Hopefully things will move soon
Hi TristanGNER, yeah I’ve been placed into the GWR talent pool after the driver manager interview at the I’ve depot applied for
In the East region mate
Well I've heard pretty much the opposite, that they are going to continue taking on trainees over next few years so who knows. Id be less confident with the East Side, as they have lost work to Crossrail and Reading for example are now robbing work from other depots in order not to have surplus drivers. Good for Reading, less good for the other depots mind you!.....
There are a few qualified drivers who have moved over to Crossrail and the like so although XR have taken some, I think there are spots opening up in Padd and Reading
Not sure “robbing” work is correct. Finally gaining additional routes and more desirable work for a depot which has a large establishment and placed well to serve routes further West than Bedwyn/Didcot i would say is more accurate. For years Reading has always been the forgotten about depot in terms of work allocation imo, long may it continue!
Trouble is there is now too many drivers signing the B and H. Indeed Exeter HSS was down to just 2 London b and H trips from the timetable change due to Exeter West , Plymouth Hss , Plymouth west, Bristol, Paddington , Reading , all now signing the B and H. The work is too thinly spread now. It is clear that one driver working as far as possible is most effective in terms of performance , so one wonders why Reading should really be doing the B and H ( unless it is in connection with extending the Bedwyn?) Otherwise they are just treading on other depots toes. As I said, great for Reading , but what about whichever depot ends up losing the route?! Better to let Reading stick with its core work, or you are just robbing Peter to pay Paul.
My concern? Well with Exeter and Plymouth HSS losing work hand over fist, will redundancies fall there in order to preserve jobs at Reading? (Even though splitting up services between multiple crews is now widely accepted to be less resilient, reliable and arguably productive). There is no way having a driver from Penzance to Plymouth then Plymouth to Exeter then Exeter to Westbury and Westbury to Reading and finally Reading to Paddington is going to go well..... at least at present a driver from Plymouth to London is a good bet the service will run. We don't want a repeat of Transpennine.
Sounds about right.
and best of luck!
Couldn't say sorry, I'm only aware of Central and East regions goings on..
Why do you think that? I'd say you have as much chance at Plymouth as anywhere else. I'm not privy to specifics, but recruitment at bigger depots like Plymouth will inevitably continue in next year or so unless someone knows otherwise? Most of the depot drivers will become mainline drivers over next year or so and so they will need replacing.