What is the alcohol limit for train drivers?

[DarloRich]

What is the alcohol limit if you're a train driver? Is it the same for motorists at 35 mg of breath.

Also are there different limits depending on passenger services, freight or shunting on sidings?

What is the penalty for being over the limit? Can you be banned, receive a criminal conviction etc?

to all intents and purposes it is zero - for us all. Drivers, gaurds, shunters, office staff, all of us. Zero.

Some TOCs apply it to all staff, even office based.

It is zero for us all in my employ. Even us none safety critical REMF/HQ tea drinkers

Wow that's pretty strict even having alcohol limits on catering and retail, staff!

it is about fostering a culture of unacceptability and ensuring we all agree to and are bound by the same basic rules. It essentially gives no room for a defence that you thought one set of rules only applied to one set of employees.

"Also popping into a store to buy alcohol is also a breach of alcohol policy"

So if you're a train driver and you buy some cans of beer or bottle of wine to stick in your rucksack for when you get back home then having this rucksack with you in the loco cab while your driving, would be an offence?

Quite possible a breach of the terms of your employment. I think for someone in a safety critical role it would certainly be viewed very unfavorably.

 

[PHILIPE]

In the old steam days, drinking among footplate men was rife. Work from A to B and then fill in the time before working back from B to A.

 

[ainsworth74]

In the old steam days, drinking among footplate men was rife. Work from A to B and then fill in the time before working back from B to A.

It lasted beyond steam days:

• Eltham Well Hall 1972
• Morpeth 1984
• Stafford 1990

Thankfully railway culture has changed and so has society at large when it comes to driving whilst drunk.

 

[455driver]

"Also popping into a store to buy alcohol is also a breach of alcohol policy"

So if you're a train driver and you buy some cans of beer or bottle of wine to stick in your rucksack for when you get back home then having this rucksack with you in the loco cab while your driving, would be an offence?

I wouldn't like to explain why I had alcohol on me in the cab of a train!

I won a bottle of Brandy in the Christmas draw which was given to me as I signed on for duty and was told to put it in my car boot rather than my locker, just in case they carried out a random check later in the day!

It was quite a walk back to the carpark as well!

 

[Smudger105e]

When the D&A policy was introduced, I was advised that Safety Critical staffs are not allowed possession ofillegal drugs at all, but alcohol in the workplace was permitted but must be in a sealed container. Last Christmas my employer gave each member of staff a bottle of bubbly, although they did advise that these gifts must be opened at the workplace.

 

[A-driver]

Once again, as whenever this come up here, I'd advise common sense. Quite a few times on afternoon turns if I have a reasonable finish time I'll pop into a supermarket on my pnb (so in uniform although I wear my own coat to work rather than the company issue ones) and buy a couple of beers for when I get home. I then put them in my bag for the rest of my job and open them once at home. I see absolutely no problem with this, I'm not drinking it at work or sitting with the bottles on full view in the windscreen. I don't see it as any different to picking up a pint of milk because we have run out at home. I've even done this when a manager was on a ride out with me and he could see no issue with it either.