Thoughts on job security

[RyanC87]

I have a place on a course starting in September, and will be leaving a pretty secure job, if not most secure job I can think of.

My head is flapping a little over the cost of living increases we are seeing.

Energy prices are going through the roof, alot of people are working from home. My family all have office jkbs and rarely require travel pre covid.
Bars and clubs predicted to be closing along with people not being able to afford hospitality type purchases.

With the cost of train travel of top, what are peoples thoughts. I'm guessing if customers drop drivers go?
Any older drivers on here that have been through similar. Is there ever talk of redundancy in such times.

 

[Mikhail Tal]

I have a place on a course starting in September, and will be leaving a pretty secure job, if not most secure job I can think of.

My head is flapping a little over the cost of living increases we are seeing.

Energy prices are going through the roof, alot of people are working from home. My family all have office jkbs and rarely require travel pre covid.
Bars and clubs predicted to be closing along with people not being able to afford hospitality type purchases.

With the cost of train travel of top, what are peoples thoughts. I'm guessing if customers drop drivers go?
Any older drivers on here that have been through similar. Is there ever talk of redundancy in such times.

With the current system in the UK, TOCs are contracted to run routes a certain amount of times per day, regardless of whether those routes are profitable. This system is probably going to stay quite strong unless passenger numbers really start dipping on the profitable mainline routes, as the non-profitable routes tend to serve Conservative constituencies & they would not want to piss off their constituents and risk losing elections, and Labour is ideologically in-favour of these routes.

In my own humble (non-expert) opinion, I'd say the bigger threat to train driver's job security in the long run would be self-driving trains.

 

[baz962]

Almost certainly you will have job security.

 

[Snow1964]

I would say strong job security, especially with recent and upcoming retirements, but have to accept that workloads on different days of week will likely change as trends seem to be more like 3 days of commuting and 4 of leisure

 

[bigpigs]

Look at it the other way, a rise in electric/hybrid cars, and a ban on ICE vehicle sales after 2030 and no real reliable infrastructure for charging electric cars. People will look to other means of travelling long distance and will look to other forms of transport ie. railway

 

[Crazyb]

There was a dip in the freight a number of years ago when I was at Freightliner, when Freightliner HH lost the coal traffic, plus other FOC's lost some drivers, that's the worst I have seen.

I'm not saying that it can't happen, but over the years I've been here (38 years driving), Ive not seen anything with TOC's letting drivers go. Normally if they let people go, it will be put up for redundancy and if that was the case, many would put in and go, myself being one of them.

Years ago in the 2000's, i think, they let a load of the old boys go with an early package, then found they didn't have enough drivers..lol, hence a big recruitment drive.

If your going to a TOC, I don't think you would have nothing to worry about......Freight can chop and change, but you can see that every FOC is looking for drivers at the moment.

The self driving trains as mention above, would never happen. I couldn't even image it really, especially on this infrastructure. The next thing would be ETCS, if that can stretch to Notwork Rail's budget.

 

[RyanC87]

Cheers all. Very good points and informative. Appreciate all the replies

 

[Ken H]

Look at it the other way, a rise in electric/hybrid cars, and a ban on ICE vehicle sales after 2030 and no real reliable infrastructure for charging electric cars. People will look to other means of travelling long distance and will look to other forms of transport ie. railway

So someon buys an ICE car in 2029. That will last them 12 years at least. 2041 i will be 85 so wont care!

 

[Crazyb]

Cheers all. Very good points and informative. Appreciate all the replies

I just saw you location....There was the Wrexham and Shropshire that closed down in around 2011/12? but I think most went to Chiltern...They were an open access operator..

There are a couple of open access operators out there, like Grand Central and Hull trains, which sort of means that they will take the full risk if it goes wonky, but most are under the government umbrella.

 

[Plodster]

TFW are under Welsh Government
Routes seem pretty busy and up to around 90% (I think!) pre Covid levels
I would say you have nothing to worry about.

 

[bigpigs]

So someon buys an ICE car in 2029. That will last them 12 years at least. 2041 i will be 85 so wont care!

God knows how much they'll hike the prices in the final year! I can just see a future in rail for long distance transport. Got a friend whos a national account manager and travels from the north east to london regularly. His employer as part of their green policy bought them all electric cars - says he doesnt trust the infrastructure for long journeys and now uses the train where he can.

 

[Orange08]

Following this. Great post.

 

[Jimbo12345]

Personally I’d say the biggest threat to the driving grade going forward, particularly for new starters, would be a potential degrading of the pension and more weekend work with Sundays included at all TOCs. Job security I wouldn’t be too concerned with although nothing is ever 100%. Any other role on the railway again particularly for new starters I would be very wary of at this present time. Just my thoughts

 

[Surreytraveller]

From experience, as long as you're willing to be flexible, they'll always be a job for you

 

[Busyboy89]

Where I drive still has semaphore signalling and all the new re-signalling is for driver operated trains. There won’t be no driverless trains in our careers running outside a closed circuit like the underground.

 

[Watershed]

If you're working for a "franchised" operator, i.e. not one of the freight companies or open access operators, then I would say you are almost guaranteed a job for the rest of your career.

Now, being realistic, the terms and conditions might not stay as attractive as they are today (even amid the cost of living crisis and no pay rise for 3 years, £50-60k base plus overtime and generous benefits is still very good).

The nature of the work will certainly change over time, e.g. it's plausible that Sundays will go 'inside' (where they aren't already), and the working week might increase to nearer 40 hours.

There might also be more weekend work and if you're unlucky, your depot might be closed and you might have to be moved over to a different one. You might have to operate the doors and make passenger announcements even where that's not currently part of the role. And it's possible that you might become less directly involved with the driving task - ATO, as seen on the Thameslink core and certain Underground lines, might be rolled out more widely.

But as long as you're prepared to be reasonably flexible, there will almost certainly be something there for you. A widespread roll-out of driverless trains is still decades away (at best) and so I would not regard it as a serious threat to the role of the driver, for someone starting now.

 

[RyanC87]

Thank you everyone. Sounds very promising and has put my mind at ease.

Looking forward to it now. Appreciate everyone's time in responding

 

[43066]

you are almost guaranteed a job for the rest of your career.

Agreed in terms of redundancy which at franchised operators is so unlikely that it can effectively be discounted as a possibility. The freight sector has seen driver redundancies in the past but it’s still low risk compared to most industries - plus it ought to be relatively easy to find alternative employment should the worst happen.

A bigger risk is racking up incidents soon after passing out and either getting sacked or stuck with a record that means you can’t easily move TOCs to relocate and/or for better work.

 

[craigybagel]

TFW are under Welsh Government
Routes seem pretty busy and up to around 90% (I think!) pre Covid levels
I would say you have nothing to worry about.

If it is indeed TfW you're off to, despite having lots of trainees coming through over the last year we're still relying on staff working rest days to keep the service rubbing, and we're still not on a 100% timetable yet. I certainly wouldn't worry - and instead I'd be looking forward to the job. It's well worth the effort.