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Driver Shift Pattern

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TPEwannabe

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Please could someone advise me on a typical shift pattern for drivers, and in particular TransPennine Express shifts if possible. Thanks.
 
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whoosh

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Here is a copy of the Sheffield TPE Driver's roster from a few years ago. There would now be MORE rest days as it was negotiated to move from a 4.25 day average working week to a 4 day average working week a couple of years ago. This would mean the duties would now be longer on average to still make an (that word "average" again!) 35 hour working week.
Hope that all makes sense.
"SP" is "Spare" - you can be allocated an uncovered turn of duty that starts upto (normally 2 or 3 hours - depends on the company and I don't know what it is at TPE) earlier or later than the SP start time.

Hard to swap rest days or weeks of work with this roster, but quality time off is grouped together.
Sundays are IN the working week at TPE, so are a normal workday.
20190708_144543.jpg
 

TPEwannabe

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12 Feb 2020
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Here is a copy of the Sheffield TPE Driver's roster from a few years ago. There would now be MORE rest days as it was negotiated to move from a 4.25 day average working week to a 4 day average working week a couple of years ago. This would mean the duties would now be longer on average to still make an (that word "average" again!) 35 hour working week.
Hope that all makes sense.
"SP" is "Spare" - you can be allocated an uncovered turn of duty that starts upto (normally 2 or 3 hours - depends on the company and I don't know what it is at TPE) earlier or later than the SP start time.

Hard to swap rest days or weeks of work with this roster, but quality time off is grouped together.
Sundays are IN the working week at TPE, so are a normal workday.
View attachment 76098

Brilliant, that’s really useful. Thanks.
 

na281093

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21 Nov 2019
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Location
Uk
Here is a copy of the Sheffield TPE Driver's roster from a few years ago. There would now be MORE rest days as it was negotiated to move from a 4.25 day average working week to a 4 day average working week a couple of years ago. This would mean the duties would now be longer on average to still make an (that word "average" again!) 35 hour working week.
Hope that all makes sense.
"SP" is "Spare" - you can be allocated an uncovered turn of duty that starts upto (normally 2 or 3 hours - depends on the company and I don't know what it is at TPE) earlier or later than the SP start time.

Hard to swap rest days or weeks of work with this roster, but quality time off is grouped together.
Sundays are IN the working week at TPE, so are a normal workday.
View attachment 76098

Could anyone clarify what some of the annotations mean? Such as SP and what does Turn mean? Never seen a driver timetable before, interested to learn more about it. Thank You
 

ComUtoR

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9,399
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UK
Could anyone clarify what some of the annotations mean? Such as SP and what does Turn mean? Never seen a driver timetable before, interested to learn more about it. Thank You

SP - Spare.

Basically it means that you are booked to cover any work that comes up. This is to allow for flexibility within a roster. If your booked spare on the Master roster then you can expect to be moved +/- 2/3hrs (depends on TOC) Drivers who are on leave or off sick etc will be covered using SP turns.

Turns.... What they are is your booked work for the day. Generally they are all numbered (TOC specific) and you will be booked each day to a specific 'Turn' eg. Line 5, Turn 902, books on at 0435 and off at 1216, 7hrs 41mins. (from the above roster)

RD is 'Rest Day' as in your 'day off'

Far right column is the hours each week. You often hear that TOCs work an 'Average' week. You can see from the posted roster how much this changes on a weekly basis. As long as Total number of lines / Total hours = contracted hours then is fine. You can be contracted less but never more. Line 20 has 53hrs 55mins but Line 7 is only 16hr 26m

The disparity in the roster is what Drivers need to deal with as the reality. 4 day / 35hrs sounds great on paper but the reality may be that one week your working 50hrs and another barely 20 :/

One of the reasons why people request roster information is precisely that. We want to know the earliest book on and latest book off. Longest week and how many rest days you get in a row. The work content is barely mentioned but the Roster is highly important.
 
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JLyons

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27 Nov 2019
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82
Location
Shrewsbury
Here is a copy of the Sheffield TPE Driver's roster from a few years ago. There would now be MORE rest days as it was negotiated to move from a 4.25 day average working week to a 4 day average working week a couple of years ago. This would mean the duties would now be longer on average to still make an (that word "average" again!) 35 hour working week.
Hope that all makes sense.
"SP" is "Spare" - you can be allocated an uncovered turn of duty that starts upto (normally 2 or 3 hours - depends on the company and I don't know what it is at TPE) earlier or later than the SP start time.

Hard to swap rest days or weeks of work with this roster, but quality time off is grouped together.
Sundays are IN the working week at TPE, so are a normal workday.
View attachment 76098

you get a nice colour coded one!
 

Lewlew

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15 Oct 2019
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748
Location
London
The work content is barely mentioned but the Roster is highly important.
It's the complete opposite on the Underground, roster isn't important but the duties (turns) are very much so.

We do a 35 week, which is averaged out over 12(?) weeks but each week is pretty close to 35 hours and we do a five day week. This only changes when you do nights, then you do 7 in a row and take the rest days the following week.

But we have mafia's/syndicates/whatever you want to call them, where a driver (mafia man/lady) will sit down, take all the duties and move them around between the drivers, so if you have a week of lates on the roster but you prefer earlies then they will take them off you and give you want you want. This usually includes moving rest days too so we can inadvertently end up working a lot of weekends and have to give the mafia a little nudge to sort you out. This really helps if you need a certain day off too, you don't need to go asking around the whole depot to do a swap with someone.

The whole depot is on one roster with a few "in the pool" which have no set duties and will get their duties the week before. This is across the whole company apart from at least one depot on the District line which have links which is split into different shift times as opposed to different work.
 

na281093

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21 Nov 2019
Messages
74
Location
Uk
SP - Spare.

Basically it means that you are booked to cover any work that comes up. This is to allow for flexibility within a roster. If your booked spare on the Master roster then you can expect to be moved +/- 2/3hrs (depends on TOC) Drivers who are on leave or off sick etc will be covered using SP turns.

Turns.... What they are is your booked work for the day. Generally they are all numbered (TOC specific) and you will be booked each day to a specific 'Turn' eg. Line 5, Turn 902, books on at 0435 and off at 1216, 7hrs 41mins. (from the above roster)

RD is 'Rest Day' as in your 'day off'

Far right column is the hours each week. You often hear that TOCs work an 'Average' week. You can see from the posted roster how much this changes on a weekly basis. As long as Total number of lines / Total hours = contracted hours then is fine. You can be contracted less but never more. Line 20 has 53hrs 55mins but Line 7 is only 16hr 26m

The disparity in the roster is what Drivers need to deal with as the reality. 4 day / 35hrs sounds great on paper but the reality may be that one week your working 50hrs and another barely 20 :/

One of the reasons why people request roster information is precisely that. We want to know the earliest book on and latest book off. Longest week and how many rest days you get in a row. The work content is barely mentioned but the Roster is highly important.

That’s dead helpful mate thank you, interesting to see what an actual roster looks like for a driver.
 

BoroAndy

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Joined
11 Jan 2020
Messages
220
Location
Scarborough
Here is a copy of the Sheffield TPE Driver's roster from a few years ago. There would now be MORE rest days as it was negotiated to move from a 4.25 day average working week to a 4 day average working week a couple of years ago. This would mean the duties would now be longer on average to still make an (that word "average" again!) 35 hour working week.
Hope that all makes sense.
"SP" is "Spare" - you can be allocated an uncovered turn of duty that starts upto (normally 2 or 3 hours - depends on the company and I don't know what it is at TPE) earlier or later than the SP start time.

Hard to swap rest days or weeks of work with this roster, but quality time off is grouped together.
Sundays are IN the working week at TPE, so are a normal workday.
View attachment 76098
If I have read that properly the roster covers 34 weeks, but in that time the driver has not had a proper holiday, eg. 7/10/14 days, how often would that happen?
 

tiptoptaff

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If I have read that properly the roster covers 34 weeks, but in that time the driver has not had a proper holiday, eg. 7/10/14 days, how often would that happen?
Your annual leave isn't put on the roster, just like it's not scheduled in a 9-5 work pattern. TOCs are moving away from the rest week, where in that roster you'd have had up to 6 or 7 blocks of Rest Days between 7and10 days long, rather than 3 or 4 RDs a week on that roster. A roster like that is preferable (in my opinion, RD patterns and roster preferences are subjective) as it spreads the time off around, rather than being worked like a dog for 5or6 weeks to get your week off.

Generally, and it varies company to company, even depot to depot, you get four blocks of "rostered" leave - 1 spring, 2 summer and 1 winter, periods for which again vary. The annual leave roster comes out and your weeks are listed and they would then get overlayed on the base roster on the appropriate dated week. Can swap your rostered leave, either in to a week with a vacancy or with someone who's got a week you want.

On top of that you'll get "floating" or "ad-hoc" days which you can book on any given day for the day off (subject to depot agreements)
 

whoosh

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If I have read that properly the roster covers 34 weeks, but in that time the driver has not had a proper holiday, eg. 7/10/14 days, how often would that happen?

As far as I know, it's only the former Great Eastern part of Greater Anglia, and Crossrail (The Elizabeth) Line, that have some of their annual leave in their roster (they work some five day weeks instead of four and the missing rest day is saved alongside some annual leave to give eight weeks on two weeks off).

All other TOCs are like tiptoptaff says above about the blocks of leave, plus the ad-hoc days.
How Bank holidays are treated can vary, with some having them as a normal day, and others giving a day in lieu if you are not booked off.
Altogether the a total of 32 days leave a year is typical, but I think you are looking at a range of 27 - 34 depending on the company.
 

Danno85

Member
Joined
10 May 2017
Messages
18
Hi all.

Would there happen to be any Scarborough TPE drivers on here? I am just after a little bit of information if possible. Shift pattern etc... I am a qualified driver and have been accepted for a vacancy there.

Feel free to PM.

Thank you.
 

TheVicLine

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Joined
21 Aug 2012
Messages
430
Location
Liverpool
Spare Turn - TPE spare can be moved 3 hours either way of your start time.
If you are not allocated a job then you sit spare in the messroom and can generally go home after 5 hours of watching TV and drinking coffee.

Leave was also mentioned in the thread - TPE is 5 weeks 1 spring, 3 summer, 1 winter. You are allocated the weeks on specific dates but can move them around or swap with other drivers to suit yourself. The summer leave is a block of 3 weeks but you can split it or move it. There are also 8 floating days that you can used throughout the year. Bank Holidays are worked as normal days unless you are rostered to be RD. You also get Xmas Day and Boxing Day off.
 

Bubba

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24 Aug 2011
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Heres a bit of an odd question :)

Say the previous night to a shift, you make a mistake of having a curry. You turn up to do your shift and get a bit of bad guts. You get on your train and start the service and 'have to go'. What are your options?
 

westcoaster

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You stop, contact the signaller, explain you situation (get laughed at), use the toilet, and carry on.
 

dk1

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Heres a bit of an odd question :)

Say the previous night to a shift, you make a mistake of having a curry. You turn up to do your shift and get a bit of bad guts. You get on your train and start the service and 'have to go'. What are your options?
The train gets delayed. It's no big deal. More embarrassing than anything.
 

tiptoptaff

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Spare Turn - TPE spare can be moved 3 hours either way of your start time.
If you are not allocated a job then you sit spare in the messroom and can generally go home after 5 hours of watching TV and drinking coffee.

Leave was also mentioned in the thread - TPE is 5 weeks 1 spring, 3 summer, 1 winter. You are allocated the weeks on specific dates but can move them around or swap with other drivers to suit yourself. The summer leave is a block of 3 weeks but you can split it or move it. There are also 8 floating days that you can used throughout the year. Bank Holidays are worked as normal days unless you are rostered to be RD. You also get Xmas Day and Boxing Day off.
Do you have to save AL if you're booked to work Xmas Day and Boxing day? 6 floating days for the year doesn't seem like a lot to me
 

Bubba

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The train gets delayed. It's no big deal. More embarrassing than anything.

Dont you potentially delay other trains behind you? Or is that what makes it even more embarrassing?
 

dk1

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Do you have to save AL if you're booked to work Xmas Day and Boxing day? 6 floating days for the year doesn't seem like a lot to me
Christmas & Boxing Day are guaranteed off so over & above. If your Free Day falls on either or both that week you get extra days back.
 

tiptoptaff

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Christmas & Boxing Day are guaranteed off so over & above. If your Free Day falls on either or both that week you get extra days back.
That must be TOC specific, as at my place if we're rostered to work we have to save AL for it, or face UL or be asked to come in on the shed turns
 

dk1

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That must be TOC specific, as at my place if we're rostered to work we have to save AL for it, or face UL or be asked to come in on the shed turns
Ahh fair enough. I'd never heard of that before. Though all TOCs offered them as guaranteed for drivers. Sounds very Scrooge like.
 

tiptoptaff

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Ahh fair enough. I'd never heard of that before. Though all TOCs offered them as guaranteed for drivers. Sounds very Scrooge like.
Unfortunately not, which is why I asked the question about TPE!

It would be nice, but unfortunately that wouldn't be our company
 

Dieseldriver

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Dont you potentially delay other trains behind you? Or is that what makes it even more embarrassing?
You probably would delay trains yes. I guess that's a better option than actually soiling yourself though...
 

whoosh

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Whilst on the subject of Christmas.

There are different arrangements at different TOCs for if Christmas Day/Boxing Day falls on a Saturday/Sunday as the 27th/28th can end up being substitute Bank Holidays.
Some TOCs get nothing for these - they are a normal day. Others they are bank holidays and booked off with pay or earn a day in lieu if you were rest day or rostered to work.
 

driver9000

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Do you have to save AL if you're booked to work Xmas Day and Boxing day? 6 floating days for the year doesn't seem like a lot to me

You don't need to keep 2 days back for being rostered to work on the days Christmas and Boxing day fall on.
 

GeordieO

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7 Nov 2018
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Out of interest, bearing in mind the original post of this thread, I have an interview coming up for a guard with TPE.
Do they have the same roster principles? If anyone has a copy they can share like the drivers roster that would be a great help!
 
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