Steam footplate crew questions

[gg1]

Hi all, does anyone know the answer to these questions? :

Were specific drivers and firemen paired together wherever possible or did it vary from rota to rota? Pre-BR did different companies have different polices in this regard?

When did BR cease training new steam drivers, I'm guessing early 60s?

 

[Taunton]

WR crews at Taunton were certainly kept together as "regulars", although with various changes around it would commonly last for months or a year or so rather than very long term. The shedmaster generally decided who was with who. It was, though, common to be paired with someone else on odd days.

Simplifying a bit, but steam driver training generally comprised being a fireman for a good many years.

 

[70014IronDuke]

WR crews at Taunton were certainly kept together as "regulars", although with various changes around it would commonly last for months or a year or so rather than very long term. The shedmaster generally decided who was with who. It was, though, common to be paired with someone else on odd days.

Simplifying a bit, but steam driver training generally comprised being a fireman for a good many years.

[engine] cleaner - fireman - passed firemen - driver, starting in the lower links, wasn't it?

Could take quite a few years too, but I suspect that if you joined Nine Elms or Eastleigh or Bournemouth around 1960-62 and wanted to stay on steam, you could progress quicker than most.

 

[Phil.]

Generally speaking in most depots the higher up the link the more likely it was a for a crew to stick together. The crazy thing was the seniority thing which lasted well into B.R. days. In the 1970s Hitchin had 23 year old drivers whilst Peterborough had 43 year old second men.
I believe that the driver of the last steamer from Weymouth to Waterloo was in his early thirties.
I knew a Waterloo(Nine Elms) bloke who told me that he was passed for driving in January 1967 and that he was driving steam to the end. I'm not sure whether or not he was a driver or passed fireman though.