Salary of tube and train drivers - why so high?

[I_M_Weasel]

Being responsible for all those passengers does seem important, but is it that dangerous? last fatal crash was apparently in 1975, either everyone is great at their job - or it really is quite difficult to mess up that badly.

 

[Tefal]

Monopolies/oligopolies only persist due to government interference in the market ultimately.

Unions such as this again, can only run the way they do with government interference. Under true free market trade such conditions could not exist. If employers were allowed to fire workers who bunk off work (strike) do you think we would have the current situation with tube drivers?

yes you would as the company would be bankrupt before they could train new staff if they fired them all.


strikes started when it was legal to fire people for striking.


like if my place went on strike do you really think the company could find and get certified 4,000 skilled craftsmen before they went bust for missing out on billions of pounds of deliveries a week?

 

[Sasahara]

Being responsible for all those passengers does seem important, but is it that dangerous? last fatal crash was apparently in 1975, either everyone is great at their job - or it really is quite difficult to mess up that badly.

I think there are been quite a few since 1975 if we are counting derailments.

As far a safety goes for major incidence, it's the engineers and then signallers are more likely to cause an incident if they make errors. And just general infrastructure failures, broken rails/points, ect.

For a driver to cause a crash would require extreme negligence and would be pretty hard to do accidentally, jumping lights, going too fast.

Driver safety would be mostly focused on closing doors safely and making sure everyone is clear and safe when pulling away. There no special skills required to stop a train if some jumps in front of it. Just break and hope you don hit them I would guess.

They are also responsible to evacuate passengers safely if the train has to stop between stations.

Also underground rail engineers can get paid **** loads too, depending on skill set, but that does require specialist knowledge if you doing more than the basic manual labour.

 

[I_M_Weasel]

I think there are been quite a few since 1975 if we are counting derailments.

No, deaths by suicide and injuries in derailments but no passenger deaths, there are fires as well but I hardly think they are the responsibility of a driver.

Worst ever crash only killed 40 or so, while still not good isn't as bad as you would imagine.

I think the stats reflect that the 'responsible for lives' thing isn't a big stress to drivers. It also shows what a good performance the whole system and workforce do to keep it so fatality free.

 

[Hawkwind1879]

No, deaths by suicide and injuries in derailments but no passenger deaths, there are fires as well but I hardly think they are the responsibility of a driver.

Worst ever crash only killed 40 or so, while still not good isn't as bad as you would imagine.

I think the stats reflect that the 'responsible for lives' thing isn't a big stress to drivers. It also shows what a good performance the whole system and workforce do to keep it so fatality free.

The stats absoloutely do reflect it, how can you say that, just because there hasnt been a serious incident for a number of years, there is always that risk there. Since Network Rail came into being infrastructure safety has improved a lot, but to be honest there have been quite a few incidents now that a major incident was only overted thanks to luck.

Just yesterday a HST hit a lasndrover on a user worked crossing, luckily at not too high a speed.

 

[David_VI]

Being responsible for all those passengers does seem important, but is it that dangerous? last fatal crash was apparently in 1975, either everyone is great at their job - or it really is quite difficult to mess up that badly.

No, deaths by suicide and injuries in derailments but no passenger deaths, there are fires as well but I hardly think they are the responsibility of a driver.

Worst ever crash only killed 40 or so, while still not good isn't as bad as you would imagine.

I think the stats reflect that the 'responsible for lives' thing isn't a big stress to drivers. It also shows what a good performance the whole system and workforce do to keep it so fatality free.

Yes maybe we just do our job well with a lot of underpinning knowledge so these things don't happen.

Saying that we are human and you'd be surprised how many incidents very nearly became the next biggest rail disaster in the country are not known about, at places without any safety systems too. The railway isn't totally failsafe, it's stil a reactive industry as we saw with the Croydon tram derailment.
You could pass a signal and collide into another train at 100mph without any safety system intervening.

 

[Hawkwind1879]

I did a rough count at least 140 passenger deaths since 1975

 

[Hawkwind1879]

Yes maybe we just do our job well with a lot of underpinning knowledge so these things don't happen.

Saying that we are human and you'd be surprised how many incidents very nearly became the next biggest rail disaster in the country are not known about, at places without any safety systems too. The railway isn't totally failsafe, it's stil a reactive industry as we saw with the Croydon tram derailment.
You could pass a signal and collide into another train at 100mph without any safety system intervening.

110% THIS!!

 

[I_M_Weasel]

I did a rough count at least 140 passenger deaths since 1975

On the underground? As a result of a crash?

 

[Hawkwind1879]

I understand the role of signallers but still it gets frustrating when you're suddenly on a cautionary aspect and pulling upto a red for it to clear last second because the signaller has forgotten about you and got the barriers down at a crossing a bit late Oh and the routing freight out in front of you.

Ah didnt think you guys noticed when that happened...busted oops .

NX panel is entrance and exit. Press one button to enter and next to set the route and exit into next section. Bit like the panels in the picture.

Yep need to know the 16, and 10 reasons for wrong direction movemnts. Unfotunetly forgotten most of the bell codes though. I had a guy in my signal school class go to a east anglia box clacton on sea!

 

[Hawkwind1879]

On the underground? As a result of a crash?

Ah sorry no all mainline

Spoiler

NX panel (not mine)

 

[I_M_Weasel]

Thanks for clarifying Hawkwinde, I appreciate their are many more random events that can occur on mainline and that you may have little response time for and the speeds involved can be much higher.

I'm in no way suggesting that tube drivers don't do a good job, but bus drivers are on half as much and are more likely to crash, I don't think the pressure of passenger security can be that significant against the background of no fatal crashes in the last 40 years and only 5 Fatal crashes in the last 80.

 

[Energize]

yes you would as the company would be bankrupt before they could train new staff if they fired them all.


strikes started when it was legal to fire people for striking.


like if my place went on strike do you really think the company could find and get certified 4,000 skilled craftsmen before they went bust for missing out on billions of pounds of deliveries a week?

You create an unrealistic scenario there. It's easy to entice a portion of the workers not to strike and eliminate the troublemakers. Do you really think that tube drivers would be on the salaries they are now if companies had the power to crackdown on this sort of thing?

 

[Hades]

In my line of work we need a BCM plan for every foreseeable risk (Business Continuity Plan). Why don't we just train a bunch of contractors or even the army to drive trains. They can then take over during a strike.


...but of course the unions will find a safety angle to prevent that.


The sooner driver-less trains are introduced the better.

 

[David_VI]

In my line of work we need a BCM plan for every foreseeable risk (Business Continuity Plan). Why don't we just train a bunch of contractors or even the army to drive trains. They can then take over during a strike.


...but of course the unions will find a safety angle to prevent that.


The sooner driver-less trains are introduced the better.

What a stupid uneducated idea!
It's just not possible, I'm not sure if I should explain the reasons.

For one who is gonna want to be a standby driver on the odd chance theres a strike? The last time we striked was over 10 years ago!

Who's going to train them? What are they going to do in the mean time? How do they keep their competency up? How could you do all of that with the amount of standby drivers you'd need? Even for a skeleton service less than a Sunday service you'd need at least 20 drivers a depot and my region has around 10 depots (may be missing one).

Even If they end up driving regularly to keep competency up they'll soon end up joining the union anyway, when they realise they need the protection because of the nature of the job and conditions.

You can't just turn up once in so many years and drive a train up and down.
It won't be the unions who wouldn't primarily like it, it would be the office of road and rail, the rail safety and standards board among others
I'd like to see your reasons for thinking this would work.

Driverless trains are long way off, I'll be in a job till I retire and I'm 30.

 

[willhub]

Maybe the rail industry is just a good sector to go into? Its not just tube drivers that get paid a lot for what they do. Normal train drivers like First Transpennine Express and Northern Trains here up north get over 40k.

I quite like the thought of been a train driver I might try it one day !

 

[Hades]

What a stupid uneducated idea!
It's just not possible, I'm not sure if I should explain the reasons.

For one who is gonna want to be a standby driver on the odd chance theres a strike? The last time we striked was over 10 years ago!

Who's going to train them? What are they going to do in the mean time? How do they keep their competency up? How could you do all of that with the amount of standby drivers you'd need? Even for a skeleton service less than a Sunday service you'd need at least 20 drivers a depot and my region has around 10 depots (may be missing one).

Even If they end up driving regularly to keep competency up they'll soon end up joining the union anyway, when they realise they need the protection because of the nature of the job and conditions.

You can't just turn up once in so many years and drive a train up and down.
It won't be the unions who wouldn't primarily like it, it would be the office of road and rail, the rail safety and standards board among others
I'd like to see your reasons for thinking this would work.

Driverless trains are long way off, I'll be in a job till I retire and I'm 30.

What a stupid and uneducated reply! (it's easy to be flippant with words).

I'm sure there are training and safety requirements. But if the cost to the economy of a days tube strike is as high as has been banded about in the past then it does make sense to pay a company to have people on standby (or as mentioned the army who stand in for firefighters occasionally). Who would train them? Either the same people who train current staff or simply go abroad for the training. But it won't be necessary soon due to automation.

I suspect that driverless trains are closer than you would like to think. I doubt you will make it to retirement if technology advances in other areas are anything to go by. It appears from your reply that you are a train driver so I guess your opinion is clouded by that. While the job is no doubt harder than I would imagine, at the end of the day it's pushing a few buttons and handles with automatic safety mechanisms to step in if needed. If we can get driverless cars working soon then replacing train drivers is relatively simple. The DLR is a good example.

The impediment to automation is actually the current drivers and the union, not a technology one I suspect.

 

[dowie]

Driverless trains are long way off, I'll be in a job till I retire and I'm 30.

I think that is a bit naive, the world can change a lot in 30 years. We already have some driverless trains operating in the UK - the DLR for example. Having more of them on more would seem to be quite likely within 30 years.

 

[Freefaller]

Indeed. A LOT of work is going into automation - certainly for the Tube.

It's not a case of if, but when. Unions are the hardest nut to crack for this to happen.

The safety argument is completely rubbish - don't get me wrong, safety is critical, and very important, but automation does not ignore or remove safety.

 

[simpletom]

I guess my reaction to highly paid jobs is "Well, just have a go then". If you need to join the customer service team for a shot at the Tube Driver role - just do it. There is a promise of untold wealth and riches ahead!