GTR Depot Choice

[A2Jon]

Found out today that I passed my stage 2 and MMI, my application is for Welwyn Garden City for Great Northern however I have been given the choice to choose to interview for Cricklewood and St Albans with Thameslink if wanted.

Looking for some advice if there are any pros or cons to each depot or company, as they are all almost equal distances from home there is no advantage in choosing one over the other for committing purposes.

 

[baz962]

Welwyn is probably the best. Cricklewood second and st Albans third. However who knows what work might suit you. I'm not Thameslink I'm East Midlands , but I know plenty of drivers in all three depots and that seems the consensus.

 

[43066]

Welwyn is probably the best. Cricklewood second and st Albans third. However who knows what work might suit you. I'm not Thameslink I'm East Midlands , but I know plenty of drivers in all three depots and that seems the consensus.

Agreed. Welwyn has a mix of metro and faster work + they sign through the TL core, so more scope for variety. The other two are death by Sutton Loop based on what our ex TL colleagues have said.

 

[Driveit]

Pros and cons to all. I'd always pick Thameslink over GN but that's me. Cricklewood signs more routes, has more opportunity to do prep and other little things within a sidings that St Albans drivers may not get to do quite as much. Cricklewood has a larger depot. Both have a friendly enough set of drivers. St albans are for the most part, going around the loop a lot (Sutton loop) which makes up most of their work. It can get repetitive, so for more variety I'd probably go Cricklewood. Management team for both depots are also friendly enough too.

 

[baz962]

Agreed. Welwyn has a mix of metro and faster work + they sign through the TL core, so more scope for variety. The other two are death by Sutton Loop based on what our ex TL colleagues have said.

Even then I think Cricklewood is better than St Albans. I was travelling to work around 04.30 one morning and a Thameslink driver got on at st Albans and one at either Radlett or Elstree . Got talking to them and the one that got on at St Albans actually lived right by the depot but couldn't bring himself to work there , preferring to commute to Cricklewood instead.

 

[Class2ldn]

If you're booking on at cricklewood after the trains have gone out then you get a fair bit of walking time to the station which can take a bit off the duty at the start and finish.
Huge messroom at cricklewood as well lol

 

[choochoochoo]

An advantage on the GN side is they don't use circadian rostering (yet). That makes permanent swaps a lot easier

 

[Class2ldn]

Yeah that's is one downside at TL.
You can't swap shifts at all .

 

[SWR_DRIVER]

An advantage on the GN side is they don't use circadian rostering (yet). That makes permanent swaps a lot easier

Apologies if this is a silly question, but what is circadian rostering?

 

[A2Jon]

Thank you all for your replies, I have decided to stick with my original depot choice at WGC.

 

[whoosh]

Apologies if this is a silly question, but what is circadian rostering?

In essence it's a block of seven shifts (if the Sunday is worked) of late shifts with a similar start time, a couple of rest days, and then another seven (if the Sunday is worked) early shifts with a similar start time, before a long weekend of five days off.
It's "circadian" because the blocks of work are at a similar time, and there are less changes to the body clock (circadian rhythm) with the change between shifts at the midweek rest days and long weekend, rather than every week.

There are downsides to this though as you can't swap for a preferred shift or swap rest days.

I've spoken about it before here:

Thameslink vs Great Northern

Hi All, I thought I'd start a separate thread on this subject. Does anyone have any thoughts or opinions about the pros and cons of being a Train Driver (starting as a Trainee of course) for Thameslink vs Great Northern? Many thanks

www.railforums.co.uk

Thank you all for your replies, I have decided to stick with my original depot choice at WGC.

There is more variety at Welwyn - I would've picked there if I was you!

In the post I linked to above - since then (2021), Sundays have reverted to being entirely voluntary. [For the 2016 pay deal, either 8 or 12 Sundays per year had to be committed to (depending on your start date), but if Sundays in the working week hadn't been agreed by 2025 then they would revert to being entirely voluntary again. No talks on Sundays in the working week took place during this time!]

So if you don't want to work a Sunday, you can give it away still, but can also say you are 'not available' with seven days notice for ANY of your rostered Sundays. You no longer have a 'commitment' on any of them.

There have also been a lot of Drivers transfer out of Welwyn to be at depots closer to where they live, and so I understand there are actually vacancies at Welwyn now.

There did indeed become two links (rotas) at Welwyn, with one containing work on the Sevenoaks route.