Agreed, all the people I have met from each depot has been very nice and welcoming. But having only been based at Holyhead depot felt it best to speak from my own experience.
Its about time they decided to do a training course in the north rather than send everyone down to Cardiff. It will make a huge difference in getting to grips with the correct traction for a start. We learnt down south with traction which wasn't even relevant to us and when we got back up north had to do it all over again XD. Also taking the trip down on a Monday morning to get into Cardiff for 10am and start class was tiring to do multiple weeks in a row.
I will never forget the hotel rooms and allowance for food though : D especially when Cigars were on the dessert menu!
Good times.....good times...
The last few courses for the north have been in Chester to be fair. Personally speaking, as someone at the time in a long distance relationship and who's bedsit was smaller then the hotel rooms in Cardiff, living in one for 9 weeks was quite enjoyable - and we got a lot more time on traction then the Northern based course that was run before ours (back then there were guards from the North and South on the same courses, and you seemed to get allocated the course that suited time demands rather then geography). Yes, some of it was on 142/3s that we don't touch in the North, but they're not that much different to the 150s we do sign and they were still useful for practicing dispatch or evacuation, things that aren't so traction specific.
I
Very happy memories though I'm sure you'll agree
even if the main course is in the North hopefully they do the induction in Cardiff so the lucky successful candidates get to enjoy that hotel - and especially the breakfast buffet
As for the depots, all three triangle depots (Crewe Shrewsbury and Chester) tend to interact a lot,with a lot of cross depot covering and indeed socialising going on - similar to HHD and LLJ I suspect - so even though I've only worked at one of them, we're all pretty well versed on what our friends down the road are up to.