Training in hit-and-miss mode
Training on the railway was always a hit and miss affair. “Basic track safety” and “lookout duties” were given a high priority, but then you were left to almost beg for the more technical courses which were needed to progress up the promotion ladder. In my early days on the track, promotion was quite hard to come by as it was basically “dead men’s shoes”. People had to literally die before any vacancies came up and the attitude from management was why bother, we’ll give you the training when the need arises. Not being a careerist myself, I started at the bottom and retired at the bottom, but...