A train driver, engine driver, engineman or locomotive driver, commonly known as an engineer or railroad engineer in the United States and Canada, and also as a locomotive handler, locomotive operator, train operator, or motorman, is a person who drives a

train In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often ...

multiple unit A multiple-unit train or simply multiple unit (MU) is a self-propelled train composed of one or more carriages joined together, which when coupled to another multiple unit can be controlled by a single driver, with multiple-unit train cont ...

or a

locomotive A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, motor coach, railcar or power car; the ...

. The driver is in charge of, and is responsible for the mechanical operation of the train, train speed, and all of the train handling (also known as brake handling). In American English, a hostler (also known as a switcher) moves engines around

rail yard A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or ...

s, but does not take them out on the normal tracks; the British English equivalent is a shunter. Train drivers must follow certain guidelines for driving a train safely. For instance, in general, train drivers are encouraged to favour longer stopping distances as this promotes vehicle health, safety, and passenger comfort.

Career progression

For many American railroads, the following career progression is typical: assistant conductor ( brakeman), train conductor, and finally the engineer. For many years the fireman was next in line to be an engineer, but that classification has been eliminated. In the US, engineers are required to be certified and must then be re-certified every two to three years. The traditional career progression in the United Kingdom (for steam locomotives) was engine cleaner, passed engine cleaner (i.e. the employee has passed the assessment for fireman), fireman, passed fireman (i.e. passed assessment for driver), and driver. In India, a driver starts as a diesel assistant (or electrical assistant for electric locomotives). They then get promoted on a scale: goods, passenger, mail express, and the Rajdhani, Shatabdi, and Duronto express services. The British transport historian

Christian Wolmar Christian Tage Forter Wolmar (born 3 August 1949) is a British journalist, author, railway historian and Labour Party politician.

wrote in October 2013 that train operators employed by the

Rio Tinto Group Rio Tinto Group is an Anglo-Australian multinational company that is the world's second-largest metals and mining corporation (behind BHP). The company was founded in 1873 when of a group of investors purchased a mine complex on the Rio Tint ...

to transport iron ore across the Australian

outback The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastlines and encompass a ...

were likely to be the highest-paid members of the occupation in the world at that time.

Notable train drivers

Ben Chifley Joseph Benedict Chifley (; 22 September 1885 – 13 June 1951) was an Australian politician who served as the 16th prime minister of Australia from 1945 to 1949. He held office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1945, follow ...

, former Prime Minister of Australia * Christine Gonzalez, first female driver for a Class 1 railroad. *

Casey Jones John Luther "Casey" Jones (March 14, 1863 – April 30, 1900) was an American railroader who was killed when his passenger train collided with a stalled freight train at Vaughan, Mississippi. Jones was a locomotive engineer for the Illinois ...

, American engineer whose wreck on the

Illinois Central Railroad The Illinois Central Railroad , sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, was a railroad in the Central United States, with its primary routes connecting Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama. A line al ...

on April 30, 1900 was immortalized in verse and music.

Notes

References

External links

TrainDriver.org
– A detailed explanation of what train driving involves, and becoming a train driver in the UK {{Authority control Driver

Career progression

Notable train drivers

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links