Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

RAILWAY ENGINEMEN AND THEIR WORK. 113 can be easily taken out, and that there may not be any ashes to be washed into the tubes. The engine is then taken into a shed and placed over a pit, the leaden wash-out plugs removed, and the washers-out tackle the boiler with a hydrant. After this all the glands have to be re-packed, tubes cleaned, and ash-pan and damper put right. The driver has to attend during the operation, which is finally passed by the shed-foreman, and for doing so he receives a full day’s pay. The maximum pay of a driver is 8s. per day, that of a fireman, 5s. Enginemen work ten hours per day, with overtime and Sunday work paid for at the rate of eight hours per day. The earnings of a first-class driver average well over £3 per week, those of a fireman £\ less, but the former can also earn a substantial quarterly premium for saving of coal and oil. The post of driver is not the highest an engineman can rise to. A thoroughly steady and well-educated man may be promoted to locomotive inspector or shed-foreman, in which case he receives a salary of quite ,£200 per year. The companies are very far from being unmindful of the material welfare of the men they employ; and, indeed, it is their constant study to maintain the most cordial and friendly relations with them. Many excellent free pension schemes have been devised for enginemen, notably that of the London and South-Western Company, who give one at sixty-five, also at sixty years of age, if the man’s health fails, provided he has been twenty-five years in the company’s service. It only remains to add that the life of engine-driving has in recent years undergone great changes for the better. In the improvements of engines, in personal comforts, and in reduction of working hours locomotive enginemen may find much upon which to congratulate themselves. H. G. Archer. OVER THE BRIDGE 1'0 GLASGOW. 15