Oops, sorry Ian! I was editing and reposting. That's why my original post disappeared.
When I was on the driving course our instructor would speak to the driver of a passenger service and we'd take over the train and the driver would park himself in the first carriage. One driver made a derogatory comment about freight drivers not being able to handle passenger services. Give George, our instructor, his due, he cut the driver right down by pointing out that one of the services we ran at my depot was bring a 1,300 ton coal train down a 1 in 36 gradient from a local coal mine. The journey was only achieved by skilful train control or you'd end up in the sand drag then derailed at the bottom of the hill. The driver quickly shut up and sloped back to the carriage
