Re: RC Drummond, Traffic Manager

IS Edit
Friday, March 8, 2002 7:45 AM

I haven't heard that Bob Drummond died, Paul. I think it would have got back to me on the old trammies network if he had.

He was put in charge of timetabling buses during the big revamp in Geelong and, from what I understand, did a real good job of it. He was brilliant at that sort of thing.

I have heard no tales of Drummond being a wowser, or being into anything exotic. I think he might well have acquired his barbaric attitude towards subordinates from someone with a military mindset, like General Robert Risson.

To give you an idea of his military style obsessions, he used to ride home with DIs and had them follow tram lines on the way home. If he saw a driver out of uniform, he would not talk to the driver directly but tear into the inspector on the line for letting that driver past without making him don the proper uniform.

They had winter dress rules and summer dress rules. In winter you had to wear your jacket with tie at all times, even if it was 20C. There was a uniform cardigan and it was deemed to be "not suitable for wear as an external garment". So, at Footscray if you were heading west in the afternoon peak with the sun full on and a lot of solar gain because you were surrounded by glass, you couldn't take off your jacket, hang it on the hook behind the driver's seat and carry on. You also had to take off your cardigan. If you took off your cardigan, you were often not warm enough, especially when you opened the front door every two blocks. So you might then have to deal with the situation by taking off your coat, then your cardigan, then putting back on your coat. Of course the coat was crotch length so got under you on the driver's seat and it had to expansion panels behind the shoulders so it restricted your movements. Utterly unsuited to bus driving. And it had no thermal value to speak of. With the brown uniform, the overcoat was made of the same material, not like the good old blue wool ones and they weren't much good on a cold day and certainly not suitable for wear driving a bus. Did I tell you the buses had no heaters, only a pissy demister? Once I got put back on the bag at Essendon for wearing a maroon cardigan at 1am on the last Deer Park West. That wasn't the real agenda, of course, just an excuse for Drummond to get at me. I was put back there for an indeterminate period. In the end, I got a written opinion from a friend of mine, a QC that I had been denied natural justice, recommending I sue the M&MTB for back pay and damages. I showed it to the Tramways Union who hadn't lifted a finger when I was Shanghaied back to Essendon. They voted, barely, to provide me with legal representation and, in the end, I was sent back to Footscray with full back pay for the six months or so I had been at Essendon, several thousand dollars. I remember seeing Drummond's signature on the paperwork somewhere. Bet he was thrilled to sign or authorise the cheque. The legal opinion was scathing.

But the funniest thing about the whole uniform episode is that after charging me with wearing a non-uniform cardigan, I showed them they hadn't been able to issue me with one in 18 months despite several requests for same on Special Day Reports. They refused to accept that should have any bearing on the charge of wearing a non-uniform item. Did I mention that is was about 8C outside at the time? I finally got issued a cardigan on a 35C summer day, the year after on a similarly warm day, I was issued an overcoat (although I had not requested same).

In another incident, while I was back on the bag at Essendon, a couple of wise arse Depot Starters had taken it upon themselves to try to ride this "hotshot" (their term) even though I never hassled them. My blue was with Drummond, no one else. I walked home to Kensington on a spread shift and came back to work around 2pm to do two trips. It was warm so I came back with the uniform shirt and tie and pants but no jacket. The idiot Depot Starter told me I was out of uniform. I said, "huh"? He told me winter dress rules are in effect. I said for Christ sake, it's 20C. He said, doesn't matter, Winter Dress rules. You'll have to go back home and get your jacket. I did, then I had a cup of tea, read the paper and wandered back, knowing full well there were no connies available to work on my table. There was a string of trams backed up in Mt Alexander Road outside the Depot and the 'Drome line was stuffed up all the way through the afternoon peak. Where have you been he yelled at the top of his voice with the DI standing there. "I went back home like you said to get my jacket and I had to walk since I don't have a car, as I explained before I left.", I said. That Starter got his arse kicked by the DI.

I did an article in the Tramways Union magazine on uniforms and referred to RC Drummond's "Colonial Fashion Fantasy". He went berserk and I got telephone calls from a DI and an SRO (?) at home warning me to be real correct for the next couple of weeks because Drummond had told them to get me good.

No sense of humour, that boy.

I had 6 knock down, drag out blues with Drummond. Won 5 outright and one was a Mexican stand-off. Then I got the last laugh when Steve Crabb became Minister. I really didn't start any of them or do anything deliberate to provoke them. My stand is that everything I did was reasonable. Unreasonable policies and attitudes caused the problem.

It was unfortunate and unnecessary and I don't know that anything constructive came out of all that in the long run because the changes under Labor did nothing to improve public transport service for passengers and it cost heaps.

But I don't like arseholes and I don't like people in positions of public responsibility being so damned unreasonable. They have a public duty to do the right thing and RC Drummond did not do that.

As for Board's officers socialising with the ORs? Just like the army, Paul. Frowned upon. Board's traffic officers were Drummond's Jesuits, there to keep the unruly masses under control. In Footscray we were isolated and pretty close to our Starters and Inspectors. If it wasn't for their warnings of Drummond's jihads against me and their amused tolerance to my affronts to the Board's sensibilities I would have been fired. Many times. They were OK.

Bob Murphy

----- Original Message -----

From: pn1.rm

To: [email protected]

Sent: Friday, March 08, 2002 2:46 PM

Subject: [TramsDownUnder] RC Drummond, Traffic Manager

Someone suggested as a result of reading Bob Murphy's posting that RC Drummond was probably better known than Sir Robert Risson because the Traffic Manager's name was attached to most notices in the trams and buses. The style of notice remained unchanged for decades. There is a PMTT traffic notice in the Norm Maddocks collection at Malvern dating from the first world war that is in the style style as the MMTB of the 1970s. Apparently Bob Drummond was a footballer and played for Essendon at one time. I am always interested to learn about the "other" side of MMTB personalities. Was he a God fearing "wowser" type or perhaps a womaniser or boozer? He may have been a church elder or he may have had a mistress...or both; any clues? Fascinating stuff. I gather he died several years ago. Where would the old men of the Tramways Board have drunk//networked/socialised in the six o'clock swill days. Surely it wouldn't have been with the "men" at the "local"? Paul in Melbourne

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