what the author did for a living, but I think he was in a railway management area, so may be the term was officially adopted before he'd started in such & would again point down the Yerkes route.

Ugh!!!

In most of the civilised (by which in this context I mean non-Anglophone) world, an engineer is a professional practitioner in a specific discipline of engineering (civil, electrical, mechanical, aeronautical etc) - and in many countries the term can only legally be used by a member of the relevant chartered institution, and usually has a degree.

Until recently a locomotive engineer would be someone who designed it. In America the engineer was, and is, the person who drove it. But in Britain now it usually means the person who comes to fix it. (What's wrong with "technician" or "fitter"?)

5th July 1938 - Who was the engineer?

a Sir Nigel Gresley
b Joe Duddington
c Tom Bray*
d The un-named man who patched up the valve gear at Peterborough after it cracked under the strain, so that Mallard could get to Kings Cross for the press call.

In the UK anyone who knows how to wield a screwdriver now calls himself an engineer - and the resulting image problem for the profession has resulted in the IMEE, ICEE, IEEE having a recruitment problem, universities having to close engineering courses for lack of interest, and more and more industrial design, even bespoke work for UK customers, being done abroad.

* yes, I have even seen "engineer" used for that role - e.g in Michael Crichton's so-inaccurate-it's-funny early novel "The First Great Train Robbery" (1975)