St Patrick’s Day was not just a busy one for our many passengers, it was a long, hard day’s work for our train crew, especially for Morgan Young who was being put through his GM loco driver’s exam. So now you know what the L plate on 121 Class loco 124 was for.
To cut a long story short – he passed! Morgan is the first new ‘big loco’ driver we have passed out for exactly a decade. Thankfully we have a few more lined up in the training slots behind him to further expand our traincrew team.
Morgan was put through his paces on every aspect of loco and train handling. This includes preparation in the morning, shunting, light engine movements, communications, brake management, train speeds, knowledge of the engine components and much more. All this, while being grilled constantly and given scenarios by his assessors Norman Bodel and Mike Beckett
Just like a car driving test, we threw in some situations too, including an emergency stop and a hill start too.
It was declared that Morgan had passed with flying colours.
It’s been a long, long slog for Morgan since he started as trainee fireman more than ten years ago. He has progressed through the grades of shunter, guard, fireman and G class driver. Mo also reached the dizzy heights of DCDR Operations Manager and serving on our Board of Directors. He put in the hard work, the hours, and the determination to make this possible.
We can put the clipboards away for a while now and let Morgan enjoy building experience and skills in his new role. With the L plates now swapped for R plates, he knows he’s restricted to 25mph, not 45mph…
