Was there a train driver log?

[Steve Appleton]

Is anyone able to provide answers to these questions submitted by Verius?

Hopefully you have an answer for me. My grandfather used to be a train driver. (Circa 1940-1960 ??). If not mistaken I have it that he operated between Port Elizabeth and Cookhouse.

My question is: Did the Railways keep a log of which drivers drove which engines on specific trips? If so, is there a way of getting the info? I am doing family research and would like to add this kind of info for interest's sake.

Hope to hear from you soon.
Kind regards
Verius de Beer

[John Ashworth]

Spoornet in its latter days certainly had a "Locomotive Personnel Journal" form which was filled in by the footplate crew for each trip. FOTR originally used this Spoornet document before creating our own version, based on the Spoornet one. It seems likely that it was handed in at the end of the shift to the administrative or wages department, as some of the key information on it included hours worked. What they then did with it, and whether records from that era still survive today, I wouldn't know.

[Mike Haslam]

Long ago, when railways were real railways and drivers real drivers. When your driver's assistant was called a 'fireman' and made real cups of tea and tasty stews in the firebox, then locomotives were assigned to a particular driver. Those machines were proudly looked after and when not otherwise busy, would be cleaned and polished by the footplate crew. So each driver had his locomotive and would work to a roster of duties.

When locomotive 'pooling' came into use, a driver would be assigned a locomotive for the current set of duties. He may even be required to change-over locomotives with another driver. Usually, when signing off-duty, the driver would check the duty roster to see what he was doing the following day. This told him which locomotive he would use and the tasks to be done.

All this was worked out in advance, but I do not know if that information was kept beyond a certain length of time.

Nowadays - well, things are different, for example a driver will usually have multiple locomotives under his control. His main problem seems to be if the locomotive works when he starts it and for how long it might continue to work before failure out on the track and whether a replacement can be found. I don't know how all this information may be kept - if at all, it is.

[Steve Appleton]

Response from Cliff Avis:

With regards to this request I can only tell you the following:

Each depot had a roster where the train driver and fireman's names were filled in.

On the roster the locomotive (number) was also booked with the time on duty, etc.

This information was normally carried over to a book, doubtful if still available.

He would have to find out in P. E. and or Cookhouse.

Hope this helps

Cliff

[John Ashworth]

Is the National Archives any help? http://www.national.archives.gov.za/

[Adelbert Stigling]

In the days when all trains had a guard, he use to keep a trip journal, this was used to calculate there time and overtime for pay purposes, and was kept for three years if I remember correctly, after that it was compiled by the driver of trains running without a guard.