Search results

I'm based in the capital at the moment and I'm thinking of applying for roles to the North or West. On one hand, I'm thinking it's based to wait and see what deals ASLEF does/doesn't get, yet at the same time, I'm concerned that future contracts might have a "B-Scale" provision whereby anyone...

The King's Cross one is back up, so I presume it was a technical glitch which caused it to be removed.

I think it comes in at around £74700 including London weighting, Sundays inside the working week. I've read that Kings Cross have quite a few night shifts due to taking stock ECS to/from Bounds Green depot. Does anyone know if they plan on taking qualifieds any time soon? I'd be tempted by the...

The railway runs to a considerable extent on staff goodwill and overtime, with the lack of social distancing measures why would anyone want to come in and work a rest day? This is especially true of any drivers who are more vulnerable to Covid. I know the government and media are making the...

One thing I thought was useful in the application process when I was applying a few years back was having a safety-critical hobby. I worked in an office 9-5 so examples of safety-critical work were hard to come by, being able to use examples of what I did in my spare time for competency-based...

Where Sundays are outside, can the information on the rate please be added too? I know quite a few posters have provided it so it could be handy.

I recall that at Winsford in the late 90's the driver remained in the cab to activate the sand hoppers before the collision. I understand that since it was a Class 87 at speed, his escape options were limited but it does make me wonder whether on more modern stock the emergency brake...

I'm guessing they're concerned about effectively having to train two people if a lot of drivers from the London suburbs decide they want to move further out. They'll have to put those who've moved on route-learning for a few months and have to replace them with a trainee, whereas if they keep...

I got a "thanks but no thanks" at the DMI stage from four seperate TOCs, one of those was for a shunter driver role, the rest mainline. A few years on and I'm a Driver Instructor at the fifth TOC who interviewed me, so don't worry about it, most get there in the end.

I did hear about a couple of bus drivers challenging false positives for cocaine, they took hair tests at their own expense and these showed they had no trace of the substance over a period of a few months (including the period of the false positive). Both drivers took their employers to an ET...

For me, at least, the trick is being able to start sleeping earlier the previous night, which can be difficult. You'll want at least 7 hours of sleep, ideally 8. However, the human body clock runs on a 25-26 hour cycle, not a 24 hour cycle, so lates to earlies is harder than earlies to lates...

I believe some of the original people to do their own videos about a training process were the student pilots working towards their commercial pilot licences and ratings. These people tended to study at one of the "big three" integrated flying training schools, where the training was expensive...

I did some practice prior to the tests but not exhaustively, after all, the OPC send out practice material. I also read up extensively on both the recruitment process and the job itself and spoke to a qualified driver I'd met by chance through the non-railway career I'd had at the time. I...

I haven't heard anything from ASLEF on this, whilst I appreciate there isn't much they can do, it'd be nice for the members to know what the EC's take on it is. When it comes to redundancies, I don't think it'd be a good idea to make them in grades which take a long time to train. Reduced...

Thank you all for the advice on this, the people who I'd heard mention a "seperate licence" presumably made a slight misinterpretation of the SWR system where any incidents affecting an instructor or stored on a different record. It all goes to show how the DI role seems to be underrated by the...

One career move which I've been encouraged to consider in the past few months is going for a Driver Instructor role. At my TOC, any incidents that occur whilst a Trainee is driving end up on the Instructor's one and only Train Driver Licence, these incidents are not recorded seperately...

Something like ten applications and five management interviews over a two year period. I got through the psychometrics very quickly but found various DMIs very difficult to get through. I was in my early twenties at the time and didn't have the life experience of the other candidates I don't...

Thank you all for the info, I'm tempted to make a few enquiries and see how it goes.

Do Southern have different contracts for people who started before/after a certain date (except protected staff)? I'm aware that post-2017 TL drivers have quite a few things that are worse than their pre-2017 counterpart. Will be interesting to see if they consider qualified drivers...

Personally, I'm surprised that they haven't re-attached shoegear and sent them to their old stomping ground south of the river. I'd think they'd be rather handy on the Maidstone East and Tunbridge Wells runs.