I made that leap from truck driver to train driver,
Do I regret it ?
He’ll no!!
We get treated like a human being , I’m in my own bed every day, I only work a 35hr wk anything over that is overtime and it is your choice
My basic is £56278 pa
We are paid every 4wks meaning we get paid 13months a year , we get 8wks a year paid leave & final salary pension ,
Thanks to the union we have just got a 4% pay rise this year from April .That’s it i’m changing careers! Which company is this?
LIBERTY_GUY:
Of course when comparing truck drivers to train drivers is the oft overlooked fact that you could get your HGV license in a week, as many of us did, or as little as ten days now taking the two stage route. A train driver isn’t given his permits within such a short timescale.Then you have the logistical side. A PSV carries around 70 people max, a fully laden intercity train has hundreds on board. A HGV driver is typically carrying under 30 tonnes, a fully laden freight train is carrying hundreds of tonnes.
Are truck drivers hard done to? As anyone who has dipped their toes into any other profession over the last ten years will tell you, everyone is out to shaft you nowadays and make money from you by introducing required tickets (like DCPC). Try getting on a site without a CSCS card, or obtaining a lowly security guards job without a SIA license.
What’s a CSCS card to try getting on a site for?
I do lots of site deliveries and never been asked about one.
Ta.
I saw an advert on Gumtree the other day, a newly qualified class 2 driver, advertising for work and offering “to work for low wages.”
The words “gulliable” and “prick” were missing, however.
Gazza, out of curiosity, how do the shifts/breaks/ rest periods stack up on rail compared to how we do it in road haulage?
I know you’re obviously not on tacho and presumably you get relieved after so many hours or miles; do you get routed back to base as a rule or do you still do what used to be known as “lodging turns”, nights out to the rest of us?
I never worked on the public railways but did quite a few years as a volunteer on preserved steam.
daf1691:
Well Bob Crow died yesterday, I am not a union man nowadays but he worked hard for the train drivers.According to the papers he increased there pay from 27K in 2002 to 52k now.
We could do with someone like him in Truck drivers unions!
Wait for the back lash!
no backlash from me as i agree with you,as i said in older posts my brother is a train operator on the central line,his house is paid for and he apparently has plenty of money and all for about 6 to 8 hours a day,he got all this because of bob crow,shame my bro is such a knob though [LOL]
Sidevalve i do mostly nights my choice, we book on at 23:00 and are finishing time is 07:00 Monday-Friday , we are always back in the depot between 05:30 and if you unlucky 07:00,
wk ends are 12hr shifts but remember we only work 35hrs a wk (140 hrs a month)
the min time off between shifts is 12hrs ,
We don’t do lodging turns.
if you was to look at my rosta you would see I work roughly 17 shifts a month
Thanks. I presume then you’re on fairly local work, is it freight or ECS?