Great Western Coffee Shop

Yes, plenty of staff still being trained - however, the effeciency of the training leaves a huge amount to be desired!

A good friend of mine has been through the driver training programme since last October. In the Thames Trains era the instructor driver you were allocated with 'dropped' into a lower link that signed the same routes as newly qualified drivers, so he was always driving trains on the same routes. Now, the instructor driver stays in his link and so my friend has been spending a lot of time plying between Reading and Gatwick - a route that he would not learn for several years. A second instructor he has been allocated with signs HST's and 180's, so not only are the routes different, but he sometimes spends whole shifts sat next to his instructor in a HST cab waiting for a turbo to drive.

Also, there is a huge shortage of qualified assessors, so that drivers who are ready to sign their 'core route' and go and be productive for their company are kept waiting, in some occasions for months, waiting for somebody to assess them.

In the days of Thames Trains before Ladbrook Grove the RT Signalers had a name for the Thames Trains drive training scheme ........ "Boil in the bag drivers" it was not referring to the personal ability of the trainee be to the speed at which the trainees were put through the scheme the Signalers I knew at the time had serious reservations about the quality of the scheme.

There is no reason your pal cannot drive a HST when sitting next to a a qualified instructor. Whether or not he will drive HST's when 'passed out'. I did the oppisite as trainee 8 years ago by driving the odd turbo when the decision to withdrawl the Bristol/Oxfords before I would be fuuly trained had been made. It's all train driving experience after all!

The odd HST maybe, but not when the work he's allocated is about 50/50 HST/Turbo. As a trainee, the last thing you need is your route learning and traction knowledge clouded by differences in braking points, driving technique and differing train systems - especially given that HST's and Turbos are very different beasts.

Sorry but I am unable to agree with your points above. Route learning is not part of the basic train driver training (a recent course incorperated the learning of routes into the basic drivers course but has now been scrapped but of the problems it caused). however on saying this a trainee will pick up some knowledge whilst driving trains when under the eye of an instructor. The course also has conditions on how many hours a trainee has to undertake in charge of a train of his/her basic traction. So, your mate may take a little longer than someone who spends all their time on the basic traction to reach his target hours just like a trainee who has to carry out the bulk of his pratical handing in the summer months has too when reaching his target for night-time train handling.

Yes it is - at least it is for a FGW (LTV) trainee driver who has to sign a 'core route' in order to become qualified. That is Oxford-Reading for an Oxford based driver, and Reading-Paddington for a Reading based driver. In the latter days of Thames Trains (when I was directly involved in the training process), after the Ladbroke Grove disaster, route learning was an integral part of the train handling course and after a year or so from the course commencement you had a trainee who was fully trained on Turbos and ready to sign all the routes they needed, so they could just slot into the link. Job done!


And I think that's my point. It is an inefficient way to train somebody to drive a train when a significant portion of the training involves either a route the trainee will not sign when passed out, or traction that the trainee will not drive when passed out. After the first couple of weeks getting used to the experience of driving a train, you start to pick up on the various bits of knowledge required for the route you're driving. I have spoken at length to him about it and, to give an example, his instructor driver was on a job two days last week where 50% of the work was not on a route he'll sign for a considerable time and 100% of the work was HST's and therefore not the traction he will sign.

I am just surprised, given how desperate for driver FGW is, that the course has been run so ineffieciently. After all, last October, when the course started, my friend was telling me they hoped to get everyone signed up by the following May. It's now late September and a combination of what I have stated above and a chronic lack of Assessors means it'll be at least October before he can sign just his 'core route'. How long until he's a fully signed up member of his link is anbody's guess!

O.K Right if you say so!

I understand that signing for a core route is now part of the current driver training schedule. It is however a very recent development and was certainly not the case when myself (& 12hoursunday) were trained for driving duties. I understand that there is some 'interest' being taken in some drivers who have recently been trained under this system at a particular depot.

Route learning was always undertaken as a seperate training period additional to driver training. It was permissable for drivers to sign for routes that they felt competent to work over. Arising from their having driven trains over these routes as part of their train handling during basic driver training. However there was no compulsion to sign for routes learned in this way whatsoever. This is a very recent development which to my mind is rather concerning.

That's fair enough guys. It appears that they are trying to combine the two methods of training - the former FGW way and the former Thames Trains way - and have come up with a hotch-potch way of doing it which is lacking in many respects.

It is also worth noting that while there are defined periods allowed for route learning, known as 'norms', these are not regarded as maximum periods. No driver is oblidged to sign for a route at the end of the predetermined period unless he / she feels entirely competent to do so. There are a number of reasons why such route learning periods may need to be extended, such as cancellation / disruption of the train service, finding a 'PQA' driver at the controls of a train one wishes to learn the route on, difficulties associated with route learning on the services of another TOC/ FOC etc. And of course the capabilities of the individual driver in taking in such information regarding routes and signalling etc.

It used to be the expectation / practice at one time to place newly qualified drivers in a 'starter' link, consisting of around 100 miles of route mileage, a lesser mileage was deemed neccessary where the route(s) concerned was / were considered complex or posed a particular hazard with regard to signal sighting etc. I suspect the goalposts have been moved a little in this respect over the 20 years, almost to the month when this was introduced under auspices of the 'traincrew concept' which came into being on 03-10-1988.

With regards to the LTV depots at Oxford, Reading and Paddington (which are those which I am most familiar with), those concepts are still pretty much in force. It's not known as a 'starter link' as such, but newly qualified drivers do only sign about 100 route miles broken down as follows:

Paddington based:
Paddington-Oxford
Reading-Bedwyn
Greenford branch
Windsor branch

Reading based:
Paddington-Oxford
Reading-Bedwyn
Reading-Basingstoke
Windsor branch
Marlow branch
Henley branch

Oxford based:
Paddington-Oxford
Oxford-Banbury
Greenford branch
Bicester Town branch

Regrettably one of the biggest problems with staff recruitment these days is sorting the wheat from the chaff so to speak.......  Before privatisation a railwayman/woman was so porly paid that only those who wanted the job appplied, now with a great deal better pay people are attracted to the wage and not career.

Trainees are put under too much pressure to sign their first route(s) I always advise those willing to listen that they can be held leagally responsible if they are not ready so take all the time they need as ultimately they are signing to say they feel competent.

Money being the root of all evil motivates all concerned driver=enhanced pay, company= quickest possible return on their investment.

There are calls and moves for a country wide industry standard ensuring all train crew recieve the same quality of training and not pot luck as now. It cannot come quick enough !

I have been banging on locally in my efforts to convine the powers that be that when recruiting trainee drivers, the best place to recruit from is within the companies own staff. That way the management will already have a fair idea as to the capabilities of the potential recruit. It does not always follow that a good conductor will make a good driver but overall they make the transition extremely well. They also take their rules and railway awareness with them as well. Next Friday sees the 20th anniversary of the 'Traincrew Concept', under which promotion to the grade of driver was opened up to other grades as opposed to having its own seperate line of promotion.