On track machine drivers

Hi all,

Anybody on here work on tampers and such? If so do you find it interesting? Do you drive the machines far or is your work relativity local? Is it easy to progress to become a freight driver after a few years?

Cheers

James

Hi, unfortunately, I cant answer that question, but, I am sure someone should be able to for you. Welcome to the forum

I work with a few ex Tamper chaps. General consensus is great work, crap hours. Not sure how secure the work is though, they are ex Tamper chaps because they worked for Jarvis...

We have an ex tamper guy at our place too, he said much the same. There seems to be a lot of working under conductor drivers too because you get sent everywhere (or at least he did) which can mean long days, but you will get to see a hell of a lot of the network.

I stopped next to a tamper train which was stopped in the down loop between brewery curve and thorpes bridge - he looked majorly stressed and was screaming down his phone. Put me off for life.

A friend of mine used to work on tampers for Network Rail, and apparently they are quite temperamental, individual beasts: Some machines, so I'm told, have quite a delay in taking power; so you could be pushing the power controller back and forth in frustration for a while before the machine responds with a diesel-ey "vroom" to that initial application of power!

Cherry_Picker said:

We have an ex tamper guy at our place too, he said much the same. There seems to be a lot of working under conductor drivers too because you get sent everywhere (or at least he did) which can mean long days, but you will get to see a hell of a lot of the network.

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I had a route learner in with me the other day, he was employed specifically for this task, didn't sign any traction whatsoever but his employer (one of the bigger OTM operators) realised it was cheaper to employ route conductors than pay freightliner/WCRC over £1k per shift(!) for conducting purposes. He said the operators sign no routes and he signs no traction.
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sprinterguy said:

A friend of mine used to work on tampers for Network Rail, and apparently they are quite temperamental, individual beasts: Some machines, so I'm told, have quite a delay in taking power; so you could be pushing the power controller back and forth in frustration for a while before the machine responds with a diesel-ey "vroom" to that initial application of power!

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Sounds like a 153!

Bo_Selecta! said:

He said the operators sign no routes and he signs no traction.

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Just wandering, from a professional point of view, this "route conductor" must have driving competency in order to route conduct so how does he maintain his driving competence if he doesn't sign any traction ?

sprinterguy said:

A friend of mine used to work on tampers for Network Rail, and apparently they are quite temperamental, individual beasts: Some machines, so I'm told, have quite a delay in taking power; so you could be pushing the power controller back and forth in frustration for a while before the machine responds with a diesel-ey "vroom" to that initial application of power!

Click to expand...

I think it depends on the makers of the OTP too. I've been on a handful of machines which have been the same, though certain machines by certain manufacturers are rather quick off the mark. Ride quality is certainly also another variable as they mostly use Y25 freight bogies. But by far one of the weirdest I've been in has to be the Windhoff CargoSprinter MPV - They are Volvo lorry engine based with lorry style cabs sat on a cushion of air suspension, so braking hard can tend to tip the cab. I'm also told it's not very fun if you end up with one of the Master and Slave units (265 kW (355 hp)) on a full sandite or weed killing load as they can often struggle with gradients whereas the power twin pairings are fine.

western Champion said:

Just wandering, from a professional point of view, this "route conductor" must have driving competency in order to route conduct so how does he maintain his driving competence if he doesn't sign any traction ?

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I have no idea! Puzzled me a bit as well but there you go.

Jams said:

Hi all,

Anybody on here work on tampers and such? If so do you find it interesting? Do you drive the machines far or is your work relativity local? Is it easy to progress to become a freight driver after a few years?

Cheers

James

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Quite a few OTM companies are taking on maintainer/operators at the moment so being a time served fitter would be an advantage. The driving training then comes later as and when new drivers are needed (due to retirement, new machines or drivers moving to freight or passenger).

Is the work interesting? Well depends on what you find interesting. It would be a push to find any operator who finds tamping 2000m of steel sleepers on a Saturday night interesting, but operating the tower/computer is a bit more involved and there is a certain amount of job satisfaction on leaving a first pass renewal good for line speed.

As for driving, a couple of hours a night isn't uncommon and daytime transit moves can take all day as we have to fit in our paths round the TOCs and FOCs.

Then there are the shifts...What are you like at working all hours? There are some shocking times, 02:00 untill 14:00 for example but mainly you will be on the machine for between 21:00 and 00:00 for a 6 to 10 hour night shift but bear in mind renewals can and often over run and 16 hour + shifts aren't unknown.

There can be long periods of sitting about doing nothing so the opportunity to get your head down is there.

And how do you like the inside of a Combo van because you'll be spending quite a lot of your working week in one. But then if you get on the right contract, Balfours for example (although I think they have changed it for new starters) you are only contracted for 35 hours per week including travel so you can burn through your hours in no time leaving you with time to play golf, lounge about, pick the kids up from school, basically all the stuff yer normal 9 - 5 ers never do.

Thanks for all the replies, applied for 5 posts. See how it goes!

James

I work with an ex rail grinder driver, he says work is good, it's quite specialised so lots of traveling around and the money is about the same as mainline passenger work. On the down side the hours are nights and various shift work, but the job is good if you don't mind that. I also think it varies a lot from company to company from what he says.

Jams said:

Thanks for all the replies, applied for 5 posts. See how it goes!

James

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Who have you applied to and what are they offering if you don't mind me asking?