Recent content by whoosh

Yes, and the job is supposed to appeal to women these days. Women are more often the primary carers for children. Quite how anyone is supposed to arrange childcare around finding out what days off they've got and whether they're mornings, afternoons or nights next week, with only a few days...

There's no guarantee, but the current government are promoting that train drivers are: 1. Greedy - even though they agreed a two year 0% pay rise for 2020 and 2021. 2. Do not want to 'modernise'. Transport for Wales have shown that modernisation can be negotiated, and not for a huge sum. The...

Driver's diagrams showing a change in October.

Well... it was the weekend!

Wow! @lostwin(m) I'm delighted to have discovered this thread. The dream-like quality of black & white; the familiar sights that are now out of reach; the ordinary, drab days of BR blue - but the not so ordinary compositions of many of the pictures; the added interest of people. AND quite a...

What airline pilots call 'deadheading'. A positioning move for the crew before they take up the working of a train.

Back when you had to retire at 65, I saw a driver on his last day and he looked totally lost. Like his world was crashing down. He should've been able (and only a few years later, after the law changed, would've been able) to choose when to leave himself. I've seen plenty choose to retire...

If you want to move location you have to: Hope you can transfer within your TOC without there being a massive transfer list (40-50 on the list for Bedford Thameslink for example). Hope you can get a job at another TOC/FOC at the location you want, both by having an acceptable Safety of the...

Idealism. Retire at retirement age, having worked all your life on the railway. With a good railway pension. Make room for young person, starting on the railway. Job for life. All nice and neat. Ideal even. Real world. Person joins railway in their 50s. Did have a pension in their workplace...

I think that's pretty much what happens, however the Shanklin to Ryde Pier Head train has 4 minute turnarounds at each end. To fit in with it at the passing place, the other one isn't exactly half-hour opposite, and can only go as far as Esplanade, having a 4 minute turnaround there. It has a...

Business class was more expensive per mile than Concorde!

That is unfair. On Thameslink/Great Northern there was (not sure if it's still the case), a point at which a Trainee should be passed out. If it was later than that, and it wasn't an issue with the trainee that caused the delay, then backpay was due for full rate.

I seem to recall it was done very quietly right in the middle of the Southern DOO dispute!

Depends on the speed of of the divergence. Low speed you'd get checked down to a Red. When it cleared you'd get the junction indicator. There are some you get checked down and the single yellow will have the junction indicator. You can get greens all the way if the divergence is 10mph or...

Reading across to the wrong signal. E.g: Where there are multiple tracks, on a curve, what looks like your signal isn't- it's for the line next to you. Overhead wire masts or foliage might impede the view of your signal, and before you know it, you've 'locked on' visually to the wrong signal...