Election 2019 - promises

[Trackman]

It'll be interesting what the Conservatives do in the north now, seeing that they now have lots of newly won seats to defend in 5 years time

Well, he has promised to re-open the Poulton/Fleetwood line on a recent visit.
https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/boris-johnson-pledges-re-open-17273077

 

[ChiefPlanner]

I know the election has now passed but I found an interesting Plaid Cymru policy. They wanted to move the TFW/Alstom depot from Chester into somewhere in North Wales.

Parochialism of the highest order !

 

[Bald Rick]

Very much so! The standard of applicants is pretty remarkable nowadays who are attracted by the salary. What does the old saying say “pay peanuts, get monkeys”. Anyone who has been train cab knows that drivers are not overly paid. People who say drivers are overpaid have usually never been in a mainline cab.

I’ll have to disagree with you there. I know quite a few people who (privately) think drivers are paid very well for what they do. All have been in the drivers cab - principally because they are drivers!

 

[43066]

I’ll have to disagree with you there. I know quite a few people who (privately) think drivers are paid very well for what they do. All have been in the drivers cab - principally because they are drivers!

Most drivers I know would agree they are decently paid - but that certainly isn’t the same as being overpaid - which seems to be the public perception.

Given the responsibility, the shift patterns, the concentration, the requirement to get everything 100% right first time with no second chances (and the serious and immediate consequences of a minor slip up), I certainly wouldn’t want to do it for £25k per year (we are now getting off topic!).

 

[Horizon22]

Too generous according to whom? You?

You could advertise the job at any given salary, and you’d still get applicants. But not necessarily the right applicants.

I think its proportional. We're currently get a huge rate of driver applications. I'm sure there are very qualified people who end up being turned down. A small decrease in pay should still lead to an excellent number of applications, especially external where you compare it to the work those outside the industry do. And yes, its my view obviously.

If the average is for arguments sake £50K, I'm not talking about a decrease to £25K. More like £40-45K.

Edit: For argument I think all roles in the railway (including my own) are overpaid compared to the work I have done in other industries.

 

[43066]

I think its proportional. We're currently get a huge rate of driver applications. I'm sure there are very qualified people who end up being turned down. A small decrease in pay should still lead to an excellent number of applications, especially external where you compare it to the work those outside the industry do. And yes, its my view obviously.

If the average is for arguments sake £50K, I'm not talking about a decrease to £25K. More like £40-45K.

Edit: For argument I think all roles in the railway (including my own) are overpaid compared to the work I have done in other industries.

Just as with any other job, the pay is set by the market (with the addition of collective bargaining, which actually prevents drivers negotiating individual packages, that could drive salaries even higher).

You’re entitled to your opinion of course. I have also worked outside the railway industry in completely unrelated jobs. Even taking that into account, in my opinion train driving is decently paid, but not overpaid given the pressures of the job (which are often not well understood by the public at large, nor by railway staff in other grades, sadly).

Even at the current level of applicants, many new drivers who enter the grade have multiple incidents soon after passing out, and do not remain in the role for long.

I’m curious as to why the public perception is that train driving is easy/overpaid.

It’s an interesting topic.

 

[Carlisle]

Just as with any other job, the pay is set by the market.

The only real tried & tested markets in rail are the freight, charter & open access operations, the rest is largely artificial as it’s all essentially owned or completely underwritten & guaranteed by government

 

[PartyOperator]

There are also 'driver' jobs in other transport modes that probably set upper and lower bounds on what a train driver could reasonably be paid. Pretty sure the 'market' rate would have to be more than a bus driver given the safety and training requirements. Probably also more than an HGV driver. Maybe similar to or a bit less than ship's captains? Almost certainly less than long-haul airline captains, maybe comparable to some short-haul captains and first officers. So somewhere between £30k and £70k seem reasonable.

 

[43066]

The only proper markets in rail are the freight, charter & open access operations, the rest is largely meaningless & artificial as it’s all essentially owned or completely underwritten & guaranteed by government

Guaranteed only in the sense that the railway would not be allowed to stop operating if a TOC failed or handed the keys back. There is a clear market for qualified train drivers (albeit distorted by collective bargaining, and geographical factors).

ROG is an open access/freight operator which pays drivers £70k+ which is more than many TOCs (albeit without pension, priv etc.)

You could say the same about some highly paid jobs in the financial services sector at institutions that were deemed “too big to fail” and given financial support by the government during the financial crisis.

There are also 'driver' jobs in other transport modes that probably set upper and lower bounds on what a train driver could reasonably be paid. Pretty sure the 'market' rate would have to be more than a bus driver given the safety and training requirements. Probably also more than an HGV driver. Maybe similar to or a bit less than ship's captains? Almost certainly less than long-haul airline captains, maybe comparable to some short-haul captains and first officers. So somewhere between £30k and £70k seem reasonable.

There are some ex commercial pilots on the railway in the driver grade, funnily enough.

 

[choochoochoo]

Couldn't he make the railways an essential service a la the police?

How essential is the railway ? I'd argue unlike the emergency services/NHS there are always alternatives for the public to get from A-B. Inconvenient and more time-consuming, but the alternatives are available.

Yes if everybody chose to drive, it would cause major traffic, but seeing how many jobs can be done by working from home nowadays, I'd say it'd be difficult to prove it's an essential service.

 

[Mikey C]

There are also 'driver' jobs in other transport modes that probably set upper and lower bounds on what a train driver could reasonably be paid. Pretty sure the 'market' rate would have to be more than a bus driver given the safety and training requirements. Probably also more than an HGV driver. Maybe similar to or a bit less than ship's captains? Almost certainly less than long-haul airline captains, maybe comparable to some short-haul captains and first officers. So somewhere between £30k and £70k seem reasonable.

But then driving a bus to me is much harder and more responsible than driving a train

Driving a train you're on a segregated system with sophisticated signal systems, and especially on express routes can drive at a steady speed for long periods of time. Points steer the train, so you don't need to decide where to go. You don't have to deal face to face with the public 99.9% of the time either. Not denying the training needed for when things go wrong, but 99% of the time at a guess driving a train is a relatively stress free life, indeed boredom and keeping concentration are probably the hardest things to cope with.

Driving a bus you're dealing with the public and either collecting fares or validating passes and smart cards, you're on a shared road network with cars, lorries, pedestrians and cyclists. You have to steer around traffic, follow the set route, go in and out of bus stops etc. You're stuck in traffic, breathing in fumes...

 

[bramling]

But then driving a bus to me is much harder and more responsible than driving a train

Driving a train you're on a segregated system with sophisticated signal systems, and especially on express routes can drive at a steady speed for long periods of time. Points steer the train, so you don't need to decide where to go. You don't have to deal face to face with the public 99.9% of the time either. Not denying the training needed for when things go wrong, but 99% of the time at a guess driving a train is a relatively stress free life, indeed boredom and keeping concentration are probably the hardest things to cope with.

Driving a bus you're dealing with the public and either collecting fares or validating passes and smart cards, you're on a shared road network with cars, lorries, pedestrians and cyclists. You have to steer around traffic, follow the set route, go in and out of bus stops etc. You're stuck in traffic, breathing in fumes...

What makes a train challenging is the lack of forgivingness in the event of an error. A road vehicle can be stopped relatively promptly or might be able to be steered out of trouble - this doesn’t apply to a train. A few moments in attention (Southall) or a one-off misread (as seems likely to be the cause of Ladbroke Grove) and that’s it - although we now have TPWS this isn’t and shouldn’t be regarded as a panacea.

To be fair I’m not going to do down bus drivers, and as you rightly say it’s quite clearly a responsible and at times challenging job which should be paid more than it is. The unfortunate reality is that companies can get people who are able to do the job satisfactorily at lower wages, which doesn’t seem to be the case with train drivers.

Where train drivers don’t help their cause is the tendency for some (and I stress some) individuals to take pleasure in being deliberately awkward, particularly during disruption. Good money should mean a good attitude, and in some cases it doesn’t.

 

[Bald Rick]

Just as with any other job, the pay is set by the market (with the addition of collective bargaining, which actually prevents drivers negotiating individual packages, that could drive salaries even higher).

But... train driver roles in this country do not exist in a functioning market. On one side it has very strict restrictions on line and traction knowledge, with relatively limited transferable skills and a with a high training cost, and on the other collective bargaining where the union hold most of the good cards, and know it.

But then driving a bus to me is much harder and more responsible than driving a train

I would argue that driving a train is a harder job, because of the knowledge you need to learn and retain, and the implications of making a mistake. Drivers I know will freely admit that for 90% of the time driving is easy, but the other 10% it is rather hard. Eg driving in fog or driving rain, at night, at 125mph, unable to see anything other than the lamps of the signals, no idea if there’s something on the line, etc. Needing to know exactly where and what the speed restrictions (permanent and temporary) are. Knowing your braking points so you can stop exactly in the right place. With several hundred people relying on you to get to destination safely and on time.

However I would argue that an airline pilot is a much more demanding role. Firstly you need a higher level of education. Then the training - more of which later. And when you qualify, you then have to do several thousand hours of flying at second officer / first officer / co pilot before you might eventually become a captain - perhaps 7-8 years later. During that time you will be flying an aircraft where you are responsible for much, much more in terms of the action of flying than driving a train. Prepping flight plans. Calculating various critical metrics pre flight. Supervising fuelling and pre flight checks. Flying the plane, and being expected to take the correct immediate intervention action if any one of hundreds of potential failure scenarios occurs. Landing in crosswinds in a storm (I’ve done this on a simulator, and it was the most challenging ‘driving’ I’ve ever done, far more so than any train driving). Post flight reports. Keeping your own training and competence logs. For most of the time before you make captain grade, you will be taking home less than a typical train driver in this country (certainly less than what the drivers I know take home).

And the training. For most airlines, you pay for it yourself. Make sure you have £120k spare,which you don’t get back if you don’t make the grade.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Most drivers I know would agree they are decently paid - but that certainly isn’t the same as being overpaid - which seems to be the public perception.

Given the responsibility, the shift patterns, the concentration, the requirement to get everything 100% right first time with no second chances (and the serious and immediate consequences of a minor slip up), I certainly wouldn’t want to do it for £25k per year (we are now getting off topic!).

Agreed. Paid fairly but definitely not overpaid

 

[43066]

But... train driver roles in this country do not exist in a functioning market. On one side it has very strict restrictions on line and traction knowledge, with relatively limited transferable skills and a with a high training cost, and on the other collective bargaining where the union ho

The market is certainly not a perfect market but, as I alluded to earlier, collective bargaining can cut both ways.

In any other industry where there was a shortage of key employees with skills which are in high demand, they would be able to negotiate their wages on an individual basis, and might well achieve pay increases well above the “market rate”. Collective bargaining prevents this from happening on the railway.

However I would argue that an airline pilot is a much more demanding role. Firstly you need a higher level of education. Then the training - more of which later. And when you qualify, you then have to do several thousand hours of flying at second officer / first officer / co pilot before you might eventually become a captain - perhaps 7-8 years later. During that time you will be flying an aircraft where you are responsible for much, much more in terms of the action of flying than driving a train. Prepping flight plans. Calculating various critical metrics pre flight. Supervising fuelling and pre flight checks. Flying the plane, and being expected to take the correct immediate intervention action if any one of hundreds of potential failure scenarios occurs. Landing in crosswinds in a storm (I’ve done this on a simulator, and it was the most challenging ‘driving’ I’ve ever done, far more so than any train driving). Post flight reports. Keeping your own training and competence logs. For most of the time before you make captain grade, you will be taking home less than a typical train driver in this country (certainly less than what the drivers I know take home).

And the training. For most airlines, you pay for it yourself. Make sure you have £120k spare,which you don’t get back if you don’t make the grade.

I wouldn’t compare airline flying to train driving. It’s a completely different job in a different industry, and yes a pilot is clearly responsible for a lot more variables than a train driver is.

Interestingly the educational level needed to be an airline pilot is merely a capability to pass the ATPL exams, which are around GCSE level in terms of difficulty.

That market is also distorted by the fact people are willing to “pay to fly” in order to gain experience. AIUI that’s having a detrimental affect on T’s and C’s industry wide. Let’s hope “pay to drive” doesn’t reach the railway!

 

[43066]

What makes a train challenging is the lack of forgivingness in the event of an error. A road vehicle can be stopped relatively promptly or might be able to be steered out of trouble - this doesn’t apply to a train. A few moments in attention (Southall) or a one-off misread (as seems likely to be the cause of Ladbroke Grove) and that’s it - although we now have TPWS this isn’t and shouldn’t be regarded as a panacea.

To be fair I’m not going to do down bus drivers, and as you rightly say it’s quite clearly a responsible and at times challenging job which should be paid more than it is. The unfortunate reality is that companies can get people who are able to do the job satisfactorily at lower wages, which doesn’t seem to be the case with train drivers.

Where train drivers don’t help their cause is the tendency for some (and I stress some) individuals to take pleasure in being deliberately awkward, particularly during disruption. Good money should mean a good attitude, and in some cases it doesn’t.

Agree with all of the above - especially the bit about attitude. Unfortunately the culture of the railway encourages it!

Although it’s also worth remembering that what may appear to be “awkwardness” often has a good reason under pinning it. There’s very good reasons not to rush to change ends when running late etc. Of course the public will just see a train driver shuffling slowly up the platform and think “lazy bar steward”.

 

[Carlisle]

JEven at the current level of applicants, many new drivers who enter the grade have multiple incidents soon after passing out, and do not remain in the role for long.

Have you evidence of that?
I don’t doubt some end up as you describe but wasn’t aware it was the majority

 

[bramling]

Although it’s also worth remembering that what may appear to be “awkwardness” as has a good reason under pinning it. There’s very good reasons not to rush to change ends when running late etc. Of course the public will just see a train driver shuffling slowly up the platform and think “lazy bar steward”.

Absolutely, however we all know there's a few who will deliberately take as long as they can get away with!

 

[43066]

Absolutely, however we all know there's a few who will deliberately take as long as they can get away with!

Usually the same people who take umbrage when they aren’t allowed to go home several hours early when they’re sitting spare.

Some places are worse than others, but there’s a culture of negativity that pervades the industry and a lot of drivers (often the old BR men who’ve never worked anywhere else) don’t appreciate the good points of the job.

 

[43066]

Have you evidence of that?
I don’t doubt some end up as you describe but wasn’t aware it was the majority

“Many” was perhaps a poor choice of words, I didn’t mean to imply a majority.

Having said that, it’s a lot more common than people realise. Anecdotally, after a few short years in the industry, of my rules course of eight, only four of us are still in the job.

I could reel off a dozen names of people who have left the grade for various performance related issues, and several more who are hanging on by a thread!

 

[Dave1987]

But... train driver roles in this country do not exist in a functioning market. On one side it has very strict restrictions on line and traction knowledge, with relatively limited transferable skills and a with a high training cost, and on the other collective bargaining where the union hold most of the good cards, and know it.



I would argue that driving a train is a harder job, because of the knowledge you need to learn and retain, and the implications of making a mistake. Drivers I know will freely admit that for 90% of the time driving is easy, but the other 10% it is rather hard. Eg driving in fog or driving rain, at night, at 125mph, unable to see anything other than the lamps of the signals, no idea if there’s something on the line, etc. Needing to know exactly where and what the speed restrictions (permanent and temporary) are. Knowing your braking points so you can stop exactly in the right place. With several hundred people relying on you to get to destination safely and on time.

However I would argue that an airline pilot is a much more demanding role. Firstly you need a higher level of education. Then the training - more of which later. And when you qualify, you then have to do several thousand hours of flying at second officer / first officer / co pilot before you might eventually become a captain - perhaps 7-8 years later. During that time you will be flying an aircraft where you are responsible for much, much more in terms of the action of flying than driving a train. Prepping flight plans. Calculating various critical metrics pre flight. Supervising fuelling and pre flight checks. Flying the plane, and being expected to take the correct immediate intervention action if any one of hundreds of potential failure scenarios occurs. Landing in crosswinds in a storm (I’ve done this on a simulator, and it was the most challenging ‘driving’ I’ve ever done, far more so than any train driving). Post flight reports. Keeping your own training and competence logs. For most of the time before you make captain grade, you will be taking home less than a typical train driver in this country (certainly less than what the drivers I know take home).

And the training. For most airlines, you pay for it yourself. Make sure you have £120k spare,which you don’t get back if you don’t make the grade.

Without wishing to get this thread completely off topic I would like to correct you on a few things. You can train to ATPL standards for a lot less than £120k a LOT less. Around £60k will easily get you to ATPL standards with an fATPL. You then have to do 1500 hours before getting your unfrozen ATPL at which point you are free to get promotion. Most airlines require captains to have 2000 hours or more to be a captain. I know of two people who are now captains on Airbus’s after 3-4 years of flying not 7-8 years. It depends if you decide to stay short haul or go long haul as to how long it takes to become a captain. Pilots don’t do flight planning on the whole, it’s done by the dispatcher who also does all the C of G calculations. Pilots are required to know how to do it all but most of the time they are handed their flight plan and loadsheets by the dispatcher. Nowadays they don’t even enter the route into the flight management systems, the routes are loaded by the dispatcher and they just have to review each point. They do have to check weather and NOTAMs and sign for the load. Fuelling they merely have to check the fuel onboard is the same as the minimum requirement calculated by the dispatcher. Anyway now I have addressed that....

 

[Deepgreen]

Back on topic, and without having read the entire thread, I would be extremely surprised if anything Johnson may have 'promised' ever comes to fruition - he is a pathological liar and adheres to no principles - he changed sides on Brexit to take advantage of the opportunity to become PM and has lied, waffled and stunted his way to where he is now. He thinks of himself as a modern-day Churchill, but is a man of no substance, conscience or honour. My time at TfL under his mayoralty was one of confusion and blundering (not to mention his failed 'ego-projects' such as the new so-called 'Routemaster' bus and the Garden Bridge).

 

[Robertj21a]

Back on topic, and without having read the entire thread, I would be extremely surprised if anything Johnson may have 'promised' ever comes to fruition - he is a pathological liar and adheres to no principles - he changed sides on Brexit to take advantage of the opportunity to become PM and has lied, waffled and stunted his way to where he is now. He thinks of himself as a modern-day Churchill, but is a man of no substance, conscience or honour. My time at TfL under his mayoralty was one of confusion and blundering (not to mention his failed 'ego-projects' such as the new so-called 'Routemaster' bus and the Garden Bridge).

But he now has a massive team to help him implement those policies. If nothing else, there's a whole political party solidly behind him - and with a vested interest in ensuring that he keeps the Conservatives in power for, probably, the next 10 years.

 

[Dave1987]

But he now has a massive team to help him implement those policies. If nothing else, there's a whole political party solidly behind him - and with a vested interest in ensuring that he keeps the Conservatives in power for, probably, the next 10 years.

I severely doubt that. He has almost got himself too big of a majority. He now has MPs in constituencies that suffered hugely under Thatcher. He now has to prove to people in the north that he really will make their lives better whilst keeping his core Tory heartlands happy as well. People will not forgive him or the Tories if he does not deliver fully on what he has promised. People voted Tory because of Brexit and Corbyn. Remove Corbyn from the equation and say Brexit isn’t quite as good as Johnson promised and then you have a very different political landscape.

 

[Carlisle]

“Many” was perhaps a poor choice of words, I didn’t mean to imply a majority.

Having said that, it’s a lot more common than people realise. Anecdotally, after a few short years in the industry, of my rules course of eight, only four of us are still in the job.

I could reel off a dozen names of people who have left the grade for various performance related issues, and several more who are hanging on by a thread!

Thanks for the information.

 

[MidlandsChap]

A road vehicle can be stopped relatively promptly or might be able to be steered out of trouble - this doesn’t apply to a train. A few moments in attention (Southall) or a one-off misread (as seems likely to be the cause of Ladbroke Grove) and that’s it - although we now have TPWS this isn’t and shouldn’t be regarded as a panacea.
.

But a train driver only needs to pay attention at a signal and even then gets a warning if they miss one. A bus driver needs to pay attention at all times in case a vehicle/cyclist or pedestrian does the unexpected, and they do not get second warnings.

 

[Robertj21a]

I severely doubt that. He has almost got himself too big of a majority. He now has MPs in constituencies that suffered hugely under Thatcher. He now has to prove to people in the north that he really will make their lives better whilst keeping his core Tory heartlands happy as well. People will not forgive him or the Tories if he does not deliver fully on what he has promised. People voted Tory because of Brexit and Corbyn. Remove Corbyn from the equation and say Brexit isn’t quite as good as Johnson promised and then you have a very different political landscape.

Well he has a big enough majority to get most things through, plus there's an understandable reluctance by many of the electorate to vote for any party that's much to the left of centre. The size of the majority, plus what he can achieve in the next 5 years, should ensure that he then gets at least a second 5 year term to pursue remaining issues. It just needs the country to pull together rather than keep trying to pull different factions apart. Hopefully, many of the moderate rail staff can see that we may now be entering a new era.

 

[Esker-pades]

But a train driver only needs to pay attention at a signal and even then gets a warning if they miss one. A bus driver needs to pay attention at all times in case a vehicle/cyclist or pedestrian does the unexpected, and they do not get second warnings.

That is utter, utter rubbish. Train drivers have to pay attention at all times they are working.

 

[6Gman]

But a train driver only needs to pay attention at a signal and even then gets a warning if they miss one. A bus driver needs to pay attention at all times in case a vehicle/cyclist or pedestrian does the unexpected, and they do not get second warnings.

I've heard they just have a sleep between signals since there's nothing else for them to do ...


(Sarcasm alert)

 

[Grumpy Git]

I've heard they just have a sleep between signals since there's nothing else for them to do ...


(Sarcasm alert)

The Daily Mail would have their readers believe crap like this though, they lap it up.