How are drivers assigned to different trains?

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How are drivers assigned to different trains?

July 17, 2019, 1:10 PM

A driver’s link (schedule) is such that once every so many days (34 days in the case of Mumbai division CR drivers) he has to work all the Mail / Express trains. Similarly the passenger drivers have their own links. When there is no A special (mail/express) driver available, a passenger (A grade) or Goods (C grade) driver officiates instead of the mail driver.

Thus every A special driver works prestigious trains once every so many days. The mileage for a driver is usually limited to 8000km per month. The chief crew controller sees that a driver does not exceed that figure. If a driver exceeds the limit, he is paid special wages above the normal wages.

EMU/DEMU trains in suburban sections are run with a single motorman in the driving cab. For most other trains, IR uses a crew of two persons to man the locomotive: a driver and an assistant driver. The assistant driver may be of any grade from B upwards (usually). The driver carries out most of the actual running of the train. The assistant driver may shunt the loco and ‘bring it on load’ when starting up, but other than that does not work the train.

In the event of an emergency leaving the driver incapacitated, the assistant driver is expected to bring the train to a safe halt and not try to move it further. In reality assistant drivers do sometimes work trains in easy sections. The other important jobs of the assistant driver are to help in sighting signals on the run (each signal is sighted by both crewmen, and confirmed by spoken acknowledgements to each other), look after the gauges and indicators, handle minor maintenance, help in speedometer calibration, check oil/fuel/fluid levels, park the loco, etc. The driver and assistant driver are usually a close team and work together on most links.

One notable time when IR used two drivers (in fact two A Special drivers) for a train was for the runs of the then diesel-hauled Mumbai – New Delhi Rajdhani when it was first introduced and until about 1986. The Jammu Tawi Exp. also had two A grade drivers working it until about 1983. The rationale in these cases was to keep the train moving even if one of the drivers was incapacitated for some reason. Some superfast trains (GT, TN and AP exps.) used to run with two A-special drivers on some sections (e.g., Ballharshah — Bhopal).

Some passenger trains hauled by the WDP-1 (left-hand seating for the driver) are worked by a single driver (no assistant) on NR.

In steam days, a locomotive usually had a driver and a fireman to assist him and to fire the engine. A fireman or assistant driver was usually provided even on the few experimental mechanically stoked locomotives. On rare occasions, additional crew were used when locos had to be fired at high rates. For instance, the Taj Express was hauled by a WP with four crew members: the driver, two firemen, and a coal-breaker who worked in the tender breaking up the coal and pushing it towards the front of the tender.

In the days of steam, one set of crewpersons (or sometimes two) were assigned to a given steam loco, which was also often dedicated to a particular train. Now drivers are not assigned to any particular locomotives or trains — they keep getting assigned to different ones as required.

An attempt is made to rotate the A and A-special drivers through all the mail, superfast, and express trains. C drivers are usually never assigned to express or mail trains even as assistants (second drivers), but B drivers are often assigned to be the second drivers for express trains.

A crew link is published by each railway division detailing these links for all scheduled train runs handled by the division, including required crew transfers, lay-overs, and light locomotive duties.

Source – IFRCA.org

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