How Do Train Crews Get To Trains That Are In Parked Up Way Out Of Town

Nightcleaner | 23:51 Mon 13th Feb 2017 | Travel

8 Answers

On the approaches into London especially using South West trains, You see empty rolling stock parked way out from any stations, I was wondering please How the Train Crew gets to these Trains?

Do You Get Your Old Passport Back When You Renew

Easyjet Question

Answers

1 to 8 of 8

Best Answer

No best answer has yet been selected by Nightcleaner. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.

For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.

Buenchico

In a 'past life' I've had to get train crews to some very odd locations. e.g. if a train has just struck and killed somebody, a new driver has to be sent out to take over the controls. (There's an automatic assumption that the original driver wouldn't be in a fit state to carry on working). So I've had to explain to a taxi controller that I need a car to to take a driver to a train which is in the middle of a field, in the middle of nowhere, and I've no idea of the access route to get to it anyway!

The company I worked for stabled all of its trains close to the two signing-on points (at large railway stations) used by members of train crew, so drivers and conductors simply turned up at the relevant stations and either boarded the trains there or walked a short distance to the local depot.

Other companies will have a signing-on point (possibly in a Portakabin or similar), together with staff car parking, close to the sidings where trains are stabled. Otherwise they might have a minibus to take train crews from their signing-on points to trains.

Train crews (particularly drivers) can still end up stranded though. I've taken a phone call from a freight company (EWS), whose driver had been booked to do a late-night run to Sizewell Power Station (to collect nuclear waste), only to find that the job had been cancelled. So he'd ended up in a signal box, in a remote part of Suffolk (where all the taxi offices close at 6pm) and, even though I worked for a completely different company, it was still my job to find a way to get him back to his home in Peterborough!

Oh, happy days!

;-)

woofgang

I really like the concept of “stabling” trains....like they are huge living beasts

murraymints

dont they have those wee bogey things anymore Chris ? the one where the handle is pumped to move along track ?

Jackdaw33

EWS, a freight company. They used to be (and may still well be) responsible for the Royal Train. Some freight!

mushroom25

EWS (now DB Cargo), provide the locomotives and drivers for the workings of the royal train. the train cars themselves are owned by network rail, who also manage the train workings.

Jonathan-Joe

I'd guess (as others have said\) that these stabling points have road access and car parks. I have known passenger trains in service slow down or stop next to a depot and drop someone off from the driving cab. I know that Transport for London provide taxi transport for driving and station staff outside traffic hours.