• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

How much would you pay for your training ?

Status
Not open for further replies.

4F89

Member
Joined
17 Aug 2018
Messages
860
Next you will suggest no union membership and individual payment terms based on length of service/red marks on your card.....
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

ForTheLoveOf

Established Member
Joined
7 Oct 2017
Messages
6,416
Zero. Which other industries make you pay for training which qualifies you to work only for one "company" (the British railway network)?
The airline industry. But in both that case and with the TOCs, you fundamentally gain a licence that can be used elsewhere and indeed even in different countries, with suitable retraining. Besides which, if you're a qualified driver then there are vacancies aplenty for you in the UK.

The difference is those people can use their qualification to get a job with countless employers, or set up in business themselves. This train driver qualification would give you access to an interview for a job with a tiny number of vacancies at an effective monopoly employer, with no possibility of self employment.
I don't think there is any significance in whether or not you can use your qualifications to become self employed. It's very difficult to become a self employed actuary, say, and yet no-one says that that makes it unfair to pay for qualifications to get you there.

Ultimately all the training that precedes becoming a qualified driver is paid for by the TOCs, which means then as now the Government, i.e. taxpayers. Why should taxpayers subsidise people to step into extremely well-paying jobs that are many times oversubscribed?

We expect people training towards becoming doctors, lawyers, bankers and all sorts of other highly paying professions to pay their way - even if only indirectly by way of a student loan (which you're highly likely to repay, with a massive amount of interest on top, if you get into one of those jobs). Why are, or should, train drivers be any different?

I don't buy the argument that it makes it an elitist profession, or one only for those with money. Well so what? Lots of professions are elitist. Lots are only accessbile to those with money. Why are, or should, train drivers be any different?

I think there would be quite the market for someone to come up with a scheme to get people qualified for train driving, like a sort of university or technical academy, paid for by student loans.

Personally speaking, if there were such a thing I'd seriously consider it. People already indebt themselves by tens of thousands to get useless arts or media studies degrees. This debt gets you a virtually guaranteed job for life so long as you don't screw up, with extraordinarily high pay. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me, notwithstanding the drawbacks of the job.

The train drivers job is only as popular as it is because it's so well paid for a job that anyone can get if they pass the process. How many people would want to get up at 0230 in the morning, miss loads of family and social events, get their holidays when they are allocated rather than when they choose, not be able to drink when they want to, spend hours alone, and potentially get banged up for making a mistake if the pay was £25,000? Not many I suspect.
Oh, I don't know, maybe bus drivers? Or in fact train drivers, not all that many years back? Plenty of metro and tram systems pay their drivers about that much. The only reason train drivers get paid so much is because of their strong unions, who make use of the political and contractual situation the railways are in. Those things don't exist in other systems and thus work which is broadly speaking similar attracts much lower pay.
 

Picklebutton

Member
Joined
14 Jan 2018
Messages
57
I’d think it would be worth a few thousand quid, maybe £3-5k, assuming that you go straight to the pretty much full rate when in a role.
I think skipping the year or so of lower pay would be well worth the initial outlay. Even more worthwhile if the training could be done at a time and location of your choice, even whilst still holding onto another job, then when the role you want comes up you can slot straight in.
Except that you don’t complete the driver training and pass based on those written exams. The driving training itself has to be done as an employee of a TOC, working full-time; not on an ad-hoc basis.

For that the trainee will need to take the leap of faith from their existing employment and hope that a) the (sometimes extreme) shifts appeal to them, b) they actually do enjoy the driving and have the practical ability too, c) they can retain all of their theory that they sat through previously in order to d) pass the final practical and written assessments which will include a gruelling day in a sim, a day of traction prep, and one or two days of driving assessment on the traction of the TOC they are working for. The sim day is well known as the make or break because they really do throw everything at you. You don’t get infinite attempts at the final either. Two strikes and you’re out, despite the amount a TOC has already invested in getting you that far!

Imagine having paid, possibly with a loan, left your previous job, only to fail and in all probability not have another job to fall back on. It happens already even though the TOC has footed the bill, so it would certainly happen to would-be pay-to-train train drivers as well.
 

Picklebutton

Member
Joined
14 Jan 2018
Messages
57
However.... Would you pay £3k to potentially get a £60k job ?
A lot depends on whether you can afford (financially) to take a leap of faith by leaving your existing job.

I’ve spoken to a lot of people who say they’d love to, but they couldn’t afford to take any cut in their salary while accruing the actual driving hours. Then there’s the small matter of the driver final to deal with. Even people only earning £40k in their existing job, might still balk at the possibility of £60k once they know that failing the driver final potentially leaves them entirely jobless.....
 

Picklebutton

Member
Joined
14 Jan 2018
Messages
57
The Rules course is only part of the qualification to becoming a Train Driver. There’s PTS, Traction, actual driving with a DI,Final Assessment,Route Learning. The £2-4K price people are saying they would pay is a drop in the ocean of the actual price. TOC’s budget around the £100K per trainee, so to pay for a full licence you are then getting into airline pilot training money.

Exactly. People underestimate just how much time, learning effort, brain space, and hard slog it takes to become a fully qualified mainline driver. The training takes over your life and has to be the number one priority, over all else, during that time.
 

Economist

Member
Joined
24 Feb 2013
Messages
508
The current training regime is in my opinion effective and the TOCs/FOCs spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing the successful candidates. That's ultimately what they get out of the bargain as things stand.

When it comes to us drivers, I'd say that ASLEF are a sort of backstop, they protect our terms and conditions and usually negotiate a fair price if the company wishes to purchase productivity from us that they don't already have. A lot of the wage increases I'd say have been driven by competition between TOCs, supply and demand has worked in our favour in that regard.

ASLEF must never allow a situation similar to that which has developed in much of the commercial pilot world, where training schools continually produce candidates regardless of the state of the industry, so that there is almost always a surplus of newly-qualified candidates desperate for their first flying job.

Train driving is one of the last well-paying careers for people from working class backgrounds who don't fancy the idea of a university degree and all of the debt that most degrees in the UK now bring. Let's keep it that way.
 

SlimJim1694

Member
Joined
8 Jan 2020
Messages
277
Location
Medway
The only reason train drivers get paid so much is because of their strong unions, who make use of the political and contractual situation the railways are in. Those things don't exist in other systems and thus work which is broadly speaking similar attracts much lower pay.
Drivers pay has only gone through the roof since privatisation. I'd suggest it has far more to do with the free market than strong unions. Drivers weren't paid anything close to an equivalent amount in BR days but were in the same union. I'd also argue that the union is nowhere near as strong as many outsiders seem to think it is.
 

43066

Established Member
Joined
24 Nov 2019
Messages
9,221
Location
London
My contract includes the training funding agreement which quotes £9k for training ...and if leaving before 2nd year qualified they’d possibly seek to recoup around £5k from me ? Not sure how enforceable that would actually be but regardless they value the training fairly highly and expect s return on the investment? But subbing it out ... could they guarantee consistency ?

Those clauses aren’t enforceable in the way they’re normally drafted. I left a few months before the end of my post qualification period. When I resigned my manager gave me a letter telling me I’d have to “pay back” a few thousand pounds.

I informed him I had no intention of paying anything, and nothing else was ever said on the subject!

EDIT: and in terms of cost of training, I’ve heard the figure of £100k per driver bandied around. Seems a lot, but you have to take into account training school costs, individual time with a DI etc. as well as the salary paid to the trainees.
 

ForTheLoveOf

Established Member
Joined
7 Oct 2017
Messages
6,416
Drivers pay has only gone through the roof since privatisation. I'd suggest it has far more to do with the free market than strong unions. Drivers weren't paid anything close to an equivalent amount in BR days but were in the same union. I'd also argue that the union is nowhere near as strong as many outsiders seem to think it is.
It's the unique mix of extremely high rates of unionisation, in a industry that's always going to be underwritten by the government, and that requires employees who can't be replaced overnight, with competition between employers due to staff shortages. If you took away a couple, or even just one, of those factors then you would get much lower pay. Drivers' pay used to be very low but it is now very high.

The current training regime is in my opinion effective and the TOCs/FOCs spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing the successful candidates. That's ultimately what they get out of the bargain as things stand.

When it comes to us drivers, I'd say that ASLEF are a sort of backstop, they protect our terms and conditions and usually negotiate a fair price if the company wishes to purchase productivity from us that they don't already have. A lot of the wage increases I'd say have been driven by competition between TOCs, supply and demand has worked in our favour in that regard.

ASLEF must never allow a situation similar to that which has developed in much of the commercial pilot world, where training schools continually produce candidates regardless of the state of the industry, so that there is almost always a surplus of newly-qualified candidates desperate for their first flying job.

Train driving is one of the last well-paying careers for people from working class backgrounds who don't fancy the idea of a university degree and all of the debt that most degrees in the UK now bring. Let's keep it that way.
True, but is that a justifiable situation? Effectively the taxpayer is subsiding people to get free training that puts them straight into a high paying job for life. It would be unsustainable to do this for every high paying profession, even those that the public thinks of as "important", such as doctors and surgeons. So surely what you are saying is "it's OK for those of us that have got their foot in - and screw anyone else"?
 

Picklebutton

Member
Joined
14 Jan 2018
Messages
57
The airline industry. But in both that case and with the TOCs, you fundamentally gain a licence that can be used elsewhere and indeed even in different countries, with suitable retraining. Besides which, if you're a qualified driver then there are vacancies aplenty for you in the UK.

And have you seen the recent news on fraudulent paid-for licences, not in the UK, that could still have legally slipped unnoticed through the net and been used to gain commercial pilot work in the UK.

I don't buy the argument that it makes it an elitist profession, or one only for those with money. Well so what? Lots of professions are elitist. Lots are only accessbile to those with money. Why are, or should, train drivers be any different?

Because the ‘quality‘ of the applicant is everything, and far beyond what can be paid for in monetary terms. You are putting one individual in charge of several million pounds-worth of kit, travelling at speeds of up to 125 mph, with probably as many as 1500 lives on board at any one time. Making a mistake with that lot is going to be somewhat more serious than just having a bad day at the office.

I think there would be quite the market for someone to come up with a scheme to get people qualified for train driving, like a sort of university or technical academy, paid for by student loans.

And just like a degree the applicant can keep on paying to re-take failed assessments until they pass. I don’t think I would want to be employing that individual to be in charge of the said several million pounds-worth if kit, travelling at speed, with 1500 people on board.
 

Economist

Member
Joined
24 Feb 2013
Messages
508
True, but is that a justifiable situation? Effectively the taxpayer is subsiding people to get free training that puts them straight into a high paying job for life. It would be unsustainable to do this for every high paying profession, even those that the public thinks of as "important", such as doctors and surgeons. So surely what you are saying is "it's OK for those of us that have got their foot in - and screw anyone else"?

Most training before the introduction of tuition fees was paid for by companies and/or the government. We are somewhat lucky in that on the trains, our learning becomes company-specific very early in the course (types of train, routes etc) so there's very little training that can be opened to the market. Doctors, lawyers and pilots can easily take their knowledge from one place to another with relatively little new training. If a qualified train driver changes companies, it's usually at least six months and in many cases, far longer, before they're allowed to drive on their own again.


And have you seen the recent news on fraudulent paid-for licences, not in the UK, that could still have legally slipped unnoticed through the net and been used to gain commercial pilot work in the UK.

There was one in the UK around the turn of the century, he falsified a load of hours he claimed to have in the RAF despite not being in a role as a pilot during his time there, ended up flying for a well-known charter operator until he was found out and ended up in court. Apparently, he later qualified legitimately and was taken on by another UK airline who were aware of his background...
 

C001

Member
Joined
30 Aug 2019
Messages
148
Pretty simple really. Other industries make you pay for your training. How much would you be willing to pay if :

You passed your Assessments
You passed your Medical

You could then pay for an independent rules course so you would be fully rules trained and could then apply to any TOC for local rules and traction.

Lots to discuss but I really wanna hear your magic number.
 
Last edited:

ForTheLoveOf

Established Member
Joined
7 Oct 2017
Messages
6,416
Because the ‘quality‘ of the applicant is everything, and far beyond what can be paid for in monetary terms. You are putting one individual in charge of several million pounds-worth of kit, travelling at speeds of up to 125 mph, with probably as many as 1500 lives on board at any one time. Making a mistake with that lot is going to be somewhat more serious than just having a bad day at the office.
The same order of magnitude of risk applies with pilots and commercial drivers and yet there is no state subsidy for either of those careers. If you want those licences you need to pay for it yourself or find someone else who will. The notion that a bad candidate can buy themselves a licence purely with money is nonsensical. The money simply lets them have a chance to be assessed. An unsuitable lorry driver won't be given a licence any more than an unsuitable train driver would.

And just like a degree the applicant can keep on paying to re-take failed assessments until they pass. I don’t think I would want to be employing that individual to be in charge of the said several million pounds-worth if kit, travelling at speed, with 1500 people on board.
There are already limits on who can become a train driver through aptitude and psychological assessments, with a maximum number of times you can attempt them. Many other professions don't have such limits but there is no reason why this couldn't be kept if you allowed for paid-for training.
 

Economist

Member
Joined
24 Feb 2013
Messages
508
The same order of magnitude of risk applies with pilots and commercial drivers and yet there is no state subsidy for either of those careers. If you want those licences you need to pay for it yourself or find someone else who will. The notion that a bad candidate can buy themselves a licence purely with money is nonsensical. The money simply lets them have a chance to be assessed. An unsuitable lorry driver won't be given a licence any more than an unsuitable train driver would.


In the airline world they have an awful creation known as "pay-to-fly", whereby people pay for line training, basically flying revenue passengers under supervision from a line captain. One such individual attempted to buy a place in a Boeing 737 cockpit but he wasn't good enough so the training organisation said "well, we could try putting you into the Airbus A320, that's a bit easier to handle". I believe many of his landings in the simulator required control input from the training captain because he consistently flared too late. Since he was still paying the money, he was allowed to fly passengers and damaged an Airbus A320 belonging to a British charter airline at Kos in Greece. The report is below:


We don't want this sort of thing on the trains thanks.
 

ForTheLoveOf

Established Member
Joined
7 Oct 2017
Messages
6,416
In the airline world they have an awful creation known as "pay-to-fly", whereby people pay for line training, basically flying revenue passengers under supervision from a line captain. One such individual attempted to buy a place in a Boeing 737 cockpit but he wasn't good enough so the training organisation said "well, we could try putting you into the Airbus A320, that's a bit easier to handle". I believe many of his landings in the simulator required control input from the training captain because he consistently flared too late. Since he was still paying the money, he was allowed to fly passengers and damaged an Airbus A320 belonging to a British charter airline at Kos in Greece. The report is below:


We don't want this sort of thing on the trains thanks.
What relevance does the fact that the training is paid for have? Safety is taken just as seriously in the aviation industry as it is in the railway industry. Some standards are in fact higher. You get bad eggs in all industries.

Do you expect airlines to have crew members trained entirely on empty flights? It's no more sensible than suggesting that trainee drivers should only be trusted to drive ECS services until they are fully qualified.
 

Economist

Member
Joined
24 Feb 2013
Messages
508
Line training is an essential part of commercial pilot training, just as a trainee driving trains in service under the supervision of an instructor is an essential part of train driver training.

In this case is that the candidate's training was not ceased on grounds of ability anywhere near early enough, a considerable number of repeated training exercises were required and this should have rung alarm bells, it didn't. During the early stages of line training the necessary technique for safely landing the aircraft was not consistently displayed, again this should have caused serious concern. The big problem is that the candidate was paying the organisations which ultimately should have made the decision to cease training for earlier than they actually did. Unsurprisingly, the decision was made after the incident, by which point it was too late.

If an individual is paying an organisation to provide a training service, then I think it is less likely that the organisation will cease the training due to the trainee's performance than if the situation was reversed. When organisations pay, they expect results, compare the commercial flying schools today to the BOAC/BEA schemes at Hamble and there's a huge difference in the chop rate. I suspect some of this may be accounted for by training methods but certainly not all of it.
 

PupCuff

Member
Joined
27 Feb 2020
Messages
498
Location
Nottingham
Pay-to-train is an interesting concept and I can see benefits and downsides to it. I do think that for it to work there would have to be a further shift away from regulation of train drivers by individual railway undertakings towards regulation by the ORR, in a similar way to how the CAA regulate pilots (including their training and ongoing fitness and competence). This could have the benefit of promoting a more professional culture within the grade, by being directly accountable to not only your employer but also your regulatory body (eg a doctor working in a hospital is accountable to both the GMC and bosses at the hospital itself). I do think there is a risk that diversity could be lost; though train company sponsorship schemes could be operated to encourage those from a range of backgrounds with the right aptitude and attitude to apply. Sponsorship schemes by TOCs could also be used where they want to train promising candidates from within their own workforce, it could even be made a condition of the franchise that they have to sponsor the training of a given number of drivers each year - an obvious risk is that not enough people would want to pay-to-train to fill the vacancies thus causing staff shortages. I think the need to make a significant outlay would also weed out those who have a poor attitude towards changing industry standards (I did it this way in 1980 when I started so I'll carry on even if the procedures have changed), the professional aspects of the job and the safety aspects of the job and simply do it for either the money/because its what they've always done since God was a lad/because they're into trains etc.

I'm a realist - I can't see it happening. But, whilst it's not high on the priority list of things I'd like to see in the industry I don't object to it in principle. The obvious barrier is that those who don't have the money couldn't afford to pay-to-train; whilst this is obviously a barrier it isn't necessarily anything which couldn't be overcome with training loans and sponsorships etc which would help raise the playing field to those in less favourable circumstances, and I'm afraid, to put it bluntly, ultimately there is no god-given right that any given person should be able to train as a train driver.
 

Railwayman101

Member
Joined
17 Nov 2019
Messages
34
Location
London
If I could have afforded to fly commercially, (I hold a PPL) I wouldn't be a train driver right now.

It kills me not to fly but I will always be grateful for the opportunity that I was given on the railway.
 

ForTheLoveOf

Established Member
Joined
7 Oct 2017
Messages
6,416
Line training is an essential part of commercial pilot training, just as a trainee driving trains in service under the supervision of an instructor is an essential part of train driver training.

In this case is that the candidate's training was not ceased on grounds of ability anywhere near early enough, a considerable number of repeated training exercises were required and this should have rung alarm bells, it didn't. During the early stages of line training the necessary technique for safely landing the aircraft was not consistently displayed, again this should have caused serious concern. The big problem is that the candidate was paying the organisations which ultimately should have made the decision to cease training for earlier than they actually did. Unsurprisingly, the decision was made after the incident, by which point it was too late.

If an individual is paying an organisation to provide a training service, then I think it is less likely that the organisation will cease the training due to the trainee's performance than if the situation was reversed. When organisations pay, they expect results, compare the commercial flying schools today to the BOAC/BEA schemes at Hamble and there's a huge difference in the chop rate. I suspect some of this may be accounted for by training methods but certainly not all of it.
Nobody is ever going to be forced to stop their training when they are paying for it. But if they are not sufficiently competent then they will never gain the qualifications they need to complete their training. The incident you link to was clearly a case of the captain not taking over control of the landing at the appropriate moment. The railway equivalent might be a driver trainer not intervening when the trainee misses a PSR or station. It can always happen, regardless of the money aspect of things.

Fundamentally, as long as standards are upheld, there is no reason why pay-to-train need be unsafe. People aren't afraid of flying because of the possibility they could be flown by a pilot with more money than skills, neither is there any reason the same should apply if the rail industry adopted the same model.

The reality is it's not going to happen, because, being a government subsidised and thus controlled industry, the railways are never going to be dynamic in the same way that commercial industries have to be to survive.
 

43066

Established Member
Joined
24 Nov 2019
Messages
9,221
Location
London
The reality is it's not going to happen, because, being a government subsidised and thus controlled industry, the railways are never going to be dynamic in the same way that commercial industries have to be to survive.

Works for me :D.
 

Picklebutton

Member
Joined
14 Jan 2018
Messages
57
There are already limits on who can become a train driver through aptitude and psychological assessments, with a maximum number of times you can attempt them. Many other professions don't have such limits but there is no reason why this couldn't be kept if you allowed for paid-for training.

No, you’ve misunderstood the difference between ‘aptitude tests‘ ie. those taken to get the job, with the assessments that you take once employed as a trainee driver. It is the latter that I am referring to. The two strikes and you’re out currently apply to every assessment you take while training.

If you start allowing people to pay to complete their training, those with enough cash will simply keep paying to have themselves reassessed on rules, traction, advanced route learning, PTS etc, in the same way a university student can keep re-sitting failed exams by paying an additional fee. Whatever they fail they will just pay to retake it. If people are paying from their own pocket, the academy or university offering the qualification won’t want to refuse taking more cash from any student willing to part with it.

To say if that if an individual doesn’t have the aptitude they won’t ever pass, is utter nonsense. Give someone enough practice, and if they also have enough money, by sheer repetition they will eventually get through it. Those are not the drivers any TOC would want, but if it’s a pay-to-play course, the monied, well rehearsed, but actually incompetent, will be the ones getting through it.
 

ComUtoR

Established Member
Joined
13 Dec 2013
Messages
9,399
Location
UK
Once again, I thank you for your comments.

I don't believe that there would be a full pay to train scenario. As already highlighted, there are many steps to becoming a Driver. I wouldn't like to see manual handling done under sterile conditions on a 'test track' that's for sure.

Rules are something that can be done wholly within the classroom. Rules are something that are also a recognised national standard. The Rulebook split a few years back to have a standard set of rules for everyone and then TOCs have a bespoke additional set of rules. The potential is there to take this to the next step.

If you start allowing people to pay to complete their training, those with enough cash will simply keep paying to have themselves reassessed on rules, traction, advanced route learning, PTS etc, in the same way a university student can keep re-sitting failed exams by paying an additional fee. Whatever they fail they will just pay to retake it. If people are paying from their own pocket, the academy or university offering the qualification won’t want to refuse taking more cash from any student willing to part with it.

What makes you believe that pay to play would override the standards ? Do you believe it would become money talks ? As I just posted in another thread. Trainees do not always make the grade. Are you suggesting that 'pay to play' also becomes 'pay till you pass' ? Would you accept that pay till you pass still means that the candidate has met the minimum standard. It may have taken them longer but they still met the required standard ?
 

whoosh

Established Member
Joined
3 Sep 2008
Messages
1,361
Rules are something that can be done wholly within the classroom. Rules are something that are also a recognised national standard. The Rulebook split a few years back to have a standard set of rules for everyone and then TOCs have a bespoke additional set of rules. The potential is there to take this to the next step.

Interestingly, when I did the rules part of my course, it was all done in the classroom over six weeks.
Now, many years later, the TOC I work for, has a week or so in the middle for Trainees to go and do 'Front End Turns' and see how the railway works and the real life application of those rules so they can relate to what the sterile rule book is referring to.

The current set up also means that the TOC takes ownership of the whole training. That's something of value worth keeping too don't you think?
 

PG

Established Member
Joined
12 Oct 2010
Messages
2,809
Location
at the end of the high and low roads
In the airline world they have an awful creation known as "pay-to-fly", whereby people pay for line training, basically flying revenue passengers under supervision from a line captain. One such individual attempted to buy a place in a Boeing 737 cockpit but he wasn't good enough so the training organisation said "well, we could try putting you into the Airbus A320, that's a bit easier to handle". I believe many of his landings in the simulator required control input from the training captain because he consistently flared too late. Since he was still paying the money, he was allowed to fly passengers and damaged an Airbus A320 belonging to a British charter airline at Kos in Greece. The report is below:

Nobody is ever going to be forced to stop their training when they are paying for it. But if they are not sufficiently competent then they will never gain the qualifications they need to complete their training. The incident you link to was clearly a case of the captain not taking over control of the landing at the appropriate moment. The railway equivalent might be a driver trainer not intervening when the trainee misses a PSR or station. It can always happen, regardless of the money aspect of things.

This brings to mind the RAIB report on a buffer stop collision at Kings Cross involving a trainee driver. As @ForTheLoveOf said it can always happen, regardless of the money aspect of things.

Give someone enough practice, and if they also have enough money, by sheer repetition they will eventually get through it. Those are not the drivers any TOC would want, but if it’s a pay-to-play course, the monied, well rehearsed, but actually incompetent, will be the ones getting through it.
Would you accept that pay till you pass still means that the candidate has met the minimum standard. It may have taken them longer but they still met the required standard ?
A valid observation which makes me slightly uncomfortable. I've come across individuals who persevered to qualify in their profession but who really weren't good performers in real life - it showed. Either you've got it or you haven't, and I feel the current two attempts situation is safeguarding against candidates who are likely to come unstuck once qualified.

I'm sure many can think of a motorist who has got their licence after several attempts. Society seems willing to accept the consequences for, I presume, economic reasons. We shouldn't fall into this situation with train drivers.
 

PupCuff

Member
Joined
27 Feb 2020
Messages
498
Location
Nottingham
What makes you believe that pay to play would override the standards ? Do you believe it would become money talks ? As I just posted in another thread. Trainees do not always make the grade. Are you suggesting that 'pay to play' also becomes 'pay till you pass' ? Would you accept that pay till you pass still means that the candidate has met the minimum standard. It may have taken them longer but they still met the required standard ?

Interesting observation, and from my perspective if someone is unable to meet the standard after the training course they'd paid for, and they elected to keep paying to get more training so they eventually pass, I see that as perhaps a case of 'more money than sense' but if they want to do it so long as they meet the standard by the point of assessment then go for it. The stumbling block will be when they can't get to grips with some new change to rules or method of work whilst working as a train driver and end up as a result losing their license and being back at square one.
 

dakta

Member
Joined
18 Jun 2008
Messages
577
Very interesting thread, for a long time I've looked at the airline industry (I remember one ad for which invited potential candidates to consider getting their parents to sell that second home you had laying around in which to fund it). That was me firmly out :D

That said, one positive aspect is you get the opportunity to show willing. If a lot of candidates are going for the wages and not really have the love of the job, having a portion (not necessarily the entire) candidate pool with some self-investment can be a positive sign.

It could fall victim to the 'pay your way in' problem and put poorer people at a disadvantage, but in all fairness based on my limited experiences I don't think waving a certificate at a TOC would weigh 'that' much, just be another string to your bow perhaps. In fact if such a thing did become possible I'd expect the TOC to put you through their training anyway. Training companies are dead rings for looking after the money not the teaching quality and it'd have to be something special if a TOC would have that amount of trust in external training, I might be wrong but I could see that.

That doesn't make it useless though, in a roundabout way in the airline world having to pay for your own training limits the candidate pool, but it also does the opposite to a limited degree because if you want to work towards it, without needing to impress an explicit company, then you can approach a flightschool and self fund. It won't make you a commercial pilot but you can get access, so to speak and show that bit of deeper willing when you are at an interview. That does carry risks because you might get trained up and never actually become the pilot, but life in general is a risk - and if anyone knows how to eliminate that, for god sake let me know.

Like a lot of people I've self paid for a lot of training prior to starting my current role, they didn't land me my role, but they helped. I've a nasty feeling it was more about sifting out the motivated and those with initiative than it was about the skills taught though. To give some sort of scale on things I spent about £500 for those courses, and I'm still actually self funding a couple more to increase my career development odds so probably end up doubling that this year. Compared to some training I've seen it's a drop in the ocean but IMO it makes it quite accessible as most people could stretch if they really wanted to.
 
Last edited:

Beastbmw

Member
Joined
5 Apr 2020
Messages
8
Location
Leicestershire
First post here, I’ve been reading this forum for a while now as I’m looking to move to the rail industry from the pilot world.
Firstly, I’d like to thank all the contributors for sharing the knowledge here. It’s a great help for people hoping to join the industry.
As said above, the pilot industry requires the self finance of pretty much all training to be even considered for a first job commercially. The cost in total can vary between £50000ish with careful planning and shopping around to upwards of £100000. This eye watering sum entitles you to be eligible for interview for a commercial role, however bear in mind some jobs start at around £25000 per year. Of course, remember out of this salary you will have training loan repayments to service and also accommodation away from home to pay as more often than not you will have to get digs near your operating base. If you’re lucky your new employer will pay for your type rating to fly their particular aircraft, if not that’s another £30000 you’ll have to find ( it costs the company about half that, the rest is a nice bit of profit in their back pocket!). There is also one famous low cost operator that makes you pay for your own uniform, car parking, medical and sim renewals(6 monthly) and until relatively recently employed pilots on an agency contract- no fly no pay, no sick either. And then there’s the pay to fly, where YOU PAY for the privilege of going to work just so you can get some experience. All very glamorous this airline life you know!!
I’ve flown with First Officers than have clearly been struggling financially and I have questioned whether their mind is on the job, which it really needs to be if something goes wrong. There has been more than one accident over the years where the investigation has brought these issues up.
Captain salaries can range from around £70000 to upwards of £150000 but often take many years to achieve. It’s a highly volatile industry and at times like this it is quite possible that redundancy can lead to someone eventually starting a new company at the bottom of the ladder again.
So with all that said, the investment to return is questionable at best. From my point of view and experience of this industry, once you start paying for training it will only go one way. Companies will pay less and less and the candidate will pay more and more. Only those who can afford it or can raise the funds somehow( mum and dad remortgaging the house) will stand a chance, and even then there are no guarantees. There are plenty of people from my industry that have tried, not been successful and lost everything. Really.
I hope rail doesn’t go this way. As with aviation, rail is a commercial operation that should be making money from customers, not staff training. Recruit people who really show ability, passion and want the job, train them well and you’ll probably keep them.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top