Tocs annual leave, allocated or not

[Editrain2]

Hi.

Just wondering if there is any rail company that lets you choose your own holidays… or are the all allocated.

The 2 TOCs I’ve worked for all had allocated holidays and have you 6 floater days that you could choose yourself… very rarely were they accepted haha.

 

[pdeaves]

It could well depend on your grade and work type...

 

[FatContr0ller]

Booking office, revenue and platform at my TOC book their own holidays, we're not allocated

 

[12LDA28C]

Certainly for drivers, the four weeks block leave are usually rostered, with the remaining 'ad hoc' days able to be taken as and when required. It's usually easy enough to swap a week's rostered leave with someone else, or to a week with a vacancy if there is one.

People with kids generally prefer to take time off in the school holidays whereas folk who don't can take advantage of cheaper prices for holidays during term time and a little negotiation usually results in everyone getting what they want.

 

[LeGrimpeur]

No block leave for HEX drivers.

 

[Horizon22]

It is normally only train crew (drivers and conductors) who have such arrangements, if they have them at all.

It’s to prevent all the ad-hoc leave being utilised at the popular periods (summer holidays, Xmas etc.) which could leave the train service unusable with crew cancellations. Problems still exist around those times anyway (less overtime take up) so it would potentially be even worse without it.

 

[Teddyward]

Allocated leave. 8 weeks on 2 weeks off. + 5 float

 

[PupCuff]

Depends on the individual TOC, role in question and even in some cases the individual depot. Back when I was out on the trains at our depot we'd apply for the weeks we wanted ahead of the forthcoming leave year; you'd find you'd get most of what you wanted with the odd week having to be allocated, where too many other people had also wanted that week. If an allocated week didn't really work there would be a few vacant spaces on unpopular weeks or the option to swap with someone else. Worked well.