And it’s not a Monday to Friday job. Our trains run 364 days a year. Your only guaranteed day off is Christmas Day. My shifts are nine hours long, but if there’s disruption I could work for 12 hours. I get paid in the upper region of the industry’s pay scale – though not the top of £87,000 – and I’m grateful for that salary.
A typical work day starts with me getting to the depot and reading my notice cases, which tell me if there are any speed restrictions or issues on my route. Then I pick up what’s called a “sheila card”, which has my diagram for the day; it lists what stations I’m stopping at, what time I’m due to stop there and what the turn-around station is.
Then I check my train and set up my cab environment – adjust the heating, get the seat in the correct position, tell the signaller my train is ready, check the cameras and wait for the signal to come. Then my journey begins.
Thankfully, I’ve never had a fatality. Sadly it’s a known risk on the railways and we are all aware that it could happen to any of us. I have had one heart-in-my-mouth moment.
Someone jumped off a platform to pick up their mobile phone and then jumped back up again. I had just passed my signal on my way into the station, my brake was in, when the guy jumped down. I put my train into ‘emergency mode’ and, when he jumped back up, I took my train out of ‘emergency mode’.
I got into the station, released the doors and contacted the signaller, saying: “I need a minute.” I was shaken and had two welfare checks to make sure I was OK. All I could think was: was that worth it for a mobile phone?
I love the work-life balance of the job. In my prior role, I was on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Now I key off and go home. You can’t drive a train from your living room. There’s a real separation between my work and my home life now.
I would encourage anyone to do this job. I’ve told my children to become train drivers.
The worst part of the job is the public perception. If there’s disruption in the service, I give the passengers all the information I have, but often they think I’m not telling them things. Then if I’m asked to run fast to somewhere and to miss out stations, passengers can get really frustrated.