I wish...

[Clip]

Just some thoughts like,

I just wish we could get so many enthusiastic people who would want to join the railway but not in a 'Driver' capacity. I realise that since everyone was a little boy they wanted to drive a train but the railway is a big old place and maybe working in a booking office isnt so glamourous as driving a train and working on pway can be terribly cold and miserable but surely with the amount of people who always do threads on here* about wanting to become train drivers 'at any cost' they could maybe jooin the rest of the ranks first and then apply in the meantime.
They are so entusiastic that I would give me left arm for some of them in one of my booking offices - even if it was just for a year or two before they became drivers.

Or is it because the pay is so much better in other grades?


*not having a go at those who do by the way its just my thoughts.

 

[Trainfan344]

Working on the railway is something I have looked into, I wouldn't mind climbing up the ladder, I'm just more focused on getting into university.

 

[455driver]

If you want to work on the railways why are you going to university?

The railway is more interested in life experience/skills than bits of paper!

 

[Clip]

If you want to work on the railways why are you going to university?

The railway is more interested in life experience/skills than bits of paper!

Unless they want to become an engineer then Im guessing that does need a bit of Uni stuff

 

[Nym]

Unless they want to become an engineer then Im guessing that does need a bit of Uni stuff

Depends on how broadly you use the term Engineer...

Where I am the term Engineer actually means professionaly qualified Engineer, most places, it doesn't...
For example, we have "Maintainer" grades (paid more than Engineers for quite a few of them.)

 

[455driver]

Why?

Do you need to go to uni to learn how to use a hammer?

Okay a few jobs will need a degree in <anything irrelevant> but most jobs are easily accessible without a degree.

 

[bronzeonion]

My 'plan' you could call it is to work my way up to becoming a driver. Starting off as an apprentice (currently looking for) or if I dont get one by the time i'm 18, onto applying for station assistant jobs and keep at that for a couple of years then progress onto being a guard and do that for a few years and if I like it alot probably longer then eventually driver.

 

[Nym]

Why?

Do you need to go to uni to learn how to use a hammer?

Okay a few jobs will need a degree in <anything irrelevant> but most jobs are easily accessible without a degree.

There are a few (Engineering in perticular) where you do need a spesific degree to get in. But these degrees are recognised and approved as training toward chartership by an Engineering Council approved institute. For example, someone studying Mechanical and Structural Engineering at Manchester (ICE, IMechE and CIBSE)
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

My 'plan' you could call it is to work my way up to becoming a driver. Starting off as an apprentice (currently looking for) or if I dont get one by the time i'm 18, onto applying for station assistant jobs and keep at that for a couple of years then progress onto being a guard and do that for a few years and if I like it alot probably longer then eventually driver.

If you're after a progressive route in W London have you considered looking at LUL as a station assistant...? (Applied for the last round for example)

 

[TMLB UK]

No harm at all in going to uni. Best paid jobs in engineering require a degree. However I'd probably go down the route of working towards a degree whilst working in the railway. You may also get funding for it.

I am doing exactly as the OP has said and trying to get where I want by doing work that suits my skills first. Currently a fitter in the railway and loving the work. Would even say I'd be happy here if I want lucky enough to fulfil my dreams.

 

[Flyboy]

Clip - in answer to your original question, I'm a firm believer in following a career for which you have the right skills. Obviously if one is still at school then a skillset may not be sufficiently developed enough to guide you, so in that respect all a person can do is follow a dream. In my case I could sense from the age of about 10 that I would best be suited to driving/controlling some type of vehicle. I guess this was already in my genes as both my older brothers were traffic cops and my Dad drove a coach in his early years.

By about the age of 12 I'd refined my dream to that of being a train driver or airline pilot, I didn't care which. Pilot ended up being my primary goal simply because I flew an aeroplane before I drove a train, and discovered that I was good at it. So that put me in the situation where my skills were starting to guide me more than my dream. Nowadays, with a fully-developed skillset, I wouldn't want to join the railway as a booking office clerk, a cleaner, or a guard, purely because I don't have the right skills to do those jobs, just as in my industry I wouldn't know where to start as cabin crew.

Don't get me wrong, I firmly believe that everybody in a particular organisation has an vital part to play, so the booking office clerk & the cleaner have just as an important part to play as the train driver, or indeed the CEO, it's just that they're in those roles because that's where they want to be and they possess the skills for it, or they're in the wrong job! Of course some wannabe train drivers will view that as being a more glamorous role than booking office clerk, but soon enough they'll see differently.

So I personally don't agree with taking a job which doesn't suit one's skills and is purely a stepping-stone to something else, but of course many many people do exactly that and if it works for them then great, but I wouldn't as it seems a bit of a waste of time from the employer's point of view to recruit someone into a position which, from the outset, is intended to be just a temporary role until the job they actually want to do comes along.

Having said all that though, my first career wasn't a flying one, it was an electronic engineering job which I was 'guided' into, but nonetheless I found that I had the right skills for it. However, as it didn't accord with my boyhood dream I never felt it was the right thing to be doing and was never really happy, so keeping my skills in mind I changed to a career that was initially one of my dream jobs.

Sorry to waffle but I couldn't find a shorter, more succint way of putting it.

 

[EM2]

I never wanted to be a driver, as the thought of a one-under petrifies me.
But having had an interest in railways since I was very small, it seemed an obvious area to explore when it came to work.
I started as a trainee technician with S&T in the late '80s, but the outdoor manual work just didn't agree with me, so I left.
I only came back to the railway twenty years later, when I applied to be a CSA and now I know about so many other aspects that I didn't before. For me, either Control or Planning/Timetabling is where I want to be, getting involved in the (metaphorical) nuts-and-bolts of running a railway.

 

[HST Power]

For now, I'm keeping my options open. I would like to work on the railway at some point, but the main focus for me is going to University. I wouldn't mind doing some sort of part time work on the trains, to help gain experience, but I'm not sure if I'd want to pursue a career in the industry, if that makes sense!

 

[Daniel84]

To answer the first post I would be more than happy to have another role on the railways and hopefully one day progress to a driver, it's just very rare to see them advertised, in the last year or so I've only seen customer service jobs with Virgin and a part time platform role with First at Manchester airport.

 

[bronzeonion]

There are a few (Engineering in perticular) where you do need a spesific degree to get in. But these degrees are recognised and approved as training toward chartership by an Engineering Council approved institute. For example, someone studying Mechanical and Structural Engineering at Manchester (ICE, IMechE and CIBSE)
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


If you're after a progressive route in W London have you considered looking at LUL as a station assistant...? (Applied for the last round for example)

Have to be 18 years of age to do that, but yes that is an option however competition for any LU jobs are fierce and in the long run I would prefer to be on the main line.

 

[High Dyke]

If you want to work on the railways why are you going to university?

The railway is more interested in life experience/skills than bits of paper!

Then he'd be a graduate...which in some cases is just the sort of person firms like NR are interested in. Business orientated managers that lack the knowledge and experience that the railway needs, but are good at doing what their boss tells them. No offence intended to those graduates that do have a knowledgeable and fulfilling career on the railway

 

[RJ]

Just some thoughts like,

I just wish we could get so many enthusiastic people who would want to join the railway but not in a 'Driver' capacity. I realise that since everyone was a little boy they wanted to drive a train but the railway is a big old place and maybe working in a booking office isnt so glamourous as driving a train and working on pway can be terribly cold and miserable but surely with the amount of people who always do threads on here* about wanting to become train drivers 'at any cost' they could maybe jooin the rest of the ranks first and then apply in the meantime.
They are so entusiastic that I would give me left arm for some of them in one of my booking offices - even if it was just for a year or two before they became drivers.

Or is it because the pay is so much better in other grades?


*not having a go at those who do by the way its just my thoughts.

Some people will be interested because it's their boy/girlhood dream. Others will because it's seen as an attainable way to earn 40k+. Fair play to the latter - we all have bills to pay and it's only natural for people to want to earn as much as they feel is possible. Driving doesn't appeal to me in the slightest. I've tried being on board crew and whilst it has its plus points, being hundreds of miles away from my home depot lost the limited appeal it had when incidents meant being stranded in the middle of nowhere for hours on end and having to be put up in hotels as no trains were available to get back to London.

Personally I'm quite passionate about the railways, particularly ticketing. It's purely a vocation for me. I was in my element when working in retail/revenue protection and look forward to returning to this area at some point in the future. In fact, I'm off to meet managers/directors at one TOC to talk about tickets today!

 

[sprinterguy]

If you want to work on the railways why are you going to university?

The railway is more interested in life experience/skills than bits of paper!

A relevant degree in something like Transport Management or Transport Planning does make potential employees sit up and pay attention to an extent when sifting through CVs and at the interview stage for office-based roles. I think that non-transport based degrees might actually be valued just as highly, if not more, than transport specific ones in areas of the rail industry such as marketing, HR and IT.

There's a whole host of people working behind the scenes away from the "coal face" to keep the railways working safely and developing their future, and having a a degree can open many more doors into the rail industry at higher levels than just a starting grade through the likes of Graduate schemes that are offered to University students.

Most importantly though going to University gives people the opportunity to gain practical experience of the industry they intend to enter while they study, through placements, internships and part-time roles. It's not a case of having to choose either "practical experience" or "academia" exclusively. Having both offers additional opportunity.

 

[daddy_badger]

Yes I agree with the op you could spend 5 years applying for a role of a trainee driver and be unsuccessful each time. Whereas you could apply for say a platform post and be successfull and then be a trainee driver working your way through the grades within the same space of time. I understand that there are some constraints like pay scales and other commitments that would put people off applying for other roles.

 

[notadriver]

There's an old saying, there are two types of people on the railway. Those that are drivers and those that want to be drivers.

 

[W230]

There's an old saying, there are two types of people on the railway. Those that are drivers and those that want to be drivers.

Haha like it!

Maybe not all want to be drivers now though. But I think it's the same as it is in any vocation - some see it as a way of life, others just as a way of paying the bills.

 

[Sammy h]

In answer to the OP, it is what I have done

Started as a casual weekend on board CSA, now working in the booking office and eventually want to become a driver, proving quite a difficult task due to location issues.

 

[TDK]

Just some thoughts like,

I just wish we could get so many enthusiastic people who would want to join the railway but not in a 'Driver' capacity. I realise that since everyone was a little boy they wanted to drive a train but the railway is a big old place and maybe working in a booking office isnt so glamourous as driving a train and working on pway can be terribly cold and miserable but surely with the amount of people who always do threads on here* about wanting to become train drivers 'at any cost' they could maybe jooin the rest of the ranks first and then apply in the meantime.
They are so entusiastic that I would give me left arm for some of them in one of my booking offices - even if it was just for a year or two before they became drivers.

Or is it because the pay is so much better in other grades?


*not having a go at those who do by the way its just my thoughts.

It have been tradition that the drivers grade is the top of the tree and many applicants being guards, ticket staff, cleaners all want to be drivers, the pay is very inviting but I think it stems back to the days where young lads always looked at the train driver and thought I want to do that hence the saying "a boyhood dream" I personally feel that it is a lot better to start with a different role and get to know how railway operation works in a professional manor and not from an enthusiasts point of view before going for a drivers grade. My personal opinion is that if you are passionate about trains and this is your main hobby possibly this may affect your professional carrer, I always had visions of a train spotter becoming a driver and seeing an unusual train in the sidings or yard somewhere and then forgetting the red signal in fron tof them, my opinion only of course.

It takes a certain person to be a good train driver and I personally feel it is easier for the training, traction and routes if the trainee has some prior knowledge on how the railway works.

 

[youngboy]

Might sound really cheeky this but although I've applied for the trainee driver jobs I also applied for conductor and until cocking up the application form was about to apply for depot driver. By no means have I ever 'dreamed' of being a train driver, I would gladly accept most roles for any TOC within the distance of an hour.
I don't wish to relocate but am lucky in the north west am probably within an hour of most depots.
I am currently self employed and have a customer who is a retired driver and to be honest it was through talking to him and comparing jobs that he pushed me towards applying.
The salary is unimportant I would be happy with the trainee salary and less, but I admit the pension scheme is attractive at my age !! I've worked in factories and heard people whingeing about the job they do but looking at the railway and the ''complete package'', you would be lucky to find that in any other job anywhere, even the teacher's are losing the Final salary scheme.
All in all, for me personally I think I'm experienced enough, worked shifts almost since a teenager and if I could get a job on the railways with a good package I would sign up for 25 years for the same TOC in any job.

 

[maniacmartin]

Whilst many people seem to dream of being a train driver, it doesn't really have much appeal to me. I'd imagine that it would be very boring watching the same scenery go by every day, and even more boring on a stopper service. Couple that with anti-social working hours and the only thing that it has going for it to me is the salary.

If I were to work in the railway (which I'm not planning to), then for me a ticket office/RPI/backoffice type role would interest me more, as I love the intricacies of ticketting and routeing. Unfortunately none of these roles can match my current non-railway salary so there's no incentive to change

Each to their own I suppose.

 

[NI 271]

Whilst many people seem to dream of being a train driver, it doesn't really have much appeal to me. I'd imagine that it would be very boring watching the same scenery go by every day, and even more boring on a stopper service. Couple that with anti-social working hours and the only thing that it has going for it to me is the salary.

If I were to work in the railway (which I'm not planning to), then for me a ticket office/RPI/backoffice type role would interest me more, as I love the intricacies of ticketting and routeing. Unfortunately none of these roles can match my current non-railway salary so there's no incentive to change

Each to their own I suppose.

Whereas I have been working similar shifts for ten years, and shifts not too dissimilar for twenty (so am well used to the anti-social nature of them, but enjoy the freedom of midweek days off). Only a very unhelpful bank stopped me training as a driver in the mid-90s, and it's only now the kids are older that I feel I can really take the drop in salary to do the training.

Having worked for the same company for twenty years, I would expect the novelty of a new job to last a lot longer than it would with most - particularly as I've wanted to drive trains since being a kid. The only way I'll ever stop trying is if I fail the assessment twice.

 

[E&W Lucas]

Just some thoughts like,

I just wish we could get so many enthusiastic people who would want to join the railway but not in a 'Driver' capacity. I realise that since everyone was a little boy they wanted to drive a train but the railway is a big old place and maybe working in a booking office isnt so glamourous as driving a train and working on pway can be terribly cold and miserable but surely with the amount of people who always do threads on here* about wanting to become train drivers 'at any cost' they could maybe jooin the rest of the ranks first and then apply in the meantime.
They are so entusiastic that I would give me left arm for some of them in one of my booking offices - even if it was just for a year or two before they became drivers.

Or is it because the pay is so much better in other grades?

*not having a go at those who do by the way its just my thoughts.

Reading between the lines a little, are you expressing a wish, to have a higher quality of applicants, for the vacs that you have?

Making people that want another career, fit into these posts isn't the answer. See the excellent post by "Flyboy" above. However, having worked in the wider service sector, before moving onto the railway, I think the industry as a whole, fails to advertise widely enough for new blood. The wages and conditions in your booking offices, are far superior to those enjoyed by hotel reception staff, for example, who are doing a very similar job. If your TOC is planning a recruitment drive, a advert in the likes of the Hotel & Caterer or The Grocer, might bring in some interesting candidates. £20 buys you an awful lot of ability in both sectors; people who have exactly the skills you are looking for.

 

[NSE]

I'd love a railway related job, but not a driver. It doesn't really appeal. I watched that tube program and liked the whole line controlling stuff, and I'm good with maps and general transport directions so would be more than happy working/helping passengers on gatelines and platforms. In the future I'd like to work up to managing and interacting with the trains, I'm no engineer, but I'd love to have some role in working in the atmosphere of a railway.


Anything to escape linguistics

 

[Monty]

Just some thoughts like,

I just wish we could get so many enthusiastic people who would want to join the railway but not in a 'Driver' capacity. I realise that since everyone was a little boy they wanted to drive a train but the railway is a big old place and maybe working in a booking office isnt so glamourous as driving a train and working on pway can be terribly cold and miserable but surely with the amount of people who always do threads on here* about wanting to become train drivers 'at any cost' they could maybe jooin the rest of the ranks first and then apply in the meantime.
They are so entusiastic that I would give me left arm for some of them in one of my booking offices - even if it was just for a year or two before they became drivers.

Or is it because the pay is so much better in other grades?


*not having a go at those who do by the way its just my thoughts.

*raises hand*

I've always wanted to work on the railway regardless of what role I was employed in. Ironically driving has only really had a mild appeal to me and I had found the possibility of becoming a guard far more attractive. In fact if I did apply for a trainee drivers position I'd be quite glad I would have had some operational experience as a guard first to take with me. At times I have even questioned if I'd be cut out for driving, after all it isn't for everyone nor can anyone 'be a train driver' either regardless how easy some people may claim it to be.

As someone has already mentioned, each to their own. I am quite happy with my current lot in life, I'm proud to be able to call myself a career railwayman who with a bit of luck hopes it will be a job for life. And while the pay and conditions are good I joined for the career, not the money.

 

[NSE]

I joined for the career, not the money.

This is my current problem. Over half way through Uni, and I'm thinking about the big wide world now. I'm not likely to get a job in the area of my degree if I can help it. I'd love a job in something I love, and seeing as guitar playing doesn't really play well, I'm aiming to turn to the railways.

 

[Clip]

I wasn't trying to do anything with this post really but there's some really good posts that have come about this thread and for that I am thank full.

I don't need a better class of applicant and I'm well aware peoples skillsets may not suit other roles-im paid to guess that when interviewing- it was merely to mention that the fervour for drivers jobs far outweighs other roles in the industry as a whole here. Not a bad thing.

In my time on the railway I have had people from such diverse occupations as banking and factory work come through my doors which is always an eye opener and some of them have gone on to bigger and better things on the railway which I like to see and ill nuture and train them to do so.

I've had a few roles, station based mainly to get where I am and I'm just wondering if those who crave to drive a train are not missing out on the enjoyment and fulfilment that working on the railway in various roles brings.