East Kent Light Railway - Staff

Staff

• The Directors were based at the company's registered office at Moorgate in London, and met once a year.

• The General Manager, Colonel Stephens and then W.H. Austen, was based at Tonbridge. Visits to the EKLR had to fit in with their responsibilities for their other light railways. There was an alarming lack (to modern eyes) of on-site management at the EKLR. Supervision depended on unannounced visits by the General Manager.

• At nationalisation, there were 34 posts, of which one was vacant and one not being filled:

• Clerk and assistant in the scout-hut office, responsible for the paperwork and for Shepherdswell station.
• Three sets of train crew, being driver, fireman and guard (one fireman's post was not being filled). The drivers did not work off the EKLR. The guard occupied the brake compartment in the passenger carriage, did the shunting at unstaffed stations and sold tickets. The published assertion that he had to clamber along the outside of the carriage in order to sell tickets while the train was moving is unbelievable, and needs confirmation.
• A fitter and mate, a carpenter and a cleaner at the engine shed. The importance of the fitter in keeping the locomotives going was demonstrated by his being the highest-paid employee, receiving more than the clerks and drivers.
• For track maintenance, three gangers and ten linesmen.
• "Station Agents" (EKLR term for stationmaster) at Staple and Wingham Canterbury Road.
• Porters at Eastry, Staple and Eythorne.

• There was a uniform, with "EKR" on the cap.

• The platelayers had an old van bodies as a hut at Eastry, two small huts by Wingham Engineering works and another by the old Guilford junction at Eythorne.

• Colonel Stephens would sack on the spot any man he discovered belonging to a union, but Austen allowed individuals to join the National Union of Railwaymen. There was no union branch at the EKLR, however; these men seem to have belonged to the Dover branch of the NUR.

• Pay was below industry standard, and there was no pension scheme. Working conditions could be bad; for example, the engine crews had to work half-cab locomotives tender-first half the time. There was no canteen or washing facilities, and conditions in the workshops at Shepherdswell were very primitive. Nobody seems to have noted any staff toilet there. However, narrative evidence suggests that there was a lot of spare time on the job, although tales of staff drinking beer in pubs while their trains waited (which would entail instant dismissal on the main line) are probably urban legends. It seems that the staff used the pubs near the railway at Shepherdswell, Eythorne, Woodnesborough and Port Richborough as places to wait over and to have their lunches in the absence of any company facilities (tragically, of these only one of the two station pubs at Shepherdswell survives).