With regards to the orginal question posed....
All sorts! It varies greatly from depot to depot, depending upon what work your depot has allocated to it.
My depot, albeit primarily a coal depot, has quite a variety of work, with jobs booking on at all times of the day. We have some jobs starting at 0200, which entail preparing a coal train and tripping it down to the local port for loading with coal.
Dependant on the loading facility, the train is loaded with diggers/front loaders, which entail you moving the train forwrd under instruction by radio for a few wagons at a time. Then you stop whilst 4-6 wagons are loaded before drawing forward again until the train is loaded.
The train is then drawn out over a weigh bridge to ensure that its is not over the axle weight/ Route availability for the route that the train will take its destination.
At other locations, the train is loaded automatically by an overhead hopper. The train has a slow speed control system, which is set to 0.5mph and the train is drawn forward under the hopper whilst the coal is tipped into the wagons and weighed as it leaves the hopper house.
Once loaded, we usually work the train forward to a suitable relief point where the another driver will take over. We then travel back to depot in a van and repeat with the next train.
Of course, some days you are the relief driver. You drive out to the relief point and meet the train, working it forward either to its destination or another point where you are relieved by another driver. Then its a case of travel back to your home depot by passenger train.
Those coal trains, once empty need to be brought back to their originating point to be reloaded again. Usually this entails travelling up county by passenger train, and working the empty set back.
This is only the coal side fo the work. We work cement, scrap, aggregateand engineering trains at my depot.
Some times, I may not even drive at train at all. Some jobs require us to drive a van to an engineering worksite and relieve another driver, who will take the van back. We then man the train until it is required within the work site. This could entail tipping ballast, loading / unloading sleepers, rails and contractors equipment. Occasionally, the train is not required under your watch so you just travel back in the van once the next relief driver arrives.
We also conduct drivers of tampers, grinders and stoneblowers whindont have the relevant route knowledge for both transitting the trains or to work to/from engineering worksites.
This involes telling the driver you are conducting all over the features of the route as you travel over it, eg speeds, signals, gradients and local instructions.
Some of us, are ex passenger train drivers who have retained their traction qualifications and still drive passenger trains (although empty) to and from overhaulsat various locations around the country.
So, there it is, in simplest of possible terms. Ive tried to minimise the jargon. It may not be for everyone, but grabbing hold of 30+ loaded coalfish without snatching the couplings before plunging over the top of the Lickey bank, on a wet autumn night is infinitely more enjoyable and challenging than flushing turds out of 142.
) and the banter was great (if you could understand what the Millerhill men were saying or get a word in with moaning Yorkshiremen at Knottingley).
