So since I last messaged, I have been happily plying my trade on South West Trains (now South Western Railways) suburban routes and generally enjoying myself.
However, for personal reasons over the last few months, I have been looking to relocate back to the Midlands and had started looking for roles in that area. I had put in for a few vacancies for a qualified driver but also on the outside chance for an operations trainer role in Birmingham. After a tense few weeks (and a fantastic holiday in Singapore for my 30th!) I come back to find I got that job. So with only a few weeks to go until I start in November I thought I'd update. Now that I am going into a training role I do plan to stay reasonably active on this blog as I will now be able to blog from the other side of the training process and hopefully be of some use to others still looking to be or are going through the process.
Who knows, if you happen to get a drivers job with soon to be West Midlands Trains then I could well be your instructor!
Please note this site is to enable people aspiring to be drivers and to give them an idea of what the training is involved. It is not endorsed by South West Trains and all views are my own and not the companies...
Friday 6 October 2017
Monday 10 April 2017
10/04/2017 - I am back!
So after a long while with the blog being down I am back! I didn't originally plan on coming back online with this blog but after speaking to a few people over the last few weeks I realised that some people actually got some use out of it - so I decided to re-publish it.
In the last few years things have changed for me. I was as you may know at Fratton Depot with South West Trains. Well I am still with the company but I have transferred to another depot as the work
content at Fratton was getting very samey.
So what does that mean for me? Well since November I have been learning new routes and also new types of train. I am no longer stuck with just Desiro class trains bounding up and down the Portsmouth Direct. I am still training at the moment and I'll write a bit more at a more sociable hour but I hope to be back and updating you all with what is happening the in the world.
The biggest news I would imagine is that I am shortly to be employed by another company! No I haven't applied for a new job, but the Government announced recently that the new South Western Franchise will be run by FirstGroup in conjunction with MTR (Hong Kong metro). Whether this means that we will bow to customers now remains to be seen but on paper a lot of improvements are coming our way and in particular a new fleet of trains and the class 442s being refurbish to "as new". It also appears that we will be known as London & South Western Railway and a very early draft of the logo would suggest a red and cream colour scheme but this is VERY early days.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3AS5pGt48nnbUJ%3Awww.firstgroupplc.com%2Fabout-firstgroup%2Fuk-rail%2Fsouth-western-information-for-employees.aspx+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
A look here is the public site that we were given a link to to give an idea of what is to come.
Anyway that is it for now. I hope that I can find things interesting to write about. I should be learning 707s later in the year although that could all be about to change and also Waterloo is scheduled for a huge rebuild, more about that later.
Good night and welcome back!
In the last few years things have changed for me. I was as you may know at Fratton Depot with South West Trains. Well I am still with the company but I have transferred to another depot as the work
content at Fratton was getting very samey.
So what does that mean for me? Well since November I have been learning new routes and also new types of train. I am no longer stuck with just Desiro class trains bounding up and down the Portsmouth Direct. I am still training at the moment and I'll write a bit more at a more sociable hour but I hope to be back and updating you all with what is happening the in the world.
The biggest news I would imagine is that I am shortly to be employed by another company! No I haven't applied for a new job, but the Government announced recently that the new South Western Franchise will be run by FirstGroup in conjunction with MTR (Hong Kong metro). Whether this means that we will bow to customers now remains to be seen but on paper a lot of improvements are coming our way and in particular a new fleet of trains and the class 442s being refurbish to "as new". It also appears that we will be known as London & South Western Railway and a very early draft of the logo would suggest a red and cream colour scheme but this is VERY early days.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3AS5pGt48nnbUJ%3Awww.firstgroupplc.com%2Fabout-firstgroup%2Fuk-rail%2Fsouth-western-information-for-employees.aspx+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
A look here is the public site that we were given a link to to give an idea of what is to come.
Anyway that is it for now. I hope that I can find things interesting to write about. I should be learning 707s later in the year although that could all be about to change and also Waterloo is scheduled for a huge rebuild, more about that later.
Good night and welcome back!
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