Switching from LNER host to Northern conductor

Hi,
Currently I am a host at LNER, I am doing well, get along with everyone and there is no reason I can't progress in the future. Unfortunately there will be no progression anytime soon as we have already got too many TM's, and when there is opportunity there will be lots of competition. In the meantime I see Northern are hiring conductors. I am asking people with experience if they would recommend trying to make the switch? It is more money, but not a massive increase, and smaller than the increase if I progressed with LNER. But it is safety critical which is good for me for my wishes to be a driver in the future. I am just looking for any and all advise.


Seperate question, can anyone advise a ballpark figure for what Northern Conductors make in commission? I know the tickets are a lot cheaper so I assume it isn't fantastic, but it is also a factor for me.

Thanks for everyone's help.

If you want to be a driver long term then I'd say stick where you are! Competition for driving jobs is mega competitive as I'm sure you're aware and even more so at LNER. Your chances of getting a job as a driver as an internal applicant are far greater!!

WB1993 said:

Hi,
Currently I am a host at LNER, I am doing well, get along with everyone and there is no reason I can't progress in the future. Unfortunately there will be no progression anytime soon as we have already got too many TM's, and when there is opportunity there will be lots of competition. In the meantime I see Northern are hiring conductors. I am asking people with experience if they would recommend trying to make the switch? It is more money, but not a massive increase, and smaller than the increase if I progressed with LNER. But it is safety critical which is good for me for my wishes to be a driver in the future. I am just looking for any and all advise.


Seperate question, can anyone advise a ballpark figure for what Northern Conductors make in commission? I know the tickets are a lot cheaper so I assume it isn't fantastic, but it is also a factor for me.

Thanks for everyone's help.

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What do you want personally? A conductor role gives you far more responsibility, as you say it is a safety critical position. Staying at LNER will give you internal applicant status but these days that is not what it used to be.
If it is money you want but limited responsibility, stay put. To base a railway career purely on salary will make you eventually hate the job. I've seen so many people regret moving on for a couple of grand extra only to find they hate their new job.

If it helps, I'm a host at another TOC and I'm looking into northern hiring conductors too. I've gone for it, amongst other things, but I thing a quick google search showed me that I'm one of the lesser paid hosts in the country, so the money at northern actually looks decent to me
You don't have to be a conductor to become a driver, but I think the knowledge would be a boon, if that's your end goal.
I've seen internal candidates apply for position and not get chosen, and I've been that internal candidate before, so as rab said, it's not what it used to be. If you don't see a way to progress in your current company, you've been there for a while, and you know that no one's retiring anytime soon, I'd personally go for it.
But if it's not been long, and you aren't actually certain whether there'd be positions up whether for driver or TM, you could choose to wait especially if things are going well for you at the moment.

Becoming a driver at Northern will be a lot easier than LNER because
(a) Northern are a much bigger company with ~ 1900 drivers compared to LNER’s 400 (roughly, not 100% sure what the exact figures are these days)

(b) Northern will take a lot more trainees not only because of (a) but also because they will have a higher turnover and will virtually only take on trainees compared to LNER who have a lower turnover and will have a mixture of qualifieds (not so much this decade) and trainees joining

Becoming a conductor will be really good experience. I don’t understand the internal argument above because you’ll be internal at Northern instead. Being internal isn’t necessarily advantageous anyway - some conductors have complained that it’s hard to progress to driver because the company then have to find a new conductor, etc…

For a Northern conductor Overtime opportunities will be much more valuable than Commission/Ticket Scans.

A Northern conductor recently posted in the Northern pay award thread that they earned £50k last year. This amount should be easily achievable considering there has now been a payrise on the basic salary too and there are ongoing discussions with unions that may eventually lead to a further salary increase.

I wouldn’t say do it purely based on the money though.

Has the pay rise been agreed?

The basic of £35-36k means achieving £50k involves an awful lot of overtime. Rest days are paid at time (on the West at least although I accept the East may be different and more relevant here) and Sundays at 1.25 - even at £200 a shift (there's plenty of six hour jobs which are worth a lot less) you're doing a lot extra.

Commission is paltry and declining.

As stated above, there's a lot more driver vacancies at Northern but you're often bottom of the pile when allocated a place on a course v the externals.

Iskra said:

For a Northern conductor Overtime opportunities will be much more valuable than Commission/Ticket Scans.

A Northern conductor recently posted in the Northern pay award thread that they earned £50k last year. This amount should be easily achievable considering there has now been a payrise on the basic salary too and there are ongoing discussions with unions that may eventually lead to a further salary increase.

I wouldn’t say do it purely based on the money though.

Click to expand...

Achievable if you flog the rest days but I'm not sure I'd call it easy really.

I am on a smidge under £40k per year basic elsewhere with Sundays outside and a decent extra payment for them and doing 1 or 2 Sundays per month with usually 1 rest day worked I don't hit £50k.