The Value Of A Train Captain
The Docklands Light Railway in East London is driverless, with trains controlled automatically. But each train has an onboard Train Captain, who is a cross between a traditional guard, a ticket checker and almost a tourist guide. Today two incidents showed why the system is so good.
As we left Bank station to travel in the tunnel to Shadwell, I heard a slight commotion behind me. As I was changing trains at the next station, I got up as we approached and found that a small boy of about five or six had got on without his mother. But the Train Captain was in command and had ascertained that his mother was following on the next train and that they’d be reunited at Shadwell. He also found a responsible lady to wait with the child until the train arrived. I think as it happened, the mother had got in another carriage on the train, so she found him, without the child having to wait on the platform with the volunteer.
It had been handled very professionally and another Train Captain told me it happens all the time, normally because the shopping gets put on more carefully than the children.
The other incident was very much run-of-the-mill with a twist.
On another train, the Train Captain took over the driving of the train, as they sometimes do. As he’d had to move another five or six-year-old boy out of the way to open the driver’s console, he then showed him what the various controls were for, in a very professional manner.
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The Anonymous Widower 
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