Trainee Depot Driver East Midlands Trains

[Spankthemonkey]

Immensly helpful, quick and detailed response, thank you so much.

One final question. Being the type of guy who likes to take a power-nap on a pnb, what are the mess facilities like at emt depots: are there quiet rooms/sofas/showers etc? It's on the platform at Notts isn't it?

 

[Charlie2]

Immensly helpful, quick and detailed response, thank you so much.

One final question. Being the type of guy who likes to take a power-nap on a pnb, what are the mess facilities like at emt depots: are there quiet rooms/sofas/showers etc? It's on the platform at Notts isn't it?

Have you been allocated Notts? The Answers Tom has given are spot on but slightly different at Derby for a couple of your questions.

 

[Tomnick]

Yes, messroom on the platform at Notts, complete with quiet room, sofas (in the quiet room and in the messroom itself) and a shower. Again, not sure how it is on the other side in that respect!

 

[EastMidsMatt]

I'm going to Derby, any differences with the answers given?

My question is...can I transfer my NHS pension to the railway one?
Also...as an employee of emt do you have to pay for parking at Loughborough train station? Ideally I'd like to get the train to and from work but paying for parking would be prohibitive me thinks. Thanks in advance!

 

[stjimmy87]

To any people who have recently gone through the process, can you tell me what tests there are on stage one? I did them before but want to check they haven't added any in the 2 years since? Got my stage one this Friday so gonna do some basic prep for it. Thanks guys.

As far as I am aware its...

Dots
Glop reading test
Dials test
Phonebook marking
Lift tones

 

[EastMidsMatt]

To any people who have recently gone through the process, can you tell me what tests there are on stage one? I did them before but want to check they haven't added any in the 2 years since? Got my stage one this Friday so gonna do some basic prep for it. Thanks guys.

As far as I am aware its...

Dots
Glop reading test
Dials test
Phonebook marking
Lift tones

Yep, they're the ones.

You'll be fine if you've done it before.

 

[stjimmy87]

Yep, they're the ones.

You'll be fine if you've done it before.

Cheers

 

[Tomnick]

I'm going to Derby, any differences with the answers given?

My question is...can I transfer my NHS pension to the railway one?
Also...as an employee of emt do you have to pay for parking at Loughborough train station? Ideally I'd like to get the train to and from work but paying for parking would be prohibitive me thinks. Thanks in advance!

As far as I'm aware, Derby's base roster's quite different to that at Notts (but, with more nights, probably better suited to travelling by train). It's certainly generally possible to obtain parking passes for stations close to home, but I'm not sure about Loughborough - it gets very full at times. Worth asking, though.

 

[Charlie2]

I'm going to Derby, any differences with the answers given?

My question is...can I transfer my NHS pension to the railway one?
Also...as an employee of emt do you have to pay for parking at Loughborough train station? Ideally I'd like to get the train to and from work but paying for parking would be prohibitive me thinks. Thanks in advance!

As far as I'm aware East Midlands Trains Section of Railway Pension only let you transfer in from another Toc or FOC when I asked few years back to transfer my previous employer pension it was a no but you can always ring the Railway pension scheme and ask the question

 

[stjimmy87]

Where I work at the moment, I put in 5% of my wages into a pension fund and the company match that number....Is that the same with EMT?

 

[Spankthemonkey]

Where I work at the moment, I put in 5% of my wages into a pension fund and the company match that number....Is that the same with EMT?

Railway pension is much higher, about 9% i think, and there are options to pay into a tax free pension saving scheme. Not sure how much the railways contribute.

Pensions are an incredibly confusing area of personal financial management. However, if you are in the railway pension scheme then you pretty much have one of the best. It was in the top 5 motivating factors in hunting down a job on the choo-choos for me.

It is also sadly a notorious draw for the solicitors of embittered ex-spouses. Many a middle-aged railway man was heard to mutter "I gave her the house, cars, cats, and the kids just so I could keep my lump sum...."

 

[stjimmy87]

Railway pension is much higher, about 9% i think, and there are options to pay into a tax free pension saving scheme. Not sure how much the railways contribute.

Pensions are an incredibly confusing area of personal financial management. However, if you are in the railway pension scheme then you pretty much have one of the best. It was in the top 5 motivating factors in hunting down a job on the choo-choos for me.

It is also sadly a notorious draw for the solicitors of embittered ex-spouses. Many a middle-aged railway man was heard to mutter "I gave her the house, cars, cats, and the kids just so I could keep my lump sum...."

haha I will try and stay on the ride side of my other half then!

 

[LowLevel]

Loughborough station car park is well overcapacity and I believe new permits are not available for anyone except Loughborough station staff. You should be fine for East Midlands Parkway if that's any use to you - that's the alternative. Otherwise it's free parking at your home location plus one other can be requested.

 

[EastMidsMatt]

Loughborough station car park is well overcapacity and I believe new permits are not available for anyone except Loughborough station staff. You should be fine for East Midlands Parkway if that's any use to you - that's the alternative. Otherwise it's free parking at your home location plus one other can be requested.

OK. I might be able to get to Derby via the station at Barrow on Soar or Sileby, anything that enables me to leave the car locally and make use of the free train travel!

 

[LowLevel]

It'll be a change of trains from either of those stations to Derby and you're probably looking at doubling your journey time over driving - also do bear in mind that neither station has a car park. Sadly driving and getting the train in combination is rarely that easy for railway staff.

 

[Raul_Duke]

I'm going to Derby, any differences with the answers given?

Ideally I'd like to get the train to and from work but paying for parking would be prohibitive me thinks. Thanks in advance!

Etches Park is a portacabin with a toilet.

There’s a bit more up at 4 shed, but that’s mainline so you won’t be up there much apart from booking on.

The times at Derby don’t always work out that well for train travel unless your happy to wait an hour or so for the first train in the morning.

 

[Termak]

Hello everyone..so I have been invited for stage 1 even though I passed to MTR Crossrail standard. They confirmed with The OPC and said I need to do some elements, to ensure my pass is valid for EMT. My fear is the result will overide my first pass and if I fail that will be it for me. Any thoughts?

 

[Scouse_scott]

Hello everyone..so I have been invited for stage 1 even though I passed to MTR Crossrail standard. They confirmed with The OPC and said I need to do some elements, to ensure my pass is valid for EMT. My fear is the result will overide my first pass and if I fail that will be it for me. Any thoughts?

Don't worry about it, a few of us had to go through the same thing having passed already with other TOCs. Chances are you will just have to resit the dots test to make sure your score is up to east Midlands standards.

 

[Spankthemonkey]

Hello everyone..so I have been invited for stage 1 even though I passed to MTR Crossrail standard. They confirmed with The OPC and said I need to do some elements, to ensure my pass is valid for EMT. My fear is the result will overide my first pass and if I fail that will be it for me. Any thoughts?

Well, are you still in the process with mtr crossrail? If not then why are you even considering your options? Do nothing and not get a drivers job, or do something and at least have a chance. It'll just be the dots, this i reckon is emt's filter; they get 150 people in, 100 pass but they take the 60 best dots scores and call it "enhanced".

If you are still in the process with mtr crossrail then yes, there is an element of risk, and as a train driver you have to be an extremely risk adverse person, but the reward here is so great i'd say take a chance, roll the dice, have a gamble, in the words of Frank Drebin "you take a chance getting up in the morning, crossing the road or putting your face in a fan".

 

[Termak]

Thank you for your replies good people..just that I have live applications somewhere else, and may not be required to resit anything. Will weigh my options.

 

[baz962]

Thank you for your replies good people..just that I have live applications somewhere else, and may not be required to resit anything. Will weigh my options.

Perhaps emt just require you to do an sjt. I passed enhanced with govia and am going to an assessment day with arriva, and when I phoned the opc they said I only have to do an sjt on first day. If I am good with that then on second day I only have to do vse. Arriva as well as govia and mtr require some of the highest passes but the sjt and vse are arriva specific, hope this helps and good luck mate.

 

[stjimmy87]

So I just did a spot of group bourdon practice and I averaged about 9 lines on each and missed 1 .....I'm not sure what I did last time so who knows if it's good enough for EMT lol

 

[Dynamonic]

In my practice tests, I averaged out at 10-11 lines per sheet and made a max of two omissions and zero errors across the practices.

Just ensure your pacing and performance is consistent across , and I reckon you should be fine.

 

[Scouse_scott]

With the opc official dots test, I was on average about 4 lines from finishing each block, the guy sat next to me was about 1 line from finishing each block. We both passed to east mids enhanced standard.

Focus on that accuracy and you should be fine

 

[stjimmy87]

I ain't the fastest but I must have had 11-12 lines average when I passed last time and that was EMT standard

 

[stjimmy87]

With the opc official dots test, I was on average about 4 lines from finishing each block, the guy sat next to me was about 1 line from finishing each block. We both passed to east mids enhanced standard.

Focus on that accuracy and you should be fine

Wow that impressive mate

 

[Dynamonic]

Now’s a good time for me to add that the actual test has less lines per sheet than the practice ones you’ve probably been doing, stjimmy87!

(They fit two sheets on one page, each with roughly 15 lines I reckon)

 

[baz962]

Now’s a good time for me to add that the actual test has less lines per sheet than the practice ones you’ve probably been doing, stjimmy87!

(They fit two sheets on one page, each with roughly 15 lines I reckon)

When i did mine i counted em and it was 16 mate and my practice sheets had 20.

 

[stjimmy87]

The ones I printed out had 26 lines on them, either way I'm averaging about 10.

 

[Dynamonic]

The ones I printed out had 26 lines on them, either way I'm averaging about 10.

Very similar to what I was getting, and I got the Enhanced standard on the day.
I doubt you’ve got anything to worry about, particularly if you’re only averaging at the one omission.


Good luck to everyone sitting their Stage One assessments this week, by the way!
I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing you on a course very soon, should you be successful in the process.
I wonder if there’ll be room on the planned June course for some of you.