Should train driving be a graduate profession?

[Christmas]

I'm not advocating one way or the other for this but I thought that a discussion could be opened regarding the idea.

I'll try and lay out a for and against argument. Firstly, any time TOCs advertise for trainee drivers they are inundated with applications running into the thousands for often only a few vacancies. I have never worked in recruitment so cannot comment about the TOCs' sifting methods to separate the wheat from the chaff. Often the wrong type of candidate is allowed to work their way through the system and secure their trainee position.

Without trying to be condescending, reading the grammar of some prospective drivers on this very forum and some of the comments made shows that education maybe hasn't featured highly in their lives. Being able to read and write well would prepare candidates for the classroom, a university education proves that candidates have a track record of immersing themselves in information and can deal with the theory in the training process.

Looking to the aviation sector, it is not necessary for an airline pilot to be a graduate but then again airlines attract a different kind of candidate. Why is that? Are pilots considered to be professionals and train drivers not? Trainee drivers do not need to worry about paying for their training, yet pilots do through repayment of bonds etc. Is train driving viewed as an easy job to land and qualify for, hence the high application numbers? Is the training bond route one for TOCs to explore? After all they would still have a huge amount of applications.

Lastly, who would be excluded from such a policy, apart from the obvious non graduates?

 

[Efini92]

I hope the day never comes where the railway follows the aviation model of training.
Train driving is a working class job, it should always be available to anyone who can pass the tests regardless of level of education/wealth.
Some of the best drivers I know only have high school education, one doesn’t even have a licence to drive cars.

 

[Christmas]

Yes I agree but the idea of the training bond was seriously being explored by ScotRail only a few years ago, didn't happen though obviously. However gone are the days when someone's dad got them on to the railway and I'd argue that not only working class people are out there driving trains.

 

[Smelliott]

I'm a graduate driver, and I certainly don't feel any more qualified than my non-graduate colleagues. They get to keep more of their money every 4 weeks though, ha ha. I like the fact that this is a career open to people from all backgrounds.

 

[Horizon22]

I hope the day never comes where the railway follows the aviation model of training.
Train driving is a working class job, it should always be available to anyone who can pass the tests regardless of level of education/wealth.
Some of the best drivers I know only have high school education, one doesn’t even have a licence to drive cars.

Very few jobs are “working class jobs” now and a driver’s salary is certainly not working class.

 

[185]

Specifying 'Graduates' limits the intake to the wealthy and affluent, and often those totally unsuitable for the job.

The role should primarily be based on ability, and the fields of concentration, co-ordination, mechanical comprehension and trainability.

One train company had a "graduate manager scheme" and despite one good arrival, the other four weren't quite so..

 

[king_walnut]

I went to university. I saw professors with doctorates struggle to turn on a projector. Academic achievement doesn't necessarily show competence.

 

[CreamNCookies]

one doesn’t even have a licence to drive cars.

Sounds like you're on about me. I highly doubt it though.

 

[Dogbox]

"Without trying to be condescending, reading the grammar of some prospective drivers on this very forum and some of the comments made shows that education maybe hasn't featured highly in their lives"

No, not condescending at all!!

 

[ExRes]

Train driving is a working class job, it should always be available to anyone who can pass the tests regardless of level of education/wealth.
Some of the best drivers I know only have high school education, one doesn’t even have a licence to drive cars.

I agree other than "is a working class job"

I had two careers, one with Royal Mail and one with the Railway, I never came across a single graduate/direct entrant that could do their own shoe laces up, they may have been the most erudite of people but not one knew how to do a job practically and, quite honestly, they were to a man/woman classified as an unwelcome joke

 

[Bletchleyite]

I can't see any need for this at all.

What I can see a need for is rigorous testing of customer-facing staff (guards, station staff, RPIs, security etc) to ensure their spoken English is up to scratch, as it very often isn't (see also London bus drivers who *are* customer facing). But drivers aren't customer-facing staff unless they drive DOO (as they would then do announcements etc).

 

[nolypops83]

Unless a degree is required for the role (Doctor, Vet, Dentist etc) then I don't think graduate schemes should exist in any occupation.

 

[Mag_seven]

Train driving is a working class job

Sorry but that's a completely outdated 1970s view. Given what drivers earn I would put it most squarely into the realms of a "middle class" job.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Unless a degree is required for the role (Doctor, Vet, Dentist etc) then I don't think graduate schemes should exist in any occupation.

Graduate schemes can and should exist in any profession where the employer so wishes in order to aid their recruitment. They're just scaled-back apprenticeship schemes, really - scaled back because there isn't a need to teach some of the basics.

 

[bramling]

I agree other than "is a working class job"

I had two careers, one with Royal Mail and one with the Railway, I never came across a single graduate/direct entrant that could do their own shoe laces up, they may have been the most erudite of people but not one knew how to do a job practically and, quite honestly, they were to a man/woman classified as an unwelcome joke

In my experience, there are two types of graduate entrant on the railway.

One type who are generally there because they have some sort of specific interest in the railway. And the other sort who think they’re God because they have a degree (often not a particularly respectable one). The former in my experience make excellent employees, and certainly know how to tie their shoelaces, whilst the latter are predictably awful and simply go round causing problems and then eventually disappear off somewhere else.

Worth mentioning, however, that at my place some of the widely acknowledged *worst* managers are those who have come “through the grades”. So really the only thing we can take away is that suitability for role depends very much on the individual. Both qualifications and experience form parts of a picture, however for every graduate who thinks their degree makes them special, there’s a non-graduate who thinks their years of experience does the same. Not so.

 

[Mag_seven]

So really the only thing we can take away is that suitability for role depends very much on the individual.

Agreed - assess everybody as an individual as some graduates will be able to cut it whilst others will struggle. This whole graduate thing reeks of Tony Blair's policy of wanting the whole country to go to university which resulted in the dumbing down of degree courses (BA in "EastEnders" anyone?) and the resultant devaluation of a degree.

 

[Horizon22]

I agree other than "is a working class job"

I had two careers, one with Royal Mail and one with the Railway, I never came across a single graduate/direct entrant that could do their own shoe laces up, they may have been the most erudite of people but not one knew how to do a job practically and, quite honestly, they were to a man/woman classified as an unwelcome joke

I on the other hand have met plenty of graduates who got on just fine. And equally I’ve met terrible managers who weren’t graduates and had terrible practical skills.

You do not necessarily need all the practical skills to become a manager; absolutely a core understanding and you gather more respect if you can do the job, but it is not vital. Indeed promoting someone “through the ranks" because they are stellar at their job can run into problems because they could be clueless on people management. It is easier to train skills than it is behaviour.

As with all these things, it is dependent on the individual involved, their personality, temperament, behaviour, skills, experiences and qualifications and making broad statements either way is likely to lead to issues.

 

[AlterEgo]

Train driving doesn’t need a degree. It needs niche skills to perform safety critical duties, most of which are innate and subjective and can be found in a wide cross section of the population. Therefore, widening the talent pool and getting as many talented people as possible through the testing and aptitude funnel is key.

Gatekeeping by insisting the profession is open only to people who have wasted three years on an unrelated degree subject is one of the worst ideas you could come up with.

 

[nolypops83]

Graduate schemes can and should exist in any profession where the employer so wishes in order to aid their recruitment. They're just scaled-back apprenticeship schemes, really - scaled back because there isn't a need to teach some of the basics.

Yes, a degree in finance to work in finance makes sense but many graduate schemes don't care what degree you have as long as you have one. That seems bonkers to me.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes, a degree in finance to work in finance makes sense but many graduate schemes don't care what degree you have as long as you have one. That seems bonkers to me.

It's not. The basis of it is that by doing a degree you have demonstrated the ability to learn and communicate effectively in theoretical type subjects as well as commitment.

From experience, while Computer Science is probably one of the most vocational degrees there is, industry tends to want things done very differently from "perfect situation" theoretical academia, so you have a fair bit of "unlearning" to do anyway.

 

[etr221]

Some of the best drivers I know only have high school education, one doesn’t even have a licence to drive cars.

I recall attending a presentation (ok, a couple of decades ago now) by someone from LU at which he said that when they got some road-rail vehicles they struggled to find people to drive them, as few of the train drivers had road vehicle driving licenses, and vice versa.

And a presentation by someone who made a late life career change fom serious profession to train driver, who said after doing a degree, (former, and not to be sneezed at) professional (and advanced) qualification exams, and train driver exams, the train driver ones were by far the hardest.

 

[Horizon22]

Agreed - assess everybody as an individual as some graduates will be able to cut it whilst others will struggle. This whole graduate thing reeks of Tony Blair's policy of wanting the whole country to go to university which resulted in the dumbing down of degree courses (BA in "EastEnders" anyone?) and the resultant devaluation of a degree.

Some graduate schemes are of course as competitive as train driver applications, so they are already being assessed individually, amongst their peers.

 

[Stigy]

I'm not advocating one way or the other for this but I thought that a discussion could be opened regarding the idea.

I'll try and lay out a for and against argument. Firstly, any time TOCs advertise for trainee drivers they are inundated with applications running into the thousands for often only a few vacancies. I have never worked in recruitment so cannot comment about the TOCs' sifting methods to separate the wheat from the chaff. Often the wrong type of candidate is allowed to work their way through the system and secure their trainee position.

Without trying to be condescending, reading the grammar of some prospective drivers on this very forum and some of the comments made shows that education maybe hasn't featured highly in their lives. Being able to read and write well would prepare candidates for the classroom, a university education proves that candidates have a track record of immersing themselves in information and can deal with the theory in the training process.

Looking to the aviation sector, it is not necessary for an airline pilot to be a graduate but then again airlines attract a different kind of candidate. Why is that? Are pilots considered to be professionals and train drivers not? Trainee drivers do not need to worry about paying for their training, yet pilots do through repayment of bonds etc. Is train driving viewed as an easy job to land and qualify for, hence the high application numbers? Is the training bond route one for TOCs to explore? After all they would still have a huge amount of applications.

Lastly, who would be excluded from such a policy, apart from the obvious non graduates?

University has its pros and cons for any industry, but the railway sadly seems to veer towards this as their preferred method of recruiting for certain grades when to be quite honest, good old common sense by far trumps how many letters one has after their name.

Very few jobs are “working class jobs” now and a driver’s salary is certainly not working class.

Salary shouldn’t dictate somebody’s class. The highest GCSE grade I got from school was in French, and I’ve never been able to speak a word of it. Peoples’ class is largely dictated to them at a young age.

 

[gordonthemoron]

From experience, while Computer Science is probably one of the most vocational degrees there is, industry tends to want things done very differently from "perfect situation" theoretical academia, so you have a fair bit of "unlearning" to do anyway.

Indeed, when I started as graduate trainee in the BR IT department in 1982, you had to have a degree, however they wouldn’t employ anyone with a Computer Science degree, as they’d be bored and leave

 

[KJCross1983]

This is what is wrong with this country. One proposing that a working class man can not earn £60k +. Why not?

 

[Bletchleyite]

This is what is wrong with this country. One proposing that a working class man can not earn £60k +. Why not?

Class is a bit meaningless anyway, but these days I think most people would probably define "middle class" as "comfortable, owning a home and a reasonable car or two in a reasonable area". Outside of London, £60K will certainly achieve that, particularly if boosted by the other adult in the household having a full time job, even if it's a minimum wage one.

I think working class gives the image of probably renting in a cheaper area, and upper class would be someone who is rich enough not to need to work even if they choose to do so.

I don't think the whole "Me Great Grandad spent'is days down't pit, so we're working class fr'ever" (said while closing the door of your country mansion and getting into your Rolls Royce) thing really applies any more, it's just a bit Pythonesque. It's just about how comfortable your lifestyle is. That sort of immutable caste system exists in India but not really in the UK, where it's just about how much money you earn and what it can buy you in terms of lifestyle.

 

[Stigy]

Class is a bit meaningless anyway, but these days I think most people would probably define "middle class" as "comfortable, owning a home and a reasonable car or two in a reasonable area". Outside of London, £60K will certainly achieve that, particularly if boosted by the other adult in the household having a full time job, even if it's a minimum wage one.

I think working class gives the image of probably renting in a cheaper area, and upper class would be someone who is rich enough not to need to work even if they choose to do so.

I don't think the whole "Me Great Grandad spent'is days down't pit, so we're working class fr'ever" (said while closing the door of your country mansion and getting into your Rolls Royce) thing really applies any more, it's just a bit Pythonesque. It's just about how comfortable your lifestyle is. That sort of immutable caste system exists in India but not really in the UK, where it's just about how much money you earn and what it can buy you in terms of lifestyle.

Living outside London certainly doesn’t allow that alone on a single income with a family. I earn £60k a year and consider myself working class. I grew up on a council estate, being looked after by a single parent. I left school with nothing, never went to university (however I did do an apprenticeship as a mechanic - before you needed GCSEs). I worked hard to get where I am on the railway and started in the industry on what would now be described as a low-average salary.

I’ve only just got on the property ladder and my income was about the least they’d accept, based on a shared ownership mortgage of 40% of the property. People often see £60k as footballer type money, when in reality, if you’re a person with financial commitments, a family and are the sole earner, it’s only really average money.

I think you’d struggle to find any union member who isn’t higher manager admit to being middle/upper class

There’s only one thing I use the Daily Mail for in my house and that’s scrunching up and using to clean windows with (only because it’s too rough for wiping my a*se with).

 

[Frothy_B]

If the job paid £30,000 a year top end, would you still be suggesting it should be a graduate position?

I've met a few people during my time as a HGV driver who seem to think that by virtue of having a degree they are entitled to earn more money than those who didn't follow the higher education pathway, and look down on jobs that enable "uneducated" people to earn more. Particularly where I currently work where graduates with responsible jobs earn way above the average, yet still less than I. What they fail to see is that they earn say £40k, but they work 9-5 Monday to Friday. I sacrifice months away from my family every year, not being able to participate in hobbies, and generally having a much lower quality of work/life balance.

The ability to drive well, be it trains, HGVs or even cars is in my opinion an innate skill that can only be taught to a certain level. There are plenty of educated people, who have been passed competent to drive a car, that struggle to negotiate roundabouts in the correct lane, have no sense of direction or geography, or require a rest stop for a 3 hour run down a motorway because the specific type of focus require is mentally draining.

There's a reason why certain industries seem to be a pipeline into the railway industry (police, fire, military, sometimes HGV/Bus drivers) as seen on here, as those industries nuture the type of temperament and mindset that creates a good, calm under pressure, safety conscious employee further down the line.

If you make driving, and let's say signalling, graduate positions, or even created specific degrees in those disciplines, you would be cutting off a massive pool of applicants with the most important asset that I believe Network Rail/the various TOCS look for. Life and work experience. Many on here, like myself, are looking at the railway as a second, or even third or fourth career.

It could well be my own projection here, but this topic smells quite a bit of "Keep the well paying jobs for the graduates that have "earned" them, leave the school leavers to the minimum wage"

 

[Bletchleyite]

Living outside London certainly doesn’t allow that alone on a single income with a family. I earn £60k a year and consider myself working class. I grew up on a council estate, being looked after by a single parent. I left school with nothing, never went to university (however I did do an apprenticeship as a mechanic - before you needed GCSEs). I worked hard to get where I am on the railway and started in the industry on what would now be described as a low-average salary.

Perhaps I should have said "outside London and the South East, and other odd property hotspots like Edinburgh and south Manchester".

I'm on similar to that and definitely consider myself middle class if someone asked. Maybe lower-middle rather than upper-middle if being particular about it, but certainly not the image I would associate with working class of earning a lowish salary, renting, owning an old car and having to pay a lot of attention to what you buy.

I’ve only just got on the property ladder and my income was about the least they’d accept, based on a shared ownership mortgage of 40% of the property. People often see £60k as footballer type money, when in reality, if you’re a person with financial commitments, a family and are the sole earner, it’s only really average money.

But average money *is* middle class! That's kind of the point. It's not footballer type money, but if it's not comfortable, assuming you haven't got 20-odd kids and assuming your household has a second income of some kind or you live alone and assuming you don't live in a property hotspot, then you need to look at what you're spending (or if utilities are eating it all, look at insulating your house better).

The other thing about buying houses is that because of inflation (which is rampant at the moment) and because more equity = cheaper rates, it might feel a stretch now but in 20 years' time your mortgage payment will probably be half the average rents in your area. Which is why there's such a big jump in quality of life between working class renters and middle class owners. By the time you reach the end of your mortage the payment will be a pittance.

 

[Samzino]

Most but not all Graduates have already been fed a certain load of information and seen things in a way that can at times actually contradict the role they apply for in practical. I found that a lot with graduate programmers they would learn a certain theory on how Java or Csharp would do etc etc and then when being trained at work to use this language then struggle to grasp the completely opposite way to their learning that things actually are done.

Most of the time with graduates especially with work that is more practical than theory based an employer will find they have to take out what the graduate knows first before putting in what is really useful to the graduate in for the specific role. I have 3 pals who are now drivers. One of my pals stopped at A-Levels and went into driving with Southern, he found the training course very easy and fun, where as my other two pals who had gone from Uni found it somewhat hard mainly because of the high load of info they had to take on and lose some what what info they already had in thier head plus now the practical element.

My buddy that didn't go uni in the same 3 years had also worked for construction with fork lifts and diggers and had to be fair more time getting(unknown to him) practical work experience and safety experience that would suit the train driver role.

I remember someone on the fourm once mentioned that sometimes employers find it easier to train up a trainee with exactly what they want for their company than a qualified because the qualified may already have a certain way of doing things that is fine but not exactly the way the company would want. Sometimes it usually takes a while to get out of those habits or older company ways and adopt the new specifics of thier current TOC or FOC where as off the street or trainee has basically the storage space avaliable to take onboard the exact company training without contradicting previous data and having to overwrite info as they learn.

I like the way it's open to all abilities. A train driver is a more practical than theory based role at imo a 60 to 40 ratio. Anyone 21 or over who can pass the psychometric tests, show themselves worthy in the interview and then take on-board the training has shown themselves worthy enough.