Re: Tall tales (and true)

["Derick Wuen" <cullend@webone.com.au>]

Paul wrote in message <01bf918f$47c050c0$d2d68ec6@mpx.mpx.com.au>...
>Anybody got any good "tall stories

On the NSWGR in steam days there was a grade for mechanical branch employees
called "salaried driver". These were professional footplate men, proud of
their skills and art, and were an awesome presence to any junior firemen
unhappily rostered on the same trip as one. Some adopted martinet attitudes
but some adopted fatherly forebearance for the whippersnappers assigned to
them.

Almost invariably they turned out in collar and tie under their spotless
overalls which never seemed to be any dirtier at the end of a trip than at
the start, a remarkable feat as anyone who has ever had to prepare, drive
and fire a NSWGR steamer will tell. Officially salaried drivers were
addressed as Mister..... not Driver Jones, but Mister Jones. Some insisted
on being addressed as Mister by their fireman!

An unfortunate rookie fireman had the double bad luck to be assigned to a 38
on the Melbourne Express out of Junee with a salaried driver. It meant a
hard shovelling trip under the unforgiving eye of a patriarch of the rails.
In those days automatic staff exchangers were in operation on the single
track miniature electric staff sections of the deep south, and these devices
were both dangerous and unreliable as a result of trying to match the
oscillations of a 38's tender at speed with the stationary staff exchanging
post via the curly rams horn pickup gear. It was the fireman's duty to load
the outgoing staff into the exchanger and pick up the incoming staff after
the exchange.

On this night they slowed for the exchange at Tabletop, within a sniff of
journey's end at Albury, and the salaried driver was anxious to finish the
trip. The rookie fireman loaded the outgoing staff and lowered the ram's
horn and stood back in the cab to avoid any errant staff which might ping
off the apparatus. Crash bang went the exchanger, and he shone his torch
down at the ram's horn to see if the incoming had been picked up cleanly. At
this point the slaried driver wound the gear in a turn and eased out the
regulator to begin a hard acceleration away from the station. To the
fireman's horror there was no incoming staff on the ram's horn. Above the
crash and bang on the footplate and the fullsome roar of a 38 accelerating
he yelled out .... missed her! missed her!

The salaried driver turned and looked at his panic striken fireman and while
pulling out the regulator to full, said in a fatherly tone of voice.... you
don't have to call me Mister, sonny. Call me Jim.