Train lady? More like crane lady this time, says Freightliner’s Bessie Matthews.
– Freightliner's Bessie Matthews
When thinking about roles on the railway, what careers do you think of? Train driver? Signaller? Dispatcher? All-important jobs done by some brilliant, hardworking people. But what if I told you about a job that is almost out of sight and out of mind, despite overseeing a machine that towers over 100ft tall?
Agilitas and Fortis are the names given to the two rail-mounted cranes that have worked tirelessly at Southampton Maritime for the last 10 years. They move hundreds upon hundreds of containers every day, brought in by boat, lorry and, of course, train.
A local method of working instruction for train drivers at Southampton is to wait for your shunter to make the crane drivers aware of your presence before moving a train underneath the crane’s workspace. That was the limit of my knowledge of the cranes – until now.
I was very lucky to have been granted a couple of turns up in the sky with one of Southampton’s fantastic crane drivers, Josh Evans. It was such a wonderful experience to listen to him talk about a job that he is well and truly proud of.
Donning our gloves, hardhats, safety glasses and hi-vis, I slowly followed Josh up two sets of metal ladders, two flights of narrow stairs, across a little bridge, down another ladder and into a glass box hanging over tracks and road. This job is not for the faint hearted! The whole terminus looked like a model railway, with container ships lining the map and lorries moving like battery-operated toys. I was in awe.
Like those of us down on the ground, the crane drivers are safety critical and follow an abundance of life-saving rules.
The crane drivers, however, have to resist this beautiful industrial view and be on high alert at all times. Like those of us down on the ground, the crane drivers are safety critical and follow an abundance of life-saving rules, one of which being that a crane driver can spend no longer than two hours per turn in a crane, and I learnt very quickly why.
From every angle is a train, a person, a lorry or a straddle carrier – none of which a crane is permitted to move near or over. The yard is ever moving, which could prove hard for a crane driver to complete the jobs set out on the computer screen in front of them. Burnout is a very real risk.
Josh and his colleagues are masters of the sky, gently lifting and lowering each container with well-thought-out moves that are always one step ahead of everyone else.
The cranes respond well to their drivers. Inside the driver’s glass perch is a swivel chair surrounded by buttons and joysticks, with monitors along the front-facing pane. The screens show information like container weight and width, wind speed and lifting height, along with camera footage of what’s going on nearer the ground. The main screen displays a simplified version of the yard, the containers to move and where they are due to go.
Going down seemed a lot scarier than going up, but I much preferred going the way I came rather than their last resort of a harness, a winch and a very quick abseil to the ground. Southampton Maritime has every potential to be a dangerous place, but people like Josh make every shift one to go home and talk about.
It’s important that we understand the jobs of those who work around us. A wider view of the railway and how it operates will help keep everyone safe and performance up. Why not ask your driver manager about shadowing a shunter or signaller. If you’re a signaller, how about looking at the railway through a cab window for a change?
