Longest driving duty

[Jan Mayen]

Just wondering if anyone knows what the longest driving duty is, or was, in terms of:

Longest rostered turn
Longest duration in an emergency (eg: got stuck in snowdrift overnight)
Most miles covered in one duty
Furthest away from home depot.

Any ideas?

 

[Travelmonkey]

the LNER team who do Aberdeen/Inverness<>Newcastle some of them have full knowlage to the south for london too.

 

[Lemmy99uk]

There will be all sorts of takes from days gone by.

I remember a heavy snow fall in the West Midlands one day that resulted in a couple of Euston crews sleeping in the ness room at Birmingham and travelling back the following day. They were probably on 20hrs + by the time I got back.

I personally did several shifts well over 12 hours pre-hidden. I once spent 14 hours on the Soho OHLE train following damage to the overheads because the supervisor simply forgot to send relief. I must admit, I slept a lot of it.

 

[godfreycomplex]

Today

Longest duty on the passenger side I believe is at Wick - 0802 to Inverness and 1400 back. Not all that much change from 11 hours (the back shift is slightly shorter).

Most miles in one duty - Eurostar - Paris and back circa 610 miles for drivers and guards. Nearest competitor elsewhere is LNER and Lumo Newcastle - London - Newcastle (and v.v. for LNER) at 537ish miles. This pales into insignificance compared to the Paris - Marseille and return turns of SNCF, a mere stroll in the park at 928 miles.

Catering staff do further - Glasgow caterers for Avanti regularly do Euston and back in a day, just shy of 803 miles.

 

[airantraigh]

the LNER team who do Aberdeen/Inverness<>Newcastle some of them have full knowlage to the south for london too.

newcastle lodge drivers don't sign aberdeen anymore, only inverness

 

[cats_five]

There was that train stuck for a couple of days in snow in north Scotland one year. 1978 maybe? And the one stuck near Stainmore summit - Bleath Gill I beleive.

 

[westcoaster]

Today

Longest duty on the passenger side I believe is at Wick - 0802 to Inverness and 1400 back. Not all that much change from 11 hours (the back shift is slightly shorter).

Most miles in one duty - Eurostar - Paris and back circa 610 miles for drivers and guards. Nearest competitor elsewhere is LNER and Lumo Newcastle - London - Newcastle (and v.v. for LNER) at 537ish miles. This pales into insignificance compared to the Paris - Marseille and return turns of SNCF, a mere stroll in the park at 928 miles.

Catering staff do further - Glasgow caterers for Avanti regularly do Euston and back in a day, just shy of 803 miles.

I'm sure Lner catering crew do a shift called the two capitals. Newcastle to London to Edinburgh to Newcastle or vice versa.
Avanti at Preston sign the whole route between London and Glasgow.

On Thameslink the maximum day is 9hrs 54 mins, and at Bedford the maximum miles we do is 300 (Bedord to London and back 3 times or Bedford-Brighton-London- Brighton-Bedford).
Longest day I've done is 14 hours during serious disruption on a Saturday started at 1500 ish, finally back at around 0500.

 

[TransportHub]

On Southern Drivers max shift is 9h30m, OBS is 11h but LTP diagrams don't go over 10h. Conductors are 11h max

GatEx is 10h max for drivers 11h for OBS

 

[Acey]

A full shift on the Grove Park-Bromley North poppers certainly felt like eternity !

 

[GordonT]

A full shift on the Grove Park-Bromley North poppers certainly felt like eternity !

In my youth I did weekend bus conducting at Larbert Depot. They had a Circular service in which the first half of the shift sent you repeatedly round the circle several times in the same direction. The second half you unwound by being sent several times in the other direction. I wonder if the Glasgow Underground drivers work similarly.

 

[NSEWonderer]

A full shift on the Grove Park-Bromley North poppers certainly felt like eternity !

That or Heathrow Express Paddington to T5 must be like non stop doom.

 

[zero]

That or Heathrow Express Paddington to T5 must be like non stop doom.

Or the Parry People Mover?

 

[NSEWonderer]

Or the Parry People Mover?

Forgot about that

 

[38Cto15E]

In the 70's my driver and I had to go from Leicester to Wigston South Jct, wait for the Northfleet-Handsworth, work the train to Bescot, we spent 8 hours in Bescot mess room and then did the same on return.
I think we may have signed on around 7-00pm one day and signed off about 1-00pm the next day, at least we missed our next dyas turn so got paid 8 hours to stay at home in order to get back onto PM's.

 

[Big Jumby 74]

Such an open ended question, as in base plan v OT and exceptional circumstances. Those of us of a certain generation will know of the 'Saltley seagulls', which applied to other depots back in the day to one degree or other as well. No specific instances to recall, it being a case of how long is a piece of string?

 

[6Gman]

Such an open ended question, as in base plan v OT and exceptional circumstances. Those of us of a certain generation will know of the 'Saltley seagulls', which applied to other depots back in the day to one degree or other as well. No specific instances to recall, it being a case of how long is a piece of string?

When I first started in Freight Short Term Planning (late 70s) we didn't issue diagrams as such, but simply issued "Saltley TC to relieve, Landor St Jn 1100 and work to Eastleigh, RAO" (Return as ordered). No arrival time at Eastleigfh given as we simply handed over to the WR at Aynho Junction.

It was then decided that diagrams should be issued complete with Eastleigh arrival time and details of how to return "on the cushions" (i.e. as passengers). We quickly discovered why Saltley men raked in lots of overtime!

 

[Big Jumby 74]

In my first job on the railway we relied upon certain (freight) crews to be flexible if things went awry on any day, and IIRC Temple Mills/SF were diamond in that respect, never threw a wobbly, just accepted what was what and it went on the time sheet. It was about keeping things moving.

 

[merry]

Only last week in disruption on the ECML a driver reported on this forum working over 14h to get back to Newcastle. About 30 crew slept in a unit at PBO, well, if they could.... When the sh*t hits the fan most crews still step up and do their best to help.

 

[Taunton]

Longest duration in an emergency (eg: got stuck in snowdrift overnight)

David L Smith, in his books about the Glasgow & South Western a century and more ago, describes issues during WW1 of congestion delays, bombing attacks (by Zeppelin!), various failures, and sometimes all these in one trip, with one or two occasions where crews were on the footplate for more than 24 hours, leading to returning after signing-on time for the following day.

 

[Big Jumby 74]

David L Smith, in his books about the Glasgow & South Western a century and more ago, describes issues during WW1 of congestion delays, bombing attacks (by Zeppelin!), various failures, and sometimes all these in one trip, with one or two occasions where crews were on the footplate for more than 24 hours, leading to returning after signing-on time for the following day.

Irrespective of the odd Zep incursion (etc) crew diagramming rules were a million miles different to those in place today, including lodging (away) turns, and a hefty number of bodies available as cover at many depots, so can't really be equated to todays industry.
As per my #17 post above, that is how I remember things, and looking back today my experiences are more akin to the early post WW2 era of operations (30 years distant at the time), than to operations today which are now 50 years after my time in the context of this thread. How scary is that....