How to gain experience for a job on the railway?

[DominikM]

For a lot of people, working on the railway is a dream, however, not everyone gets to realise that dream, whether it be because of lack of experience or other reasons. I've been worrying about this and as someone young and determined to get themselves a career on the rails, I'm curious about what steps I can take to help me in my journey. I've volunteered on a heritage railway, helping out on the engineering and maintenance side, which involved working with heavy machinery and steam locomotives, and this taught me a lot about safety consciousness, as well as working in a team, but I'm afraid that's not enough to become, for example, a station dispatcher, who may need customer service experience. Work experience is also difficult to get, so what other options are there for someone like me to gain experience before working on the railway?

 

[ninhog]

For a lot of people, working on the railway is a dream, however, not everyone gets to realise that dream, whether it be because of lack of experience or other reasons. I've been worrying about this and as someone young and determined to get themselves a career on the rails, I'm curious about what steps I can take to help me in my journey. I've volunteered on a heritage railway, helping out on the engineering and maintenance side, which involved working with heavy machinery and steam locomotives, and this taught me a lot about safety consciousness, as well as working in a team, but I'm afraid that's not enough to become, for example, a station dispatcher, who may need customer service experience. Work experience is also difficult to get, so what other options are there for someone like me to gain experience before working on the railway?

You don’t need work experience on the railway before applying/getting a job on the railway.

When joining the railway, you’ll need to give examples of solving problems, dealing with customers and adhering to health and safety standards.

There’s so many jobs you can do where you’d gain this experience- it’s all about how you translate your experience into things that a TOC is looking for.

 

[Watershed]

For a lot of people, working on the railway is a dream, however, not everyone gets to realise that dream, whether it be because of lack of experience or other reasons. I've been worrying about this and as someone young and determined to get themselves a career on the rails, I'm curious about what steps I can take to help me in my journey. I've volunteered on a heritage railway, helping out on the engineering and maintenance side, which involved working with heavy machinery and steam locomotives, and this taught me a lot about safety consciousness, as well as working in a team, but I'm afraid that's not enough to become, for example, a station dispatcher, who may need customer service experience. Work experience is also difficult to get, so what other options are there for someone like me to gain experience before working on the railway?

You can get customer service experience whilst volunteering at a heritage railway - roles like booking office clerk or simply helping out around the station or on the train will get you that. Volunteering at a heritage railway can be good experience if you want to work on the 'mainline'.

A lot of it is down to luck, in terms of whether you make it through the paper sift, which does admittedly depend a lot on the experience you can list. But if you make it through, your personality and the way you deal with people and problems will matter much more.

 

[jupiter]

Sounds like you’re doing the right things, volunteering and talking to people including on here. Maybe speak to your volunteer coordinator there to see what they can suggest. Certainly here we have volunteer porters and guards, depends what you are looking to do on the big railway really.

 

[Eccles1983]

Join the police.........

But don't fall into the heritage means anything trap. It doesn't.

You can gain the same skills working in retail, and actually getting paid instead of grafting for nothing and dealing with some really strange folk.

 

[PupCuff]

I would prefer it if the railway had a better scheme for bringing in new talent - currently it's all about "tell me about a time when" and what you've done in the past, not what attitude you have towards learning and delivering great customer service, which to me is what's important.

I would encourage you to tailor your voluntary work towards the areas of the railway you want to move into, if you want to be a dispatcher, say, engineering will have some transferable experience eg working to rules and procedures, but if you did a few turns a month volunteering as a conductor or a booking clerk too then you'd gain a lot of good customer service experience which is always useful.

 

[centro-323]

I think you need to decide the job you eventually want on the railways. Customer service experience wouldn't be as valued in a driver's job, and similarly experience of safety critical work wouldn't be relevant for working in a ticket office.

Since you're still young, don't be worrying about a long term career too much yet. Get a job you're interested in, and then start applying for railway stuff that takes your fancy. Read up on the kind of competencies required and interview questions you might be asked for your chosen railway job, and work on getting that kind of experience, being ready to move jobs if necessary.

If you applied for a train driver job for example, and your current/previous jobs weren't relevant in any way, then one weekend a month volunteering on a heritage line won't get you an interview.

 

[Zontar]

You can join the btp or police as a special constable, which will give you invaluable experience. Also could consider joining army, navy or RAF reserve which too will give you excellent transferable skills, whilst getting paid for it and having fun.

 

[Deb_bwr]

For a lot of people, working on the railway is a dream, however, not everyone gets to realise that dream, whether it be because of lack of experience or other reasons. I've been worrying about this and as someone young and determined to get themselves a career on the rails, I'm curious about what steps I can take to help me in my journey. I've volunteered on a heritage railway, helping out on the engineering and maintenance side, which involved working with heavy machinery and steam locomotives, and this taught me a lot about safety consciousness, as well as working in a team, but I'm afraid that's not enough to become, for example, a station dispatcher, who may need customer service experience. Work experience is also difficult to get, so what other options are there for someone like me to gain experience before working on the railway?

Hi,
I have just rejoined the railway after a 20+ year absence. I completed some of my training with 7 others, the youngest being 19. He had no previous work experience as he was straight out of 6th form, he had applied for a gateline position and on his application wrote examples of how he would want to be treated as a customer and how he was a quick learner.
He has aspirations to be a driver in the future but just wanted to get into the company first.
Good luck

 

[route101]

Do the TOCs do any work experience or shadowing? Would be useful if you don't stay near a heritage line.