I really enjoyed the years I spent as a guard/conductor
The pros -
The pay + commission plus overtime and sundays at the toc I worked at meant you could come out with 30k easily for not a lot of work
Assuming you do your job properly , dont take any risks safety wise , offer the best customer service you can you wont get hassled by your manager . 1st 2 years you will be assessed more often , but after that I only used to see my manager for a ride out every 6 months . and a full summary rules assesment every 2 years , sometimes it wasnt even my manager who did the rideouts it was a suitably qualified instructor or another manager .
That feeling you get when you do something really simply but it makes a passengers day , there where numerous occassions when id return someones wallet and they would be so thankful .
Colleagues , you will find a real mix of people , on my guards course there was 2 ex coppers , an ex teacher , 2 ex shop workers , an ex civil engineer and a civil servant . At my depot there was a real mix of old and young , men and women , people who had been railway for life and people who had done a range of other jobs . Despite the numerous backgrounds everyone got on .
Time off , guards at my place still have a decent shift pattern meaning every 3 weeks they have a 5 day weekend with Fri , Sat , Sun ,Mon and Tue as rest days . All Sundays are also optional and extra pay for guards . Guards at my place are also on 4 day weeks so their 28 days of holidays actually goes very far
guranteed your 12 hours between shifts which I value so much after doing jobs where I was rostered 7 and 8 hours between days
One massive pro to being a guard is if you are having a crap day , or some customer has just given you abuse or you dont feel too good you can retreat to the back cab and sit there relaxing for 5 minutes . I dont advocate confining yourself to the back cab and depending on TOC you wont be able too anyway because of revenue targets but it is there for those rare occassions , wheras drivers have to be concentrating and in work mode the whole time the train is moving .
Cons -
The shifts , Getting up for an 04:08 start on a monday when you finished at 23:58 the saturday night is hard . Getting up one week for a 03:45 when the last week you might have just gone to bed that time can take its toll on you , I personally used to prefer the mega earlies like 04:00 starts because you usually finished at about 11:45 at the latest . Also driving in to work at that time is bliss . once you are in the role and fully productive in a link you might be better placed to find a partner to swap with so you do continuous earlies . I did this for a number of years after my son was born to allow me some stability in my family life . Be warned though permanent mega earlies really does turn you weird .
Another big con is fact that you have annual leave planned for you , because everybody would want it at the same time the LDC draw up a holiday planner and most of your leave is planned for you , you have to save days for christmas and boxing day as well if you are booked to work them . You are entitled to cancel your allocated leave and book your own however that is a lot easier said than done , you usually end up with all of the guards with kids swapping their summer leave with guards who dont have kids or whose kids have flown the nest .
The biggest con is when the job goes to pot and you are stuck in the middle of nowhere on a train whose aircon relies on the engines that have failed . And you are sealed inside of a train with a load of drunk football fans who have no understanding of how dangerous it is for them to open the doors and walk back to a station . You will come accross awkward passengers . Ones who didnt want to pay or tried to hide in toilets I left to it most of the time . My toc policy was to avoid confrontation so I did just that , if they where a persistant offender I would put a report in .
Another con is having to have your own transport because in many cases your journey to or from work will be after public transport is running . We used to have a job as a guard as well which brought me on empty stock past the train station I live about 150m away from all the way back to my depot . I then had to get in my car and drive nearly 20 miles back to my house
With regards to job security . I would not worry about that too much depending on the TOC . Some tocs have no interest in replacing guards , even the TOC's it has been announced at like Northern have got a long way to go yet . The devil with these things is in the detail . Even if it was announced today that a particular route was going DOO it would take years for the first DOO service to run over it . There are countless risk assessments , operational plans and methods of work that need to be drawn up first . Not to mention the inevitable industrial dispute involving both guards who dont want to loose their jobs , and drivers who dont want to drive trains without guards and dont want to take responsibility for doors and even if they do concede to it they want a lot of extra money .
with regards to shift patterns they depend really on TOC and depot . Although when I was a guard I signed a contract that gave my TOC the right to give us jobs 24/7 I never did have any nightwork in depots I was at although it is not unheard of . The shifts I did and that guards at the depot I am at are like this
Earlies - 04:00 starts with 10:00 - 11:45 finishes
Later Earliers 06:00-08:00 starts with 14:00-16:00 finishes
Middles 09:30 to 11:30 starts with 18:30-20:30 finishes
Lates 12:00 to 13:45 starts with 21:00-22:45 finishes
late lates 15:45 to 16:45 starts with finishes past midnight , latest about 01:20