Staffing on the W&C

DWS - Wrong, I'm afraid. LU paid BR £1 for all the shares in a company - the Waterloo and City and London Underground Extensions Ltd (of which I was a director at the time and still have a sample of its headed notepaper). In that company, we had vested not only the assets of the Drain but also sundry other BR assets such as track at New Cross/New Cross Gate which I was anxious to see transferred away from Railtrack. Technically, you can't give away shares - there has to be a transaction (didn't have to be £1, of course, could have been a pair of white gloves at Candlemas) but in this case, the value of the company's assets far exceeded £1...

In the BR days with the Class 482 would the drivers receive LU training to drive the stock, or was it by BR? Also, when it was transferred to LU, did the current drivers move to LU or did they go onto another part of the rail network?

It happened the other way round. The line didn't become part of LU until 1994. The new trains were ordered (with CoL money) and built and entered service whilst the line was still owned and operated by Network South East - indeed before the railway privatisation Act had been passed - which is why they carried BR TOPS classifications (482) and carried (and still carry) car numbers in the BR emu series. They entered service in mid-1993, .



South Western, surely? Apart from its joint ownership of some H&C rolling stock, the Great Western / Western Region never owned or ran any electric trains until last year.

Well, as I said 'I guess'. In answer to the initial question, I know the BR drivers weren't absorbed into LU to continue operating the service, I also know the current drivers are and have always been from Leytonstone since the line was handed over to LU. 
Personally, my only stint of experience on the main lines was as a contract manager for LTS rail at East Ham and Shoeburyness train crew depots and as a security consultant for EPS at the North Pole international depot prior to the Eurostar trains running out of St Pancras. My brother in law is a driver on southern rail out of Brighton and Seaford depots, but I must profess that I know nothing about what TOCs run what 😉

no, Leytonstone took over the duties as soon as it came over. The 92s were immediately put on the line and we started driving them, not the drivers at Elephant

Are you sure that doesn't just mean that the people who staffed the line were, from then on, employed by London Underground Ltd and not NSE/later private TOCs, i.e. the staff of the line were now London Underground staff, i.e. staffing arrangements were transferred to LUL.

I admit your interpretation is a slightly more natural interpretation of the sentence as written, but judging by the rest of this thread and the considerable difference between the tube and mainline (for example, it certainly used to be the case that tube driving does not count as experience for the mainline, and if a tube driver wants to transfer, they have to start again at the bottom, even if they worked over Network Rail tracks, for example on the District line), I think it might just be a case of bad phrasing.

I seem to recall reading that W&C drivers (and possibly other staff) were given the option of transferring to LUL in 1994, or staying with BR (redeployed elsewhere on the South Western).

But I also read that in BR days, as is also the case now, there were no exclusively W&C drivers: a Waterloo driver's roster could include the Drain as part of a day's work that would also take him to Salisbury and back, for example.

That is correct, think Central line took it over about 2007 (+/- 1)

Why wasn't this fitted with ATO when the Central was? Cost?

The "tunnel walk" in BR days was a bit of a misnomer, more of a tunnel run, to see how quick we could get to "Bank" and back, checking the fire appliances, tunnel telephone wires and the pump-in-the-sump, and into the BRSA before they closed at 1500.

One Saturday we started the "walk" at a "brisk pace" towards the sump, then heard the rumbling of a train approaching down the hill from Waterloo. We ran to the nearest cross-passage to the other tunnel, only to peer through the opening to see a couple of p'way staff pushing their trolley along!

I think you'll find the answer to Waterloo BR drivers and their rostering on the W&C elsewhere on this section. but to recap, in my days at Waterloo, 1980-1988, there were 4 links 9groups) of drivers "upstairs" at Waterloo totalling over 200 men. (women drivers hadn't been invented then).. No.1 link covered Bournemouth/Weymouth/Salisbury>Exeter, all the suburban electric lines except the W&C and Horsham and maybe the Guildford-Ascot; no 2 link much the same as 1 link but not >Exeter, but with the W&C; no 3 link same as 2 link but not Salisbury, but including Guildford-Ascot, Portsmouth direct and W&C; 4 link all electric lines but not past Pirbright Junction towards Basingstoke and Bournemouth, and the W&C.

Most W&C duties were in 3 and 4 link, with 2 ling doing a few to keep route knowledge, sometime a day at a time, sometimes for a week. From memory there were something like 20 or more duties a day down there. From my understanding the driving staff did not move to LUL with the W&C, those men preferring daylight and a slightly easier life in the countryside, even if the money was slightly less at the time.

Any driving staff going from LT at the time to BR would until 1988 have to start from the bottom on BR as a traction trainee, then secondman, then driver. I'd suggest it was the station staff, maintenance men, fitters etc who transferred with the line, not train crew.

Well, all I can say is the reality doesn't reflect what was supposed to have happened. Having been a regular for a number of years now, I've asked other regulars who have been driving down the drain since we took it over and none of them were ex BR drivers, neither do they remember any transferring across. I understand the workings of TUPE, having had the experience of absorbing many staff when I was a contract manager, but having gotten used to the way LU management deals with things, agreements really don't mean a great deal to them and given they'd just gone through the hated 'company plan' I doubt very much they would have been taken into the central line, much more likely they would have ended up in the transfers system 🙄

*I speak only of drivers, not sure about station staff

John Gillham's book on the W&C stated that all staff were given the option to transfer but none chose to do so other than one signalman.

From my knowledge of him, he remained on the W&C until 2002 when he trained for controller on the Bakerloo line and didn't make the grade. I don't know where he went subsequently.
On transfer P/Way and Signals maintenance was undertaken by the Central line with first call on signal faults usually going to the Bakerloo line (as they were nearer).