Just like to add that the perks of train driving are very good but in my opinion the job is a load of crap now. If I could earn 40k ish for a decent haulage form or doing a driving job and a decent pension then id seriously consider it.
Is it possible■■?
Personally I have no problem doing a 12/13/14/15 hour day etc. I think the problem with train driving is you dont feel youve earnt any money. I know that sounds like the ideal job but its boring and I when I worked for national express yes I was knackered each day throwing tonnes of luggage about but I loved it. Like I said earlier, trying to get a train driving job is bloody hard, trying tocget out of it is even worse. I think to a degree I never looked at road driving as a career but now I miss it.
Thanks for that. Told you I was rusty, even forgot the correct acronym for it! 
Regarding passengers not checking for the platform; doesn’t surprise me at all. After all they’re effectively pedestrians and we all know what dozy buggers they usually are! 
Class2ldn:
Sidevalve:
Class2ldn:
Yeah the aws gives us about 1.6 seconds to acknowledge it or an emergency brake application applies. We also have a foot pedal called a drivers safety device. If no activity is acknowledged for 1 minute then this starts an audible alarm called the drivers vigilance device so we have to raise our foot and put it back down within about 6/7 seconds or the brakes come on again. Lots of safety devices lolOne thing you haven’t mentioned is what happens when you do make a mistake, i.e. PSD (Passed Signal at Danger) or the like. My knowledge of the subject is both limited and somewhat rusty (I worked as a volunteer on the Great Central and North York Moors many years ago but never got beyond passed cleaner) but my best mate is a former Nine Elms passed fireman from steam days who still drives on preserved lines, which have to comply to pretty much the same rules. Is it still an automatic suspension followed by a formal enquiry?
I’d be grateful if you could enlighten us on this as would give some food for thought, since I am sure the penalties for such are way beyond those for going over a daily driving limit by a couple of seconds.
also depending on the type of spad the signalman will be taken off duty and medscreened /brethalysed eg if he sets the wrong route and clears the signals and the train takes the wrong route it known as a technical spad and given to both as an ex signalman can only have sympathy for any driver involved in these .
Ok well a spad is split into 4 differemt categories.
Cat a, b, c, d
Cat a is the serious one as its the one given to a driver if its their fault basically. Many reasons why people have them and not really relevant here.
Anyway what will happen is in most cases the tpws will trip giving you a brake application if the driver hasn’t realised and already whacked it into emergency. The signaller will have to be immediately informed and you follow their instructions. The train will be taken out of service immediately no exception and you will be pulled off track for an interview and med screen. Now you wont get the sack for a spad . People mess up and thats life. What will happen is you’ll get put on an action plan normally 6/12 months and maybe some retraining if necessary.
What you will get a p45 for is trying to hide it. If your honest then you will keep your job as long its not a regular thing.
The big thing at the moment is stopping short of the platform and wrong side door releases. Obviously the danger to passengers on both of these is obvious. If you stop short and release the doors you’ll be surprised how many people dont actually check the platform is there.
Opening the doors on the wrong side speaks for itself.
In regards to route learning there are some freight and indeed passenger drivers that sign from one end of the country to the other.
I currently drive from brighton to bedford so have to know every junction speed signal , where you can and cant go etc.
I wish we could just follow the rails and know it was correct but unfortunately it wont happen while people are still controlling the routes and thats something that in reality will always be needed so the importance of knowing a route is not to be overlooked.
Take away the obvious lack of steering wheel and actually driving a train takes a lot more skill and responsibilty. The concentration needed to keep alert at speeds up to 200 mph.
One poit made was wrong anyway … if you cast your memory back to the Diesel multiple units of the 60’s. 70’s and 80’s they did in fact have gears sticks and some had as many as 16 gears.
Above all that being in charge of a vehicle carrying hundreds of people is far more important than driving a lorry.
NO ! … I am not and never have been a train driver.
Tipper Tom:
Someone has it wrong somewhere.
Yes, we have. We don’t have a strong Union because we won’t stick together. It’s never going to happen either when there’s ■■■■■■■ on here who unapologetically say they’ll work 80 plus hours per week for a crap hourly rate.
MikeCunn:
Tipper Tom:
Someone has it wrong somewhere.Yes, we have. We don’t have a strong Union because we won’t stick together. It’s never going to happen either when there’s [zb] on here who unapologetically say they’ll work 80 plus hours per week for a crap hourly rate.
^^ at least there’s one lad on here that thinks like me! Well said that man!
Remember though it’s better than nowt… it’s part of the job…you’re not a proper trucker unless you work your arse off blah blah…
It won’t change 'cos too many drivers are thick ■■■■■!!! 
Truckulent:
MikeCunn:
Tipper Tom:
Someone has it wrong somewhere.Yes, we have. We don’t have a strong Union because we won’t stick together. It’s never going to happen either when there’s [zb] on here who unapologetically say they’ll work 80 plus hours per week for a crap hourly rate.
^^ at least there’s one lad on here that thinks like me! Well said that man!
Remember though it’s better than nowt… it’s part of the job…you’re not a proper trucker unless you work your arse off blah blah…
It won’t change 'cos too many drivers are thick [zb]!!!
this
and you know what the self same strong union that railway staff use is open for many on here to join namley the RMT ! forget !" capn BOB" Crow they are a very strong hard working union for there members with many benefits other than just representing you in pay and dispute negotiations but as said above to many happy to undercut others as its the "way its always been "
The other thing with unions is there are not many train drivers that own there own train unlike truck drivers who all seem to own there truck.
Or at least say this is my truck when it really belongs to the firm
This makes it very hard for anyone to represent us.
MikeCunn:
Tipper Tom:
Someone has it wrong somewhere.Yes, we have. We don’t have a strong Union because we won’t stick together. It’s never going to happen either when there’s [zb] on here who unapologetically say they’ll work 80 plus hours per week for a crap hourly rate.
Some seem to look down there nose at you and think your not a truck driver if you only work 40-50 hours a week and dont live in a tin can and ■■■■ in a old coke botyle at night.
Class2ldn:
Well as a current train driver it does amuse me as to some of the replies on here. In regards to the underground only two lines are automated, thats the central and Victoria. All other lines are completely driven so its all on the driver.
Now I drive for a company that operates across london so im overground not underground and to be honest the underground boys and gals do get a bit of a ribbing from the overground because they dont drive the speeds we do. Believe me when trying to stop a train at 100 mph in the ■■■■■■■ down rain doesn’t work and you end up doing a six mile skid then feel free to slag us train drivers off.
Leaves on the line is a serious problem and when your faced with a red signal and you can’t stop because the wheels have completely locked its quite a frightening prospect. In regards to just pushing and pulling the levers etc as was mentioned before we have alot to learn. The signallers control the signals and if they give us a wrong route we have to know and stop or try and stop before it happens.
We have a rule book we have to learn which is the equivalent size of a bible basically lol. Every two years we are tested on it and it equates to roughly 300/350 questions with an 80% pass mark. We also have to learn about the trains inside out, if something fails then its down to us to fix it or try. Obviously there are some things that are way above us in regards to fixing.
The safety side is strict and everything is monitored by a black box. Certain faults come with certain rules laid out in the rule book. Break these and someone get hurts and its in the docks and a cell. Im not trying to big our job up as many people have no true understanding of what we do. Yes the money is good but we can drive for periods of upto six hours without a break and only have to have a 30 min break. Personally it does get boring but its like any job, some good days some bad. At my company the max working day is 10hours so yes in that respect its alot less then road driving jobs but it can be monotonous.
Waiting for the backlash now lol.
to class2ldn,point taken chap,i only said what i said because of my brother [operator central line]and my ex family friend,who is a bit of a bell end they are both extremely lazy and would not know what a days hard graft is if it looked them in the face,as i said look on you tube and look up guy normas, ex friend [aka hypno elvis ]he was an operator on the underground and was full of it,i guanrantee you will laugh when you see him,i actually told him to his face he cannot sing
Went for the tests earlier in the year for a Trainee Driver with Scotrail. Other guys getting tested were an underground drivers, possibly a metro driver and a NI train driver.
They would all have had to become trainees to drive on the Mainline as far as I understood at the time, all their current jobs gave them was enough “points” to get to the testing stage.
Another train driver here but I actively drive coaches once or twice a month.
Would love to get an HGV licence.
It’s nice that members of this forum (truckers) are more understanding of what a train drivers role involves than bus drivers in certain other forums I know.
Not sure if it’s been mentioned here but only one fail at the psychometric entry tests is allowed. A second fail is a ban for life.
Soupstone:
The railways not about what you do, it’s about what you know.That aside, it’s AWS telling you what the signal in advance is, and brakes if you dont aknowledge it.
TPWS will apply the brakes if you are speeding or trying to go through a red.
Just to add more if this hasn’t been said already :
AWS only warns if the signal is either green or not green (double yellow/yellow/red). It is only an aid. Drivers must rely on a visual sighting of the signal.
If you get a TPWS activation or intervention you are putting your job at risk. You will be taken off driving duties and be interviewed to find out what happened. Do it a few more times and bye-bye driving job.
TPWS does not prevent a train going through a red light. It’s designed to lessen the consequences of doing so. TPWS is only fitted to certain signals and certain speed restrictions (approaching tight bends). The driver is still ultimately in control. Many trains are not top speed limited either. Driving a coach I’ll have my foot hard down because the limiter was set at 60 mph not 62 mph and running parallel to the road is the railway line and I’ll be easing back to 25% power to avoid exceeding the 90 mph limit !
Class2ldn:
The big thing at the moment is stopping short of the platform and wrong side door releases. Obviously the danger to passengers on both of these is obvious.
Opening the doors on the wrong side speaks for itself.
Harry Monk:
The essential reason why train drivers earn so much more than truck drivers is that they are highly unionised whereas we are a bunch of union-hating Maggie Thatcher-loving scabs.
speak for yourself
chester:
Mankind has survived 200,000 years or so without trucks quite adequately.
I didn’t even have to lookatyour names know it was you that posted this utter bull ■■■■.
This is an interesting video of TPWS testing, with an e tench brake application, still takes a while to stop!
Real trains travelling at real speeds. Tube trains and trams which rarely maintain their top speed of 50 to 60 mph for any length of time are not in the same league lol