Is this normal?

[sorry4thedelay]

Is it normal as a TOC Driver to work 50+ hours in one run over 6 days (no rest days in between)?-

Two 'spare' days in there, rostered at 8 hours 30, however they picked up two 9+ hour jobs on both days.

So for context-

Job head codes can equal up to 10 per day with max driving time around 5 hours in the seat.
Once you change ends the drive time resets.

Variable start/finish times each 'week' and obviously there is shifts early/lates etc.

 

[dctraindriver]

Yes it’s normal, at our TOC you can work 6 on the trot. 4 of those will be week 1 and 2 of those will be week 2 or the other way round.

 

[driver9000]

Certainly is normal to do 6 day blocks at my TOC as the link has to average 35hrs over the cycle. Some weeks you will work fewer hours than 35hrs and others you will work more.

 

[LokiB]

Yep certainly is normal despite what the media/government doing their up most to convince the public it's only ever 4 days per week.

 

[Teddyward]

Sometimes I’m rostered 7 days in a row for about 60 hours total average 6 hrs per shift driving.

 

[Horizon22]

Yes. Rosters are an average across [X] number of weeks based on the diagrams and number of people at your depot / link.

One week might be 50, another might be 25, but overall it will average to 35 hours.

 

[Krokodil]

Being rostered for seven days in a row is not unusual at all.

 

[66701GBRF]

Being rostered for seven days in a row is not unusual at all.

Not including RDW?

 

[Class2ldn]

At TL if you work your sunday its 7 days on before 2 off then another 7 before 5 off and repeat.
At 1 TOC I know it's 10 on if you work your sunday.

 

[357]

My roster has stretches of 6 or 7 days at work.

It's the reason in other parts of the roster you get 6 or 7 rest days in a row without taking any annual leave.

 

[Krokodil]

Not including RDW?

Our drivers (who have Sundays inside) do have one week in the link with seven consecutive days of duty (something like Fri-Thurs or Weds-Tues).

When Sundays were outside (and committed so they were rostered) there were many lines like that.

 

[Undiscovered]

I'm not a driver.
If you come off your 'long weekend' and start back Wednesday, on early turns, you're likely to be rostered a late turn on the Sunday.
With the next day off being Wednesday, that's seven days on the bounce.
Hours, over the course of the roster, will average out.

You can always chuck your Sunday in though.

 

[sorry4thedelay]

Yes. Rosters are an average across [X] number of weeks based on the diagrams and number of people at your depot / link.

One week might be 50, another might be 25, but overall it will average to 35 hours.

I'm curious to know what's happened in days gone by for Drivers to favor this working pattern...

 

[357]

I'm curious to know what's happened in days gone by for Drivers to favor this working pattern?
I also can't see why the working pattern is like this- trains do mostly the same thing everyday so it wouldn't be to difficult to change

Because it's what gives us our long weekends. The extra hours are in effect "banked" until we have a run of 5-7 days off in a week, and still get paid the same amount.

Surely it would be more favourable to equalise the jobs eg. Increase the short jobs and decrease the long jobs so the working 'periods' average out at 35 hours- eg. 4 days at 8.45.

A short 5 hour job just means making the hours up later on?

Because our shifts are starting and finishing around the train times. You'll never be able to make all shifts the exact same length because train times vary.

Working periods of 50+ hours over a long string of days surely just promote fatigue.

I find the opposite. I've worked a roster where the average turn length was 7 hours and over a year we only got one more day off than an office worker. I was tired every day for a year.

 

[dk1]

Yes that’s fine. All gets averaged out.

 

[43066]

Recruitment try and find ways of reducing the number of applications for each Driver role-

I don’t think this is correct. They want to encourage as many applicants as possible. Nobody should be under any illusions about the nature of shift work and, certainly where I trained, this was made clear during the recruitment process.

Because it's what gives us our long weekends. The extra hours are in effect "banked" until we have a run of 5-7 days off in a week, and still get paid the same amount.


Because our shifts are starting and finishing around the train times. You'll never be able to make all shifts the exact same length because train times vary.

I find the opposite. I've worked a roster where the average turn length was 7 hours and over a year we only got one more day off than an office worker. I was tired every day for a year.

Completely agree. Longer days and fewer of them are far better from a lifestyle perspective - signallers AIUI can do twelve hour shifts and a three day week.

 

[Horizon22]

I'm curious to know what's happened in days gone by for Drivers to favor this working pattern...

Well that’s one of the benefits of shift work - long stints off. Of course you take the rough with the smooth.

 

[Flange Squeal]

Because it's what gives us our long weekends. The extra hours are in effect "banked" until we have a run of 5-7 days off in a week, and still get paid the same amount.

'Banking' hours to give more days off is particularly nice when going from lates to earlies, where even having three off means you can quite easily not get home until 3am on your first day off and have to be in bed early on your third day off as your alarm will be going off at 3am the next day! Having more than three off gives your more than just one 'full' day off. I also like the mix of turn lengths as it means probably more variety in the layout of work contained within each diagram (subject to your depot and area of the country of course), but also means not all earlies will be as long as say 0430-1315 (which in reality is alarm maybe 0330 and not home until getting on for 1400ish). I find a few shorter ones added into the week can help feel like the week is broken up a bit from longer slogs. Making those hours up on say another week of mids/lates, where you've been able to wake up a bit more naturally, is something I personally find quite welcome. Sure, not all the earlies can be mega short as it would make all the lates longer, but I like the variation and ability to have more full days off I can fully utilise between stints of work and ease the tiredness and playing catch up that comes from shorter gaps between stints of shifts.