[Closed] Any train drivers on here?

I'd imagine that sometimes it feels like your stuck in a rut, but that there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

My cousin is and he loves it. His family get pretty much free travel, they are often on the train to Cornwall, which was crazy expensive when I looked. Good money too. My concern would be that surely it is a dying industry, it can't be long before they are all automated.

My concern would be that surely it is a dying industry, it can’t be long before they are all automated.

Depends on how long you've got left in your working life - the unions will fight to the death over autonomous transport

I know one lad that'd done for many years now as a Virgin driver down the West Coast. It certainly seems to work for him, although some of the shift patterns seem less than ideal (but some of it also seemed like extras for early morning prep and things like that). OTOH, he was the first person I know that holiday'd in North Korea just for the fun of it, and had 2 places to stay in the UK and another in the Alps

A friend of mine started as a driver back in 1990.

He was very lucky and got a Eurostar job as it started up a few years later.

Excellent final salary pension, put as much extra money in as he could and has retired this year at 51.

And they're isolated from the great british public - unlike the poor customer-facing staff.

Apart from anti-social shifts at times I’m not sure there’s a lot I don’t like about the idea...interesting!

Thanks.

There was an article in this week's Private Eye saying that as a result of the massive drop in passenger numbers, preparations are in place to axe services. Probably worth bearing in mind if you're considering a career change as it might mean a hiring freeze.

...that might de-rail his plans!

How do you think you might cope when someone jumps in front of your train?

Can you maintain attention for long periods of time doing repetitive tasks?

How do you think you might cope when if someone jumps in front of your train?

FTFY.

I read somewhere a few years back that for every vacancy there were over 400 applicants.

Probably a lot more now.

How do you think you might cope when if someone jumps in front of your train?

My mate's a train driver. Stats are something like 97% of drivers have at least one suicide. He got promoted to a supervisor role so made it out of being a driver without a suicide. First supervision of a driver...

I'm a teacher at the top of the pay scale, he drove the little chuggy trains that go to the seaside. Guess who got paid more and had a better pension *and* more days off...

– the unions will fight to the death over autonomous transport

I live in the Didcot area, know a lots of railway folk and can I totally confirm that.
Even if cars a legal to self drive on the roads soon the chances of getting self driving trains passed is going to see rail strikes like you cannot believe.

A trainee driver friend of mine said there's something in place if you have the misfortune of being the driver of a line fatality 3 times that you retire. I'm not exact on the details but it was something along those lines (pun not intended).

I don't know if the rule is true but there was a black comedy Three and Out on subject.

Former driver here, it's a great job if you can get in, the psychometric tests are there to whittle down the vast amount of applications and aren't easy to pass, if you do succeed then you would have an interview with the local manager and then a medical prior to starting. It's a long road and people can be applying for years to get in.

The shifts are long and can it can be rough getting up at 1am for a 12 hour shift, but the reward is great pay and a great view from your office window. I regret leaving and wish I could go back! But I was young and stupid.

Been a driver for 5 years now and love the job, very tough to get into as you have to pass a series of psychometric tests before even getting an interview with a train company and they normally have hundreds of applicants for each vacancy. I drive track maintenance trains rather than passenger so mainly night shifts as we can only work when normal trains have stopped but passenger drivers will have have a variety of early and late shift to contend with.
Worth looking at the engineering and freight companies as they might not get the volume of job applications that the passenger companies do.

One of my best friends is a driver. He loves it but had to quit his existing job and spend a year(ish) going through all the tests and training before he even knew he'd have a job at the end of it. Risky if you've got a family etc.

Driver job opportunities are heavily over subscribed. Most adverts are withdrawn only a few hours after being posted due to the number of applicants, especially at the moment. One LU advert attracted over ten thousand applications for only a couple of jobs.
But the best way to make sure you don't get a chance is to not apply in the first place so go for it!
Also check out https://www.railforums.co.uk/forums/railway-jobs-careers.122/ and read the pinned thread at the top.

Still struggling to find the door unlock button to let the passengers on.

I read somewhere a few years back that for every vacancy there were over 400 applicants.

Probably a lot more now.

There are driver jobs being advertised for the whole of Wales as the franchise is changing hands and the new company got it on promising loads of extra services for rural lines and the proposed Metro hub. The applications are up to over 15,000! One of them is mine.

Still struggling to find the door unlock button to let the passengers on.

and thats why we need conductors too!!!

Very rare for any of the freight companies to take on trainees - they like to recruit in the finished article

An alternative route is to look for a different job on the railway - e.g. conductor or even station staff - and then apply internally when trainee driver roles become available. Can be an advantage if you can be recommended by your line manager

I've been a driver for just shy of 18 years . Started on the freight but now doing the passengers trains.

Pros :
Well paid .
Decent holidays .
Good staff benefits .
Days of during the week , handy for quiet trails .

Cons :
Early starts or late finishes .
One weekend off in 3 .
Pretty repetitive and you need to enjoy your own company .
When you have a bad day and something goes wrong Its always bloody serious.

All in all It's a great job and the good outweighs the bad. Training can take a while and often trainees have to drop wages for a year to a year and a half. Ill hopefully get another 10 -12 years out of it .

Some excellent food for thought guys; thanks.
It’s the new Welsh franchise jobs I’m looking at...as I’m about to become redundant from my current job I’m looking for a change for the next few years.
Got to be worth chucking a CV in I think.

Train driver (and instructor) here, for a regional passenger company, knocking on for 20 years experience.

Worst aspect of the job - the shifts most probably. There's a hell of a lot of trainee drivers come on over the last few years though attracted by the money that just can't hack the job though - you need a logical methodical mindset, attention to detail, excellent verbal comms skills and fearsome concentration at times. Forget everything you know about driving on the roads.

The 'three suicides and you're retired' nonsense is just wibble, I'd assume the trainee driver who quoted that must still be very wet behind the ears to believe guff like that. You'd be unlucky to have three but I have friends at work who've had that many in less than 10 years, and others who've had none at all in 40 years. Every incident is different, you might have one and it could really mess you up. If it happens you try to deal with it and take the support offered.

It's a strange time at the moment. This time last year we couldn't cope with the passenger numbers, they were being left behind at stations the trains were so full. Now we can't get enough passengers and we're only running a fraction of the number of trains we were. What happens next is a course that will be set by what the treasury gives the DfT next month I think. Our company is still taking on trainee drivers (interviewing this week for intake for a course starting December) but I suspect that there's a hell of a lot less job security for them than there would have been six months ago. I'd say redundancies in some form or another are inevitable here if the Covid situation drags on comparably for another 6-12 months or more.