Salary of tube and train drivers - why so high?

[LeeUK]

What's wrong with them getting paid a decent wage for a decent days work? Would you rather them get paid £12K and get their wages topped up with tax credits and other benefits? Then you could call them benefit scroungers while reading your copy of the Daily Mail.

 

[Tefal]

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?

yes thy would be.

because if they went on strike the company couldn't replace them quickly enough because there's no way to train them.

You seem to think strikes and workers rights came about after legislation, they are what got the legislation made in the first place.

 

[fez]

What's wrong with them getting paid a decent wage for a decent days work? Would you rather them get paid £12K and get their wages topped up with tax credits and other benefits? Then you could call them benefit scroungers while reading your copy of the Daily Mail.

Companies can pay what they want but if you think that every profession should be on £50k plus a year then you have no idea what that would do to the economy.

 

[Muz333]

I have no problems with what they get paid, if they miss up they will likely cause hundreds of fatalities. That's a huge responsibility and even with the shift allowance and overtime it's not like they are on a massive wage.

Also the fact I had my pre-employment medical check today for joining Network Rail has nothing to do with my opinion on this.

 

[LupoLover]

If you're only getting a week's notice for shift patterns that doesn't sound right (assuming NHS), might be worth raising it.

It is right! Sometimes sub 24 hours notice! My cousin is a nurse!

 

[Hawkwind1879]

I have no problems with what they get paid, if they miss up they will likely cause hundreds of fatalities. That's a huge responsibility and even with the shift allowance and overtime it's not like they are on a massive wage.

Also the fact I had my pre-employment medical check today for joining Network Rail has nothing to do with my opinion on this.

Congratulations what role are you going into?

 

[Sasahara]

I have no problems with what they get paid, if they miss up they will likely cause hundreds of fatalities. That's a huge responsibility and even with the shift allowance and overtime it's not like they are on a massive wage.

Also the fact I had my pre-employment medical check today for joining Network Rail has nothing to do with my opinion on this.

GL with the medical.

How do you think they can mess up and kill hundreds?

Excluding murder, by trying to derail the train on purpose I can't how it's going to happen. Even that would very hard given the speed limitations on underground trains. (Overground rail is certainly more dangerous in this respect)

Even when a train does derails on the underground it tend to cause injury not deaths due to the relative slow speeds and tunnels. (Most of these are not driver error)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_London_Underground_accidents

I say again the safety aspect of a driver will be mainly be involved with closing the doors and making sure they are clear. If they failed in this duty you would expect no more than 1 or 2 casualties . So less potential impact than a Road transport driver who could hit other highway users or cause all their passengers serious injury or death.

 

[Blackjack Davy]

I simply do not know what justifies these amounts, was wondering if anyone knew?

'cos they have a very good Union. 'nuff said. No-one dares interfere with them because they have the capacity to bring the capital to a standstill so every pay demand they make the govt caves in. Simple.

 

[Richdog]

I don't think train drivers are overpaid, I think that many other jobs are underpaid due to poor management and staffing structures. I think the likes of police, nurses, fire fighters are vastly underpaid.

Nail. Hit Head (imo)

The problem is that so many jobs in the UK (especially teaching and care services) are so near-criminally underpaid that it makes a salary of 50k look like a pipe dream, when in actual fact it is right for that level of life disruption and responsibility.

Bus drivers are probably also a bit underpaid considering the stress levels and grief they get from the public, but considering there are far more of them than there are tube drivers, so from a cold corporate budget mentality their salaries can't be as high.

 

[Uther]

What's wrong with them getting paid a decent wage for a decent days work? Would you rather them get paid £12K and get their wages topped up with tax credits and other benefits? Then you could call them benefit scroungers while reading your copy of the Daily Mail.

It's the British way.

 

[robgmun]

What's wrong with them getting paid a decent wage for a decent days work? Would you rather them get paid £12K and get their wages topped up with tax credits and other benefits? Then you could call them benefit scroungers while reading your copy of the Daily Mail.

There's getting a decent wage for a decent days work and then there's salary gouging because you have union with a big stick holding the city hostage. Thier salary wasn't earn't, it was bulled out of the public purse and that leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Especally when they barely actually drive the train.

 

[Sankari]

Salary of tube and train drivers - why so high?

20% of their salary is a 'having to deal with Londoners on a daily basis' bonus.

 

[jimjamuk]

From what I have read the tube drivers job isn't any more special than anyone else and whilst I don't think they are good value for money good luck to them if their employer has been forced into paying then £50k.

The unions though should pipe down and see they are already into a winner with this lot and stop pushing their luck...

Theres plenty of jobs that have human lives in their hands either directly or indirectly so I don't see that as a special reason to be paid any more, that ontop of learning a set of rules for the job.

 

[David_VI]

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.

The DLR was built from scratch and is totally self contained. Also doesn't run at high speeds or cross public highways or footpaths.
The stock I currently drive has been around since before I was born, 30 years ago. We're finally getting new trains in 2019 and they're not automated and will have a similar lifespan. We're running on infrastructure that was built in the victorian era with some eras having signalling nearly as old. We've only just got new colourlight signalling on one line.. You really think they would rip that up that soon? Things change slowly on the railway, it's the nature of the beast. It's a reactivate industry not a proactive industry.

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.

I'm a driver yes, but relatively new to the industry so I'm not totally clouded by that. I've lived in the real world and worked other jobs..looked at the rail industry from the outside as an enthusiast and I still only scratched the service with understanding the depth and complexity of it. So I'd not say I'm that clouded.

You still don't understand what I'm saying. If a driver hasn't driven a route in 6 months he has to be refreshed.


If there are these standby drivers how many will there be? You saw the number I quoted and that's just for one company.

So there's 10 years between strikes, how will the standby drivers stay competent? How do you keep that many drivers competent in the traction, the routes, and the rulebook,( our equivalent of the highway code but much much bigger)which updates every 6 months with ammendments and new rules.
You've also got local instructions that they'd have to be refreshed on.

At my depot we have 4 instructors and 80 drivers. Those instructors are normal drivers who also instruct so you really think they'd train all these standby drivers? It would take years and why would they agree to it?

How can training be done abroad? Our trains are here. Our routes are here.

As I said we're about to get a whole new fleet of trains and they're struggling wondering how they can train everyone on them while also covering the jobs. That alone is a logistical nightmare and a reason why we're taking on more drivers. It will take a long time to train a few thousand drivers on entirely new trains. It's never been done before on any other company and that's just the trains/traction training people who are already drivers and competent in everything else.

Hope this makes more sense.

 

[LeeUK]

There are a lot of people on here who go to work and deal with the same bunch of people "in the office" day in day out.

Once you've spent 15 years working with the general public you will have a different outlook on people. All jobs that have to deal with the general public should have an equal high wage the same as Tube drivers.

 

[Hades]

The DLR was built from scratch and is totally self contained. Also doesn't run at high speeds or cross public highways or footpaths.
The stock I currently drive has been around since before I was born, 30 years ago. We're finally getting new trains in 2019 and they're not automated and will have a similar lifespan. We're running on infrastructure that was built in the victorian era with some eras having signalling nearly as old. We've only just got new colourlight signalling on one line.. You really think they would rip that up that soon? Things change slowly on the railway, it's the nature of the beast. It's a reactivate industry not a proactive industry.



You still don't understand what I'm saying. If a driver hasn't driven a route in 6 months he has to be refreshed.


If there are these standby drivers how many will there be? You saw the number I quoted and that's just for one company.

So there's 10 years between strikes, how will the standby drivers stay competent? How do you keep that many drivers competent in the traction, the routes, and the rulebook,( our equivalent of the highway code but much much bigger)which updates every 6 months with ammendments and new rules.
You've also got local instructions that they'd have to be refreshed on.

At my depot we have 4 instructors and 80 drivers. Those instructors are normal drivers who also instruct so you really think they'd train all these standby drivers? It would take years and why would they agree to it?

How can training be done abroad? Our trains are here. Our routes are here.

As I said we're about to get a whole new fleet of trains and they're struggling wondering how they can train everyone on them while also covering the jobs. That alone is a logistical nightmare and a reason why we're taking on more drivers. It will take a long time to train a few thousand drivers on entirely new trains. It's never been done before on any other company and that's just the trains/traction training people who are already drivers and competent in everything else.

Hope this makes more sense.

It's not that I don't understand what you're saying. It's that I don't agree with it.

There are not gaps of 10 years between tube strikes. I've not checked the actual frequency but they appear to happen several times a year. How difficult can it be to learn a new route? The train is on tracks. It goes forward and it stops. Doors open and they close. I'm sure there is indeed more to it than that but really it simply can't be rocket science. My brother in law is a tube driver. He is far from the sharpest tool in the box. So if he can do it then I don't doubt that most people can.

Yes our trains are here. Yes our routes are here. But if we can train pilots in a simulator then why can't we train drivers in one? What is it about driving a stop/start train along a straight track that means it's harder than training a pilot, harder than driving a bus and can't be done any other way than on our own routes on real trains? Apart from unions insisting on it of course?

Yes there are cost implications of having a replacement crew on standby. Which is why the army could be considered.

But regardless, automation will be here much faster than people expect. In the past I agree that tracks like the DLR were automated because they were designed from the ground up to be so. But nowadays I expect it to be far more possible to retro fit any systems required. Also with significant advances in AI able to (mostly) safely drive a car, then fitting similar systems to a train would probably not be as hard as many think.

If training people on new trains is such a big problem then that is yet another case for automation.

Driverless trains are only a matter of time. Short time at that.

 

[David_VI]

Simulators are used in rail training but they can't replicate real routes. They're only used for training and assessing proceedure that rarely happen in the real world.

Planes are more about the proceedures and not route knowledge. You can easily simulate a sky and a few airports in a near realistic manner.

You couldn't safely replicate an entire rail route without modelling every tiny quirk and then it would become outdated quickly and near impossible to keep up to date...
As silly as a tree being cut down which could be someone's braking or coasting area.

I understand you're talking about tube and it's possibly more plausible on that industry but the mainline high speed railway is a different matter. The tube guys tend to strike more often, they're mostly in a different union to the mainline guys like myself and I'm sure the drivers don't striker that often it's usually the other staff about ticket offices and such?

Like I said, my region hasn't had a strike in 10 years and before that one there must have been a really long period.

Why would standby drivers be any different if they were the army? They'd still need to be kept up to date.

Learning a route isn't difficult it's all risks and braking areas.
I just had to learn two new routes and was given 9 days and a cab pass to ride with drivers to learn it. Then assessed at the end. These were only 20mile branches.

My perspective is of a mainline driver and not tube though. I understand you're looking at it from a tube perspective. They have different signalling systems and a totally different rulebook.

Driverless on the tube is possible and in the near future yes but the national rail network is far far off. It'll be extremely gradual. A few decades even for one route I'd imagine.

 

[Em3bbs]

There are a lot of people on here who go to work and deal with the same bunch of people "in the office" day in day out.

Once you've spent 15 years working with the general public you will have a different outlook on people. All jobs that have to deal with the general public should have an equal high wage the same as Tube drivers.

How do Tube drivers 'deal with the public'? I've been using tubes for overt 30 years and I don't think I've ever spoken to one or seen one talking to anyone.

 

[David_VI]

How do Tube drivers 'deal with the public'? I've been using tubes for overt 30 years and I don't think I've ever spoken to one or seen one talking to anyone.

Think it was a joke. Apart from having to deal with idiots holding doors and the train platform interface

 

[HangTime]

It is right! Sometimes sub 24 hours notice! My cousin is a nurse!

Sub-24hrs for mandatory shifts sounds wrong to me. My wife was a nurse for about 15 years in multiple hospitals, I have another mate who is a nurse also and shift patterns aka "duty" were published weeks in advance, sometimes they were later than planned maybe down to two weeks but certainly not <24hrs.

The only times they would unexpectedly be put on a shift less than 24hrs away would be if she got a call asking to cover for sickness etc, this was not a mandatory shift.

If your cousin is being forced to work shifts with less than 24hrs notice and is not on some sort of retainer for being on cover or operating as a bank nurse then I would suggest they look into this with HR as it doesn't sound right to me.