GWR Conductor Starting Soon

[DPhillimore]

Good Morning,

I hope everyone is well. I thought I would sign up to this forum as I will be joining GWR (and the rail industry as a whole) for the first time on March 6th as a conductor. I will be based in Westbury Wiltshire and I'm really looking forward to starting. That said, does anybody have any tips on how to make the best of the training period? How long will the training last roughly and what can I do to ensure I take as much onboard as I can?

I also wanted to ask how annual leave worked (I am coming from operational Policing, where it is extremely difficult to book leave at the best of times) as well as how the general conducting experience is like for folk.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to hearing from you all.

Dan.

 

[Tevion539]

Good Morning,

I hope everyone is well. I thought I would sign up to this forum as I will be joining GWR (and the rail industry as a whole) for the first time on March 6th as a conductor. I will be based in Westbury Wiltshire and I'm really looking forward to starting. That said, does anybody have any tips on how to make the best of the training period? How long will the training last roughly and what can I do to ensure I take as much onboard as I can?

I also wanted to ask how annual leave worked (I am coming from operational Policing, where it is extremely difficult to book leave at the best of times) as well as how the general conducting experience is like for folk.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to hearing from you all.

Dan.

Hi mate,

New to the process myself, however I have had questions answered before. I will be working for Transport for Wales, so take what I say with a pinch of salt. Training seems to be around 6 months, this includes a mixture of classroom and route learning. The classroom work seems to be the most intense, as there is module after module with regular assessments.

RE leave: If GWR are anything like First Bus, it seems you will be pre-allocated blocks of annual leave. If this isn't suitable then you could always try and come to an agreement with someone who has a more desirable block if it's fully booked. Annual leave cannot be taken during training as you will be required to complete this 100%

 

[Lmc1976]

I was in your position last year and should be able to answer most of your questions.

I went through training with a Westbury guard, took him just over 5 months from start of training to his pass out.
Training is quite well paced and it’s going to be down to you really to discover a way of learning that suits you, not everyone is the same but the training staff are very knowledgeable and very helpful. You will hear this said may times but there is no such thing as a stupid question so if your not sure ask.

You will be allocated some leave during training there is a degree of flexibility with this but not much, depends on where you are in your training.
When you are operational you get 32 days per year of which 25 days (five block weeks) are allocated to you throughout the year. 2 days are kept back for Xmas day and Boxing Day and 5 days are floating/adhoc days to book where there is availability.
You do get the opportunity to chop and change with other staff your allocated weeks or there may be gaps you can just move into, depending again on availability.

Hope this helps.