The life of a train driver...

Lucy has been working for us as a train driver for almost two years and is really enjoying it. Before she had her son four years ago, she was working as a manager for a Cancer Research charity shop, having previously worked as a TV set dresser and designer. She says the job was lovely, but the pay wasn’t sufficient to cover any childcare costs so she decided to stay at home. When her son reached the age of three, though, she wanted to get back to work and the family needed the extra money.

She says she had always liked driving and trains and had looked into being a train driver before, but there had been no vacancies until she saw an advert for train drivers in her local paper. Her son was very enthusiastic about it!

No particular qualifications are needed to become a train driver, but you do have to sit a series of aptitude tests, plus a formal interview and an interview with a driver manager. She says her formal interview was unlike any interview she had ever had before. "It was very thorough and intense. I think they were looking to see if I could cope under pressure, for instance, and was honest," she says.

After successfully passing the recruitment process, Lucy was given eight months training.Trainees are given a lot of information about safety in the first weeks. "We had a lot of information on major rail disasters and their causes, which was the source of many of the rules we were learning," says Lucy. "It was quite shocking and made you aware of what a responsible job it is. I had never really had that kind of responsibility before, but I think if you think about the responsibility involved and worry about it, it probably makes you do your job better" says Lucy.

She also says that her colleagues are very supportive and that there is a lot of camaraderie and joking in the "mess room".

Lucy adds that the job works fine with her childcare. "The good thing is we pretty much know what our shifts will be so I can plan ahead. It’s usually one week earlies, one week lates, but some weeks we work two weeks back to back" she says. She adds that colleagues will often swap shifts to help each other out.

An added benefit is that, apart from signals, there are no traffic jams. "When I worked in TV," she says, "I had to drive around London a lot looking for props. The traffic was a nightmare. On a train, there is really nothing much in front of you and if you stop at a signal you can often open the window and listen to the birds singing!"