Most popular TOC/Depots for driving trains ?

[43066]

90% of my colleagues have been really excited and pleased for me, but the odd one or two are a little off about it, i put it down to jealousy too haha

Haha indeed. I have a sneaking suspicion you and I might know each other actually...

 

[craigybagel]

Being slightly biased , I would imagine Machynlleth would be a very desirable depot to work from - OK 158's , but superb scenic runs and a chance to have a reality check by working down to the West Midlands. Or do they only work to Salop ?

Only Salop for drivers, although the guards still go to the West Midlands. Spend most of their time bouncing back and forth between Aber and Shrewsbury, with the odd trip up the coast for variety. Great scenery, but not as much variety as at the other Northern depots at TfW

 

[theking]

Doubt there will be a massive rush to the intercity tocs from metro drivers, yeah you'll still have the ones who want to go drive high speed but now the metro wages are so good i cant see lots, last time I saw a virgin job it was circa 50k and took like 3 years to get upto the full wage. No thanks.
A qualified should go onto the qualifieds wage not some two tier workforce.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Only Salop for drivers, although the guards still go to the West Midlands. Spend most of their time bouncing back and forth between Aber and Shrewsbury, with the odd trip up the coast for variety. Great scenery, but not as much variety as at the other Northern depots at TfW

Thanks for that - but quite nice work though I would have thought. Vacancies there (at MCH) must be rare I guess.

 

[Stigy]

At my new place it was PTS and straight into route learning. Full money straight away.

This varies by TOC. At Cross Country, for example, you go onto a reduced salary until you’re fully productive on all routes and traction (and possibly for a year or so after qualifying, as I recall).

Same with GWR. Qualified drivers coming across start on 90% salary for the first year I believe?

Trainees go up to 80% once qualified, then 90%, then 100% in year three.

 

[Coach Carter]

Same with GWR. Qualified drivers coming across start on 90% salary for the first year I believe?

Trainees go up to 80% once qualified, then 90%, then 100% in year three.

Hey stigy, I thought I heard GWR got rid of the tiered payments for trainees once qualified? We have joint ASLEF meetings with GWR for our area and thought one of the things they brought up before Christmas was they had negotiated to get rid of it.
Be good news for you if they have but I’m guessing I got my wires confused as you will be in a better place to know than me.

 

[Daydr3am3r]

Hey stigy, I thought I heard GWR got rid of the tiered payments for trainees once qualified? We have joint ASLEF meetings with GWR for our area and thought one of the things they brought up before Christmas was they had negotiated to get rid of it.
Be good news for you if they have but I’m guessing I got my wires confused as you will be in a better place to know than me.

No mate GWR trainees are on the tiered structure that Stigy mentions.

 

[Cassy j]

Are there any train operators people should try avoid for whatever reason ?

 

[irish_rail]

Are there any train operators people should try avoid for whatever reason ?

I would say a driving job is a driving job. If you are not happy you can always move on once qualified. Getting qualified is the hard bit. Once you are, you have a certain degree of freedom and are in a position where the TOCS need you as much as you need them.

 

[Stigy]

Hey stigy, I thought I heard GWR got rid of the tiered payments for trainees once qualified? We have joint ASLEF meetings with GWR for our area and thought one of the things they brought up before Christmas was they had negotiated to get rid of it.
Be good news for you if they have but I’m guessing I got my wires confused as you will be in a better place to know than me.

Would be nice, but unfortunately not. Be nice to even be on 80% now to be honest, since I’m being delayed at home so can’t pass out

 

[donpoku]

The best TOC for me would be the one walking distance to my house.

 

[Economist]

Doubt there will be a massive rush to the intercity tocs from metro drivers, yeah you'll still have the ones who want to go drive high speed but now the metro wages are so good i cant see lots, last time I saw a virgin job it was circa 50k and took like 3 years to get upto the full wage. No thanks.
A qualified should go onto the qualifieds wage not some two tier workforce.

I wonder if the intercity companies will subsequently get rid of the staggered wage increases. One of the big factors in driving up wages has been competition between TOCs, Cross Country recently upped their initial qualified wages because they weren't presumably getting enough interest to cover for the large number of retirements due. Cross Country and Avanti, have to the best of my knowledge, a lot of retirements coming up and whilst some of the demand will be met by off the street trainees, they'll probably want a fair few qualified drivers.

 

[dan4291]

The best TOC for me would be the one walking distance to my house.

The best TOC for me is one that will give me a job! Either way it would involve a decent commute for me but if it means I can do my dream job then it's worth it I think.

 

[baz962]

I wonder if the intercity companies will subsequently get rid of the staggered wage increases. One of the big factors in driving up wages has been competition between TOCs, Cross Country recently upped their initial qualified wages because they weren't presumably getting enough interest to cover for the large number of retirements due. Cross Country and Avanti, have to the best of my knowledge, a lot of retirements coming up and whilst some of the demand will be met by off the street trainees, they'll probably want a fair few qualified drivers.

The toc I drive for is getting rid of the first year rate. It was closed by 50% this year and will be completely closed next year.

 

[20atthemagnet]

Doubt there will be a massive rush to the intercity tocs from metro drivers, yeah you'll still have the ones who want to go drive high speed but now the metro wages are so good i cant see lots, last time I saw a virgin job it was circa 50k and took like 3 years to get upto the full wage. No thanks.
A qualified should go onto the qualifieds wage not some two tier workforce.

Exactly this. No one at my place is considering anything intercity. Not all Metro depots have bad work either. As above the Metro depots can have a good work. Intercity work isnt necessarily the best work it depends on how the TOC has evolved and under what t&cs. To and from destination and half may sound good but not if spending 10/11 hrs at work and 2 hrs total travelling to and from. At my metro place its uncommon to do anything over 7hrs and a few trips with extensive pnb time, and an extremely rigid rostering that dates back from British rail pretty much, strongly in favour of the driver. Alot of drivers who moved on to so-called better work in the past are now desperately trying to get back. However a caveat to this is its depot specific, which is why it’s important to do full research. You can have two depots in a TOC with completely varying ways of working under different T&Cs...Makes no difference to me how many times I stop if I dont do much of it. When we had mixed work the longer distance stuff had jobs approaching 10hrs. I liked the variety but not at the expense of longer diagrams and shorter pnbs which is why when we split and we were given a choice I chose to stay on the inner side of things instead of the outer..So eveywhere is different.

A couple of years ago I was going to make a switch to a different operator that I perceived as better purely on the basis of public perception but once I dug into their conditions and diagrams I backed out of it. Its important to get the full picture of each toc and not just default to the opinion of intercity is better. I have some conditions that some of my intercity friends could only dream of. That’s not to say that some intercity operators are excellent however, they just aren’t close enough to me for me to consider.

 

[43066]

Doubt there will be a massive rush to the intercity tocs from metro drivers, yeah you'll still have the ones who want to go drive high speed but now the metro wages are so good i cant see lots, last time I saw a virgin job it was circa 50k and took like 3 years to get upto the full wage. No thanks.
A qualified should go onto the qualifieds wage not some two tier workforce.

Depends on location. Lots of metro drivers in the London area have the option of intercity TOCs. Metro work doesn’t necessarily pay better. LNER and Avanti pay around £70k?

I did intensive metro work myself for several years, for less money than I’m now paid. The union at my last place had sold all the Ts and Cs for pennies, years ago, and there was nothing left to sell.

10 trips per shift, stopping every two minutes, constantly running on double or single yellows. 8 minutes to change ends on a 10 car train. Staring into grainy DOO monitors with the risk of a prison sentence if you drag someone. Going back to reset passcoms, not knowing what you’re walking into. Taking trains into service with last night’s vomit still sloshing around on the floor. Dealing with pissheads, druggies, school kids jamming newspaper into the doors etc.

There may well be drivers who prefer that kind of work, and they’re welcome to it. Judging by the amount of moaning I used to hear at my last place, very few of them are working there!

Don’t get me wrong I respect metro drivers and the intensity of the work. If you can do that kind of work for a few years, and keep a clean license (not many can), you’re good at what you do.

I completely agree that qualified drivers should go straight into full money. It’s regrettable that there are still TOCs which don’t see it that way.

 

[Economist]

I think one appeal of intercity work is that metro work has quite a high rate of operational incidents I believe compared with other types of work. It's quite easy for metro drivers to become trapped by their records, so if someone has a clean licence, it can seem attractive to put in for intercity work before such a time as that option no longer exists due to an incident. Whilst it is, of course, entirely possible to have an incident during time working at an intercity TOC, you are already in the door and metro operators are more likely to take drivers with incidents should a move back be required.

DOO is a big factor too, much better to have someone else doing the doors.

 

[StevieH]

Depends on location. Lots of metro drivers in the London area have the option of intercity TOCs. Metro work doesn’t necessarily pay better. LNER and Avanti pay around £70k?

I did intensive metro work myself for several years, for less money than I’m now paid. The union at my last place had sold all the Ts and Cs for pennies, years ago, and there was nothing left to sell.

10 trips per shift, stopping every two minutes, constantly running on double or single yellows. 8 minutes to change ends on a 10 car train. Staring into grainy DOO monitors with the risk of a prison sentence if you drag someone. Going back to reset passcoms, not knowing what you’re walking into. Taking trains into service with last night’s vomit still sloshing around on the floor. Dealing with pissheads, druggies, school kids jamming newspaper into the doors etc.

There may well be drivers who prefer that kind of work, and they’re welcome to it. Judging by the amount of moaning I used to hear at my last place, very few of them are working there!

Don’t get me wrong I respect metro drivers and the intensity of the work. If you can do that kind of work for a few years, and keep a clean license (not many can), you’re good at what you do.

I completely agree that qualified drivers should go straight into full money. It’s regrettable that there are still TOCs which don’t see it that way.

I'd love to know what these amazing T&C's are that you loose by going to intercitys? Nobody can ever name any that sound that amazing lol

 

[Astro_Orbiter]

I think certain TOCs while the work might be a bit grinding, they have very decent salaries and good booking arrangements and taxi agreements etc etc. It's all subjective isn't it, one man's t&c line in the same is nothing to someone else. Take Sundays in the working week for example, to some people it's a solid no, nope, never and furthermore no. To others they quite like a "true" 4 day week and Sundays aren't special.

 

[StevieH]

I think certain TOCs while the work might be a bit grinding, they have very decent salaries and good booking arrangements and taxi agreements etc etc. It's all subjective isn't it, one man's t&c line in the same is nothing to someone else. Take Sundays in the working week for example, to some people it's a solid no, nope, never and furthermore no. To others they quite like a "true" 4 day week and Sundays aren't special.

Yeah you are right it is very subjective especially as people are judging the TOC purely on the depot in their area rather than judging the TOC as a whole. The discussion does seem to be very London and south oriented as well lol. The best way to judge I would say is which TOCs have the highest and lowest retention rates I would say that would speak volumes.

 

[Astro_Orbiter]

Yeah you are right it is very subjective especially as people are judging the TOC purely on the depot in their area rather than judging the TOC as a whole. The discussion does seem to be very London and south oriented as well lol. The best way to judge I would say is which TOCs have the highest and lowest retention rates I would say that would speak volumes.

Yeah, and I suppose in the London area there are so many options of operators to choose from. And you're dead right about depot location having a big impact. Local booking arrangements aside, some depots due to location get hammered with intensive work and minimum breaks whereas other depots on the same conditions might have lots of pass or walk time purely because of location.

 

[20atthemagnet]

Yeah, and I suppose in the London area there are so many options of operators to choose from. And you're dead right about depot location having a big impact. Local booking arrangements aside, some depots due to location get hammered with intensive work and minimum breaks whereas other depots on the same conditions might have lots of pass or walk time purely because of location.

Very true. There are so many things like this. I will give you an example. My old operator could squeeze in a large number of 9hr plus diagrams at one of the depots purely because the depot was at a through station on a bulk of the routes. A depot can also go from bad to good or good to bad because of changes in operators too. A depot split has meant my depot (previously a mixed work depot) lost its outer work joined a different TOC and new operator topped up the lost drivers back to a full compliment before the split........ we then became a massively over established inner depot on BR terms and conditions (some of which are ridiculous in a good way) the only way to spread the work out was to reduce job times. All whilst trying to keep pay close to the new TOC we joined (resulting in a huge jump) but follow our locations previous T&Cs.. As a result now you will struggle to get a job over 7hrs (even with a 40min pnb) and hit 28hrs a week, with taxis, allowances, enhanced rates for what feels like breathing sometimes, movement of RDs guaranteed, no book ons before 5am no finishes after 1am, with 55 min pnb on a 4 day week with sundays outside, all whilst somehow being near the very top on the league for salaries. Because of the location and t&cs its hard to fit anything near productive in a diagram. Time literally has to be invented in diagrams to make it balance out. For example you might do a job diagrammed for 6hrs but not actually work a train until the 2nd hour leaving only enough time for 3 trains..as you can imagine on a 31 min trip maximum this equates to some ridiculous diagrams. And because of all the allowances now inflated by your base salaries jump, you end up on some pretty big numbers from not doing very much...

This is not to sell my place as better than anywhere, I would love some of my old routes back someways just for a bit of variety.... and a key point is my place never used to be good it was just purely luck that way our T&Cs interacted with the new operator and our location meant that things completely turned on its head. The company is keen to change that but as of yet haven't managed to. If they succeed and it became just a another intensive metro depot thats perhaps when ill start looking elsewhere. The point im trying to make is Metro doesn't necessarily equal bad = intercity doesn't necessarily mean good. There are many caveats. But you have to look at each TOC on a case by case (and even sometimes a depot by depot basis) As you quite rightly point out things like location on a line and other influences can massively impact on diagramming, t&cs, time allowances etc. My TOCs other depots that dont interact with our routes will tell you a completely different story even though they work for the same company..Unfortunately I know it wont last forever.

 

[Astro_Orbiter]

I've a feeling I know exactly which TOC and location you are talking about, and if so, I'm in the old TOC that your depot split from a few years ago. We're totally jealous by the way.

 

[387star]

Bedford used to have a bad reputation but correct me if I'm wrong but its now dead mans.

There are some really good new depot a on thameslink too like Horsham with all mainline work less anti social turns compared to some TL depots and good people working there too. Then there's new depots like St Albans which offer nothing but Sutton loops !

I think its fair to say Southern don't have the most desirable depot locations with almost all in London or the commuter belt. Therefore Barnham and Eastbourne are incredibly popular. Despite this some drivers transferred from Barnham to Horsham TL for the better conditions.

 

[Galvanize]

When I was with Southern (not as Traincrew)...by all accounts the most popular depots to work from were (and still are no doubt):

Caterham: It’s an all Metro depot so the work’s a bit repetitive and not a huge deal of variety. But a nice “local” depot for those who live further out from London. Most Drivers have transferred from Selhurst or Norwood, but occasionally have taken on Trainees before!

Epsom:
Bit similar to Caterham, mainly Metro work, but handy for those who live in Surrey and want a shorter commute into work. Mainly filled by Drivers from Selhurst or Norwood, but I think one or two trainees have started there!

Three Bridges (Southern):
One of those depots with a fair bit of Route Variety, though due to some services going over to Thameslink in 2018, the depot has picked up a bit more Metro work to go with the Mainline stuff. Still seems quite popular especially with people who live nearby...many of whom came from Selhurst or other London depots.

Eastbourne:
Has quite good work, Local and Mainline work, plus the Top Link work the Class 171s on the Marshlink to Ashford International. Often the Drivers have transferred from Brighton (to save a commute), or the London Depots! Quite a long waiting list usually to get in...!

 

[Cassy j]

When I was with Southern (not as Traincrew)...by all accounts the most popular depots to work from were (and still are no doubt):

Caterham: It’s an all Metro depot so the work’s a bit repetitive and not a huge deal of variety. But a nice “local” depot for those who live further out from London. Most Drivers have transferred from Selhurst or Norwood, but occasionally have taken on Trainees before!

Epsom:
Bit similar to Caterham, mainly Metro work, but handy for those who live in Surrey and want a shorter commute into work. Mainly filled by Drivers from Selhurst or Norwood, but I think one or two trainees have started there!

Three Bridges (Southern):
One of those depots with a fair bit of Route Variety, though due to some services going over to Thameslink in 2018, the depot has picked up a bit more Metro work to go with the Mainline stuff. Still seems quite popular especially with people who live nearby...many of whom came from Selhurst or other London depots.

Eastbourne:
Has quite good work, Local and Mainline work, plus the Top Link work the Class 171s on the Marshlink to Ashford International. Often the Drivers have transferred from Brighton (to save a commute), or the London Depots! Quite a long waiting list usually to get in...!

Thank you for naming where you worked and what depot you are referring to always helps a lot more

 

[diego1234]

In general, is there an abundance of rest day work at the London depots (Selhurst/Norwood) & are permanent swaps (for early's) possible?

Thanks

 

[insane_lewis]

im fairly new (around 2 years passed) and I am based at a very busy undesirable location in south London, its not where I was meant to start, but the company moved me just before my start date. I have been trying to move ever since.

the depot I wanted is a few hundred meters from my home, and has far FAR better start and finish times.

But wouldn't mind a move to the south coast or that Red so called express train

I guess for me the best thing about south London and metro work is your never in the train for long, not sure I could hack long distance or X country.

 

[insane_lewis]

In general, is there an abundance of rest day work at the London depots (Selhurst/Norwood) & are permanent swaps (for early's) possible?

Thanks

ive been trying for perm earlies for months with no luck at all, I have even had trouble shifting my Sundays in the past

 

[diego1234]

ive been trying for perm earlies for months with no luck at all, I have even had trouble shifting my Sundays in the past

Ok, good to know. I'm a GWR Padd based driver but thinking of changing TOC in the future due to moving nearer to family. (S.London). Just trying to weigh up my options & perm earlies are important to me. Is there some sort of waiting list or is it a case of hoping someone wants a swap in the future?