How was the job of the steam locomotive personnel?

There are three people:

Locomotive driver. Main task: To drive the engine and observing the line.
Assistant driver. Main task: Make sure there is water in the boiler. Check signals on the right hand side of the engine.
Fireman: Main task: Fire. Make sure there is steam.

However, fireman and assistant driver typically change jobs about every station, as the firing of a QJ is normally not possible for one man.

Education: Two years railway school. It is possible for good students to directly be assigned the job of assistant driver. The typical career, however, is a few month training as fireman, two years fireman, two years assistant driver, then driver.

Every brigade has a supervisor driver (zhidao siji). This man will organize his brigade's work, make sure there is personnel if someone is sick, determine who will follow an engine to the works, and now and then sit on the engine as a passenger to observe the crew during their work and make sure they follow the safety rules. A brigade has seven or eight locomotives.

Preparation tasks before and after service

The procedure at start and end of every run is the following: A crew meets 2 hours before the train should leave. They first oil the engine, check its working, maybe do some small repairs, including welding, get sand, grease and oil. For the oil, there are at least three types: Axle oil (Zhou yao), cylinder oil for the warmer parts (Qigang yao), and compressor oil (fengbeng yao). Some joints get grease (huang yao). The locomotive driver inspects all moving parts visually, to see damages, and with a hammer, to see or hear if parts are loose. The locomotive driver also takes a trip below the engine, to see if all the brake parts, axle boxes, springs etc. are hanging correctly. They also inspect the firebox for broken or leaking stays or pipes.

Cleaning the fire and taking water is the last to do. Finally they put some water into the coal on the tender, to wet it. I have seen them digging a large hole into the top of the coal, about bathtub size, and then splashing bucket after bucket of water into it. Fire cleaning is done by moving the grate using a pressured air cylinder. If large clinker has formed, they either try to hack it into pieces and get it down through the grate, or they take it out with a shovel and throw it out of the cab door. Be careful when standing near the ash pit. All of a sudden large blocks of hot clinker may come down from the cab door! The ash box is emptied into the rails, by moving the engine a few meters back and forth. Workers later shovel the ash into an ash pit from where a steam crane will move it away.

Finally the engines move to the depot exit, report there and then move to the station to get their train. Near the depot exit they blow down the boiler, to clean out sludge. You can see this: Large steam clouds will shoot out 20 meters to the sides of the engine. It is here they blow down from the middle of the boiler. They may also put their cleaning wool into the box on the right hand side below the firebox, and blow steam through it to clean it for new use. The wool is then stored somewhere on top of the boiler to dry.

At the end, when arriving the depot, the crew cleans their engine. At least they clean the wheels and rods, but often also everything below the boiler, and for some crews also the boiler and tender. Work time assigned for cleaning, getting coal, and turning the engine is 1 1/4 hours after arrival with the train.

They take coal (on Daban to Haoluku, that may be from 8 to 18 tons, passenger train Chabuga-Daban 7 tons, passenger train Daban-Chabuga 5 tons), and turn the engine before handing it over to the next crew. The wool used for cleaning is then put into the box below the cab.

How is life at the depot (at "the other end of the line")

After entering the depot, the engine crew gets a three men room in the dormitory. They also get a preliminary time when their return trip will start, typically about 20 hours after they arrive (betwwen Daban and Chabuiga often only 16 hours). This was noted on a large blackboard near the entrance of the dormitory, which since 2004 has been replaced by a computer controlled light diode display. There you can read the names of the crew members, their engine and departure time, as well as the room they stay in. Dormitory attendants make sure people are awakened when needed.

Then the next is a visit to the showers. There is ample warm water, which is needed. It is hard work to clean yourself after a shift on the locomotive. Effective washing powder is sold in the depot kiosk. Daban has washing facilities which would even pass western standards. Including a large bathtub (some 4 by 4 meters) and a sauna! In Daban you may even sleep in the undressing room at the washing facility. I sometimes did this when too tired to go to the dormitory.

When staying overnight at Haoluku or Chabuga there is not much to do than to rest. There are two TV rooms, but in Haoluku there is no town whatsoever. (Haoluku town is actually located some 6 kilometers west of the station and depot area). Not much else to do than to read, eat, drink and sleep. Just outside the depot are some little private restaurants where they also sell beer and spirits. But otherwise the railway canteen in the dormitory has good food. Food is served 24 hours a day. It is northern Chinese cuisine, quite simple, but a lot of variation, and tastes well. Food varies according to the time of the year, as they use a lot of seasonal vegetables. Fried potatoes are very good!

The typical schedule for the crews is going Daban to Haoluku 10 hours, then nearly 20 hours rest, until the locomotive is back from Daban. They return to Daban and have 24 hours rest at home, until the next run. The other two crews do the remaining services. The return trip to Daban is about 6 hours. Timings between Daban and Chabuga are a lot faster, something like 4 to 9 hours each way. This means the engine turnaround time is a bit faster than 24 hours. However, as they used more engines, they tried to have the turnaround time being about 24 hours.

The worst case is when they are assigned "reserve". This happens when there are not enough trains to run. The the crew just waits. This is not so bad at home, but awful for the outward crew. Sometimes this may last for days.

Living conditions in Daban

The little I know is the following:

If engine men have no family, they often live in a dormitory, typically three men in a room. If they have a family, many of them live in a building block near the station, where they have a flat. A two room and kitchen flat costs 15000 RMB to buy. Three room flats with more luxurious layout in a new block cost 50.000 to 70.000 RMB. The cost for heat, water, electricity is somewhere around 30 to 50 Yuan per month.

The pay for drivers was about 2000 RMB in 2005 (1500 RMB in 2003, 1100 RMB in 1999), for assistant drivers 1800 in 2005, 1400 in 2003, 1200 in 2002, 900 in 1999), for firemen 1400 in 2005, 1000 in 2003, 800 in 2002. But the pay varies a lot, depending on how many work hours are put in. High traffic generates more work hours. On diesel engines the pay is lower (less work hours). A brigade supervisor locomotive driver (there is one for every brigade) got 1800 RMB (in 2001).

The main difficulty for families is probably that the locomotive workers will be away for nearly two thirds of their time. A break in the schedule happens when the boiler is washed out or other repairs are done in Daban. A few times crews return from Haoluku or Chabuga to Daban by train, or travel out this way. But this is probably true mostly for extraordinary schedules.

Other tasks

During boiler washout, two crews help with the work. They remove parts, clean the engine and parts and clean the piston valves.
When the enigne goes to the works for overhaul, one crew goes with it and attends it during the trip and helps overhauling it in the works.

Who gets to drive the passenger train and the premium engines (decorated locomotives)

I do not know much about this. Drivers tell it is because they are "good crews", meaning a good safety record. In Baotou, in 1996 they also told us it is people who have a very good safety record. Daban drivers have definitely mentioned safety as one of the criteria. But I am not sure about the actual criteria. The plate on the smokebox of QJ 6301 in February 2001 told about "excellent safety and punctuality". Maybe both are the criteria. However, leaders of Daban depot told me that their worst engines get the best drivers, because nobody else can handle them well enough ... In late 2005, there were no decorated steam locmotives left in Daban.

The locomotives of Jitong railways