Career change, Train driving?

Apparently there is a shortage of train drivers (in Scotland at least).  The pay, especially once qualified looks reasonable and if the online reports are to be believed, drivers are easily making £90k a year with overtime.  I am guessing some make more, some make less.  Scotrail are also advertising a final salary pension, I thought these were things of the past, not even the Scottish Government offers them any more!

Apart from the pay and the pension, the difficult bit to find out, is what is it really like and what hours do you actually work?  How many weekends do you have to work? And are the weekend hours taking the Saturday morning shoppers into town, or the drunks home after last orders ? What about during the week, how many evenings do you need to work?

Most importantly, do you enjoy it and they good to work for ?

Any information appreciated!

Assume you will possibly work 24/7, awake at 3am and maybe home at 2am, except Xmas day and you’ll be ok. If the pay doesn’t offset those possible hours then it might not be for you?

I enjoy my job but the shifts can sometimes exclude you from other areas of life outside work.

I don’t work for Scottish railways btw.

I can’t say the specifics (as I don’t know them) but you’ve got to think of it as shift work on a pattern. There will be very early mornings, there will be very late nights, there will be weekends. On the flip side, there’s also a load of time off.

I know a lad who’s driven since he left school (or thereabouts). The shifts are definitely tough but he’s done well out of it. OTOH it could be a struggle if you don’t already do shift work and you have a young family (or whatever commitments)

If your current careers gone off the rails it might be worth a shunt don’t become too tunnel visioned about the pay as during training it’ll be far less, but once your qualified there will be light at the end of the tunnel.

A mate of mine joined directly as a trainee driver back in the early 90’s.

I think it was the 1st time they had recruited externally for the positions?

He was very lucky and a few years later, landed a position at Eurostar.

Did extremely well out of it, put every spare penny he had in his pension and he retired in his early fifties.

We had got to the point with my (old) career where my wife was willing to deal with the hours and shift patterns, so I popped a CV in.

I didn’t really expect to hear anything back but I was chatting to someone who had been waiting years, I think it’s tougher to get in than you might assume, not sure if there is some specific profiling going on or not.

Chap I work with’s brother in law is just coming to the end of training. Apparently 10s of thousands apply & a small % go through to interview. Then in the training there’s a significant drop out rate.

They’re naturally hot on alcohol & drug use (can’t remember if he said if there is mandatory testing).  Trainees have been told not get ready for the disruption to their personal life- eg leaving events early to have sufficient rest before starting a shift.

Young lady I use to work with looked into it but became a signaller instead but when she popped in for a chat a few months ago she had apparently put her application in for train driver.

B-i-L has been a Driver since around 1990. He used to love it under BR, different journeys/routes every day, the downside were the early/late starts and nights. On privatisation he went to one of the Freight Companies, didnt like that at all, a much reduced work area, almost always night shifts, so he went to Central trains (as was), and drove passenger multiple units between Birmingham and Peterborough. He says it’s pretty monotonous, same journey every day. Pay is good, hours are not too bad, earliest start is 4.30am iirc, and they finish just after 11 on the late shift, still does weekends, he’s only got around 4 years more and he’s retired on a large pension.

Mate of mine does it up in Scotland, loves it, but it did sound like driver slots were filled internally more often than not, he highlighted a campaign about 2 or 3 years ago and think the majority were filled by internals by the sounds of it, a lot of conductors and so on are already primed, as they do the same shifts and so on.

Oldfart should apply. Train drivers and track workers always wave to each other.

Signalling seems to be on the go and either manageable in small boxes or nuts in the large signal centres.

Think there’s a test you can take which you pay for which is specific for the role which might help an application but I wouldn’t quote me on that nor it’s benefit. Safety is one of the main things and I think there’s a liking for emergency service workers given the level of responsibility, shifts etc.

I’d love to end my working days as a train driver but at fifty eight I fear that the chances of being considered would be less than zero.

I’ve heard this “fancy driving a train, sounds like a nice job” thing a few times over the years and everything I’ve learned in the replies makes it sound ridiculous as saying “fancy flying a passenger airplane, sounds like a nice job”. It’s a high barrier to entry with a lot of work to qualify. Sorry.

Pilots and train drivers are leagues apart lol!

Some people might not like the lack of control. My understanding is you need to drive at line speed so say 70mph in the dark peering out with limited visibility and a braking distance of probably half a mile. You are at the front so if there’s a head on you have very little chance of remaining unscathed. It’s not like driving in poor visibility where you can drive defensively. You have to plough on and keep to schedule totally relying on signals to ensure the train coming towards you is moved on to the sidings to allow you to pass.

Couple of mates do it. Massive train nerds.

Both have said that it’s literally pointless rocking up, ‘Hi I’ve heard this pays really well what’s it all about, I’m up for learning’.

People are doing conductor jobs for years just to get the foot in the door, Learning routes off their own back, paying for private exams etc, committing years to it just on the hope of one day getting an interview.

A casual entry will get seen right through, I think.

I went through the selection process for LNER and Northern not that long ago. The assesment centre day was grueling but I was pretty chuffed at getting though for both companies.

You then sit in a talent pool until they run the next course.

Even if you pass the course, there’s no guarantee of a job at the end of it.

Think I dodged a bullet actually as the companies seemed disorganised. I was asked my notice period, which was 3 months. Few weeks later I was offered a start in 4 weeks. I had to decline. Then a month later, offered another starting in 3 weeks.

GlennQuagmireFree Member

Pilots and train drivers are leagues apart lol!

Giggity giggity!

A mate does it.

Sounds like it pays well as long as you are prepared to live around the shifts. He did night shift freight for a while.

It also sounded close to winning the lottery unlikely to actually get a job. Thousands applying for tens of places.

Good luck if you go for it

Scotrail are a good company to work for. I’ve been through the driving tests for my current job(not a mainline driver) and it has a pretty decent fail level.

not sure of the specifics on their shifts but the early shift must start at 2/3 am and the late shift will probably finish about the same time.

One of my mates does it – did it for a few years and then moved into a training (no pun intended) role which is more office based but still includes some driving. He loves it. The shift work when he was 100% driving sounded pretty rough, not one for me but the job itself sounds ace (although I say that as a bit of a train geek).

No way could  I do it, late home from work every single day ?

“No way could I do it, late home from work every single day ?”

Err, no, late home when you are on a late shift, early home when you are on an early shift, home around 6pm if you are on a day shift. There are very few passenger overnight trains, so if working for a passenger Operator, the typical hours are between 6am and 10 pm , with a few turns that start a bit earlier or later. What hasnt been mentioned is 4 day weeks. Quite common to do 4 days then have 4 off, part of the fleixible working agreement from the 90’s iirc. At the time, most rail staff worked 5 days at 8 hours, the Companies wanted to change this, so they could schedule someone to work 10 hours for 4 days etc, to help with planning routes, the next week, they could do a shorter week of 5x 7 hour days.Over the year, the weeks average was around 36 hours a week.

it did sound like driver slots were filled internally more often than not, he highlighted a campaign about 2 or 3 years ago and think the majority were filled by internals by the sounds of it, a lot of conductors and so on are already primed, as they do the same shifts and so on.

This was the impression I got when I applied.

Reading between the lines on the application questions, the only way it could have been more obvious would be if it was phrased “so which signal box / train / station do you work in”

Whatever shift you are on the train will be late, it’s just the way of trains.

Well, most of them are late. Some of them are cancelled but that doesn’t help

Two people I used to work with in an IT office job went directly into trainee driver jobs. They were both delighted with the change. That was over 10 years ago though.

Been a driver for 25 years, can’t wait to retire. Don’t believe half the bullshit posted in the dailymail.

Train drivers and track workers always wave to each other.

Sounds like you need  PTS refresh.

*Puts hand straight up in the air*

I love getting toots from trains while i am out making sure the bridges don’t fall into rivers.

Surely one of the first things to be fully AI automated, is the trains??

My dad was keen I became a train driver but I could never see the point.

Surely one of the first things to be fully AI automated, is the trains??

it doesn’t need ai. driverless trains have been around for over 40 years, and there doesn’t seem like much momentum is building up in replacing the existing ones.

It seems like a collosal waste of time and money* to advertise train driver trainee jobs externally, if they’re only going to recruit conducters/signalpeople etc. They must take some folk who are green on, surely?

*Yes, I know wasting time and money is probably a KPI of most UK train operators…

It wouldn’t cost them much to whack the job listing on the website, surely?

Isn’t the problem with driverless trains not that the technology doesn’t exist or isn’t any good, but that it costs a mindbending amount to retrofit all the necessary signalling gear? I am clueless on whether AI would fix that problem or not.

 I am clueless on whether AI would fix that problem or not.

Same. Absolutely no idea.  But if you step back from it, it’s the perfect use case for an AI.

The trains all operate on a fixed network. So minimal external variables that self driving cars have to cope with. So the AI knows where the trains are, and where they need to be, and by when. And with sensors everywhere, and clever AI stuff, it would know about anything else that might impact the timings, and adjust accordinlgy.

“Isn’t the problem with driverless trains not that the technology doesn’t exist or isn’t any good, but that it costs a mindbending amount to retrofit all the necessary signalling gear? “

Technology is here now. The Elizabeth Line is signalled for the underground section for driverless driving. Not sure if they are using it yet, it was said that using the driverless technology is the only way to keep to the timetable, drivers were too slow at everything to keep the 18 trains an hour to time. I think some of the underground trains have automatic driving too.
As you say, to update the signalling to the whole country would be a collosal cost, the first ~100 miles of the ECML is just being done to allow the future use of driverless trains, by installing the ETCS signalling system, this does away with traditional signals, giving various indicators in the cab as to whether to go or stop. Newer trains will certainly be able to hook into that system, but that may be a step too far for the passengers, who wants to be doing 125mph+ with no driver? Mind, it doesnt bother people on the Docklands railway.

don’t count on overtime, its not guaranteed, mates not been able to do any for a couple of years and reckons he is £20-30k down on previous period.

Err, no, late home when you are on a late shift, early home when you

Whoosh!

All these comments about AI to drive trains ??? clearly from people who have never worked or have any idea about the industry.

You need decent vision, hearing and not be colour blind, sounds obvious but I failed by PTS course because the vision in my right eye that cannot be fixed with glasses. Yet my vision is still good enough and legal to drive a car according to the optician. They also give you a physical, no heart defects, diabetes etc

Requirements, Medical Standards & Age Limits