GTR Great Northern shifts

[james123]

Hello all, I've recently had a job offer for a trainee role for GTR Great Northern. I know things may be changing etc but I'm keen to get an idea of the kind of shifts/working month drivers have. Can anyone help, it would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[inthearea]

Hello all, I've recently had a job offer for a trainee role for GTR Great Northern. I know things may be changing etc but I'm keen to get an idea of the kind of shifts/working month drivers have. Can anyone help, it would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

You won't be on shifts for a while as you will be in school for 6 months.... but

4 day week any days mon-sat Sundays extras

Average 35 hours

If you follow roster it's a week of earlies then a week of lates with nights thrown in every 10 weeks roughly

You can swap & look for a perm swap if needed

 

[james123]

Thanks for your reply. To give me an idea, what sort of times do the shifts start and finish? Thanks

 

[inthearea]

Earlies - start times between about 0400 & 0730 amd finish between 12.45 & 16.30 ish

Lates - start times around 12.15 up to 1800 amd finish between 10pm and 0200am

Everything varies you wont get a specific time

 

[james123]

Brilliant. Thank you

 

[djsmith200]

is it possible to swap single days for example if you need it off and know in advance? example need a saturday off?

 

[inthearea]

Good luck with finding someone who will swap a sat with you.

Youre best off swapping whole weeks or just using annual leave days, you can swap shifts on days though if a driver likes an early pm and another likes a late pm.

 

[djsmith200]

lovely cheers. is it pretty good with getting annual requests granted? i know in my current role outside railway it is sometimes difficult as you can only have x amount of people off at a time.

 

[djsmith200]

i spose you can offer to work someones sunday for a saturday

 

[whoosh]

You can swap a shift with someone else at your depot for one day providing you both have 12 hours rest between shifts.

You can swap a rest day, but again you both need 12 hours rest before any shift.

A further complication which isn't the case at the moment, but will be in the future, is that both of you will need to sign the same routes and traction. There will be different 'links' (The railway term for rotas) at some depots which will have different work content in this respect.

Some of your leave will be Annual Leave Weeks (allocated to you and rotate around each year, which you can swap mutually with other drivers), and the rest will be Annual Leave Days. There is a quota of so many Annual Leave Days which will be guarenteed to be granted each day at each depot. Any beyond that are 'pending' and you'll only get the day off then if there is someone who can be allocated off 'spare' to it, or if there is someone willing to work their rest day.

 

[djsmith200]

cheers whoosh for the detailed reply mate
I take it most people try to help each other where possible.
just to clarify when you say some of your annual leave weeks are allocated, you mean you dont get the choice of the dates?

 

[Class2ldn]

No you don't, they are all allocated and rotate each year but you can mutually swap them but no the blocked leave is set dates

 

[whoosh]

Here's a post I made on another thread about leave:

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?p=3082931#post3082931

 

[djsmith200]

topman