I'd say it has been a good thread in that it really does drive home the high standards required.
One question I have is about the training schedule, I've been informed by my future TOC that it's a week for induction and PTS, 8 weeks for Rules, 3.5 weeks for Traction then the 300 or so hours of handling yet the course takes. 12-18 months.
I presume there must be quite a bit of simulator work and front end turns?
I think they say a year to eighteen months to manage peoples' expectations. In my group some were just under a year, some just over. A few trainees who have taken pay cuts to the trainee wage have become frustrated that they were told a year and the process has actually taken longer.
The rules and traction stage lasts for a predetermined amount of time and is very predictable. What happens after that is much more variable and depends on your depot, your DI and a bit of good luck!
Some people wait a few months for a DI and spend that doing cab rides. At some depots the DIs do a lot of work that isn't relevant to trainees and therefore lots of the shift will be spent in the second man's seat staring out of the window. The effect this has largely depends if your DI is willing to swap shifts for more relevant work. Some are, some aren't. Wrongly in my view as they're being paid a supplement to be a DI, but some are reluctant to swap short link 1 turns for longer jobs even where this would benefit their trainee. It just comes down to who you end up with.
The 300 hours is a rough guide and can take a long time to accrue. Keep in mind you can only log time when the wheels are actually turning. The clock stops if you're sat at a red signal for more than a minute or two and when you're changing ends. You're only working four days a week, some shifts are spent sitting cover and not driving, some shifts the DI may be doing route refreshers for qualified drivers, annual leave gets in the way (both the DI's and yours).
You need a minimum number of night hours which is easy at this time of year,
but tricky if you're training in the summer months if, say, you're with a DI who swaps for early shifts.
You also need to drive over each route a minimum number of times which can be surprisingly tricky to do in the case of some of the less used loops and diversionary routes (again depending on depot). Towards the end of the training the DI has to apply to be released from the roster so that you can go out and drive the routes you need, but this can be refused by rosters if they can't cover the DI's work.
The other roadblock a lot of people face is getting a slot with your manager to do your final assessment (these are minimum 4-5 days). The DMs are often on call and may have drivers off track post incident pending investigation and a whole range of other tasks occupying their time. This, coupled with not getting released with your DI for routes as mentioned above, can easily add a couple of months to your training during which you are fully ready for assessment but simply waiting to complete your routes or waiting for your manager to be free to assess you.
This is where it can grow frustrating. You're ready for assessment but still driving around with your DI whose bored stiff as he no longer has anything to teach you. The weeks are slipping by and you keep adding up in your head how much each extra week of delay is costing you!
So I would say it would be prudent to budget for over a year on trainee wage to be on the safe side. With a bit of good luck you may well be out within a lot less than 18 months.
