Hi All
I have been offered a shunting job … and just wanted to know the pros and cons … is it worth coming off the road etc etc …
any feedback would be good …
thanks
Are you in the kent area by any chance? the reason I ask is there are several shunting jobs going but don’t seem to exist lots of promises of oh well the manager is on holiday and oh the person you need to speak to is away from their desk they will call you back.
Rob range:
Hi AllI have been offered a shunting job … and just wanted to know the pros and cons … is it worth coming off the road etc etc …
any feedback would be good …thanks
Yard shunting or shunting between different yards 
Without more specifics it would be hard to say.
I think it’s down to personal preference as much as anything, my personal preference being I don’t think it’s for me
Rob range:
Hi AllI have been offered a shunting job … and just wanted to know the pros and cons … is it worth coming off the road etc etc …
any feedback would be good …
Can be long periods doing nowt and then it’s much better at a place where there’s a few of you. At places I’ve done it at it’s been long periods doing nowt interspersed by 10-20 minutes of rushing around. Most tugs are set to automatic shutdown which is crap in winter.
If you’re shunting in a yard you want to be doing it in a tug, you don’t want to be doing it in a unit.
Rob range:
Hi AllI have been offered a shunting job … and just wanted to know the pros and cons … is it worth coming off the road etc etc …
any feedback would be good …thanks
Marmite job. For every person that loves to, theres one who doesnt. Great way to practice your reversing though.
Pros regular shift times
Cons can get boring
Rowley010:
Pros regular shift timesCons can get boring
It keeps you fit climbing up and down opening and closing doors and curtains
mick p:
It keeps you fit climbing up and down opening and closing doors and curtains
It certainly does! The employed drivers where I work are on a rota of 7 weeks driving followed by 1 week shunting. The reason they do that is that (at our place at least) it destroys knee, ankle, hip joints etc. The last full time shunter we had one of his knees literally exploded, so being a “caring” Co (or more likely terrified of a lawsuit) they devised the rota.
I can lose up to a stone on my shunting week, partly because I do in excess of 20000 steps a day and partly that when I get home I just want a shower and then bed, eating is the last thing on my mind. The reason the step count is so high is partly that moving a trailer off a bay involves hooking up to it, climbing out of the tug and walking to the back to release the castell key from the wall, we then get back on the tug, remove the salvo lock, plug the air lines in, climb back down and go to the back of the trailer to release the automatic park brake. We then climb back in the tug, pull forward, get back out of it to walk to the back to close the doors. Repeat that a few hundred times a day and you’re really earning your money.
We also as shunters deal with all the outside drivers (locking them off, taking keys, putting their details onto the computer etc). As well as the physical demands it’s also quite taxing mentally as we are responsible for the allocation of the loads, we have to work out which store it’s coming from ( sometimes it’s all 3 stores) we have to allocate the loads on the computer after checking whereabouts in the cold store it’s actually being held and allocating the closest bay to that point.
Although it is physically and mentally draining I perversely enjoy it, mainly because I’m quite gregarious (or gobby 
) and it’s something different to the norm. Sometimes I even get someone like Bigriffin who buys me a coffee!
As stated Shunter/Shunting covers a broad selection of work.
Rigid shunting can click up the step count as go to fetch the next vehicle to go on a bay.
As mentioned previously, some shunters are classed as yard marshals and as such have to deal with everything in the yard, eg fuel deliveries, booking in arrivals, allocating trailers/vehicles to be loaded, making sure vehicles due for service don’t get loaded, ensuring temperatures are set correctly on fridges and their fuelled up, opening/closing curtains, load securing etc
On the other hand I used to shunt on a Saturday night and the main issue was staying awake as nothing happened between 18:00 and 22:00 when the night shift started and then after that, it would be two trailer shunts per hour.
Inter-depot shunting can become boring, just travelling the same road over and over again moving finished product from factory to warehouse, then repeat for the next twelve hours.
Each to their own, only qualifications required a thick skin and to look as miserable as possible, especially when asked a question and treat all visiting drivers as idiots.[emoji2957][emoji2957][emoji2957]
Sixties boy:
As stated Shunter/Shunting covers a broad selection of work.Rigid shunting can click up the step count as go to fetch the next vehicle to go on a bay.
As mentioned previously, some shunters are classed as yard marshals and as such have to deal with everything in the yard, eg fuel deliveries, booking in arrivals, allocating trailers/vehicles to be loaded, making sure vehicles due for service don’t get loaded, ensuring temperatures are set correctly on fridges and their fuelled up, opening/closing curtains, load securing etc
On the other hand I used to shunt on a Saturday night and the main issue was staying awake as nothing happened between 18:00 and 22:00 when the night shift started and then after that, it would be two trailer shunts per hour.
Inter-depot shunting can become boring, just travelling the same road over and over again moving finished product from factory to warehouse, then repeat for the next twelve hours.
Each to their own, only qualifications required a thick skin and to look as miserable as possible, especially when asked a question and treat all visiting drivers as idiots.[emoji2957][emoji2957][emoji2957]
Well, youd only be wrong 1% of the time, wouldnt you?
(Yes, thank you all! I`ve just graduated from the Chester School of Diplomacy)
Don’t forget to open the back doors before you reverse onto the bay