From Nationalisation to Privatisation

In the early 1960s Clive Groome began work cleaning steam engines at Nine Elms shed in south London for the then nationalised British Railways. Dirty but important work, being a cleaner acted as an important introduction to the world of railway employment. Groome gradually climbed his way up the promotional ladder, rooted in a seniority system, as countless generations of railway servants had before him, to the point where he became a driver, not on his beloved steam engines, but on more mundane electric commuter trains. During the 1980s he left the industry because of his increasing disquiet at the levels of monotony, which he believed were dangerous, and the ever greater management interference in the job of a driver. After a period of higher education, in the mid-1980s Groome started his own company called Footplate Days and Ways, which offered training to those wanting to learn footplate lore. So successful was this company that he provided training and refresher courses to BR and its successors for the drivers of nostalgia steam specials on the national network. In a final twist, the company has developed a profitable sideline running courses for middle and senior managers at companies including Ford, on team-building based on the cooperative relationship of footplate legend.