[Pugland53]

Originally Posted by E&W Lucas

I must admit that I am slightly bewildered by this, when you've just pointed out that the majority of each course with your TOC are external?

There will be a lot of ex - forces types in the market at the moment, as sadly so many of them are being made redundant.

Thinking of those drivers that I know, who have got the job seriously young (and the number is in single figures), the majority were internal, but in most cases the defining characteristic was their outstanding maturity. These were bright, articulate young people, who would have stood out in any workplace. In some cases, they were just "filling in" on the railway, but saw an opportunity and grabbed it. We aren't talking about "teenage veg" getting lucky here!

See comments above about the importance of young people engaging in character building activities.

Don't forget, even if you don't start working on the railway, you can still be building up your CV elsewhere. That Saturday job flipping burgers for Mc D's, might just lead to a managers job, and all of a sudden, you'll find you external driver application gets noticed, and the questions on the structured interview very easy to answer.... I know someone that happend for, so remember opportunities are all around you!

I didn't say the majority were external, I said that approx 2-3 in each course are ex guards, there are other roles in the railway. I can only comment on my experience in my TOC, and not for other TOCs. Regardless of previous jobs applicants still have to pass the tests. I stand by what I said about guards having an advantage. They are used to the way the railway works, they have some route knowledge, traction knowledge, rules knowledge, are used to the railway shift work and the employer knows first hand if they are reliable and suitable for the role. Throughout our driving course the guards definitely had the easier time. Five of the eight on my course were railway employees (including signallers/fitters) two were mechanical engineers and one was ex Navy/Police.

[6Gman]

I'm wary of commenting since I've been off the railway for some years, and wasn't footplate, but ......

You need to have a lot of special qualities to be a driver, some obvious, some less so:-

Self reliance
Cool under pressure
Weird shift patterns (be sure you can get up at 3am and put in a full shift of signal/ track staff spotting etc)
Good reactions and eyesight (as pointed out earlier)
Ability to cope with some pretty nasty experiences (e.g. suicides, animal strikes etc)

etc etc

You can see why TOCs tend to opt for recruits who have already had the chance to display these qualities in other roles.

[Dieseldriver]

With people saying about the general age of successful applicants for drivers jobs, I'm the other end of that scale. I started as a trainee driver on LUL at 18 years old. I then started on a trainee drivers course for a mainline TOC at 20 years old. It does still happen but as has been said, it is extremely rare! (On that note I went into a petrol garage on my way to work yesterday and the cashier started chatting and asking what I did on the railway after seeing my uniform. When I told her, she replied 'you look very young to be a train driver'...)