Much has been made of the news that RMT members have voted
to accept the pay deal with claims that this brings us a step closer to Night Tube
but it isn’t as close as some people might think. Night Tube will only start once 180 part time
TOps are in place, back in January LU announced that it had over 6000
applications, some of which were existing TfL or LUL employees while the rest were
from the general public.
I’ve not met or heard of a single TOp on the Central Line
who has applied to go part time, if anyone knows a TOp anywhere who has then please let
me know but I think it’s safe to say that there aren’t many. I have been told that some other existing employees
have started the training course while the task of sorting through the
external applications was completed about a month ago and the ones that weren’t
obviously bat-shit crazy or otherwise unsuitable are currently going through
the assessment phase. After the assessments there are the interviews, the medicals and the background checks still to go, if my own experience back in the late 90s is anything to go by it could be another 2-3 months before anyone starts training
Training will take 16 weeks, if it hasn’t
changed in the last 12 years the first four weeks are classroom based but due
to the lack of trainers and limited space they can probably only take 20 at a
time. The next four weeks will be line
specific stock training but the last eight weeks is on a one-to-one basis out
on the “road” with an IOp and there are only a limited number of them per line. I think the Central has less than 20 and obviously
not all of those will be available at any given time.
At a rough guess I don’t think we will be seeing Night
Tube until the late autumn, maybe even winter but there is no guarantee that out of
all those applications there are 180 candidates who can actually get
all the way to the final Road Test. As I’ve
mentioned before when LU last advertised externally for TOps – full time rather
than part time – they got far more applications and only about 30 candidates
eventually passed out as drivers.
This is why I suspect LU haven’t said much about
the news from RMT, they simply don’t know when or even if Night Tube is going to
happen.
I've never seen such a large disconnect between the picture painted by management and how it is on the ground. Pat Hansberry paints this weird vision where everyone is enthused and customer focused and giddy over the love of their new Ipad. Whereas all I meet all day every day is annoyed staff, who've had their rosters screwed with, essentially got a massive promotion in terms of responsibility but no extra money and now have to commute halfway across London. Night tube is just the same, a massive disconnect between reality and their vision.
ReplyDeleteAnd what imbecile decided it was a good idea to print all the maps, put up all the posters and have that livery wrapped train all finished before you even had a start date? it makes staff look like absolute cretins
No, it makes management look like cretins...
DeleteYeah but we're the ones that have to face the public whilst standing in front of a great big tube map that has "Night Tube available" and a poxy owl on the bottom of it.
DeleteIt's funny as well our new area manager keeps sending round e-mails asking for volunteers to be 'Champion' for this or to 'own' the such and such project. No one ever volunteers so it just doesn't get done.
I'm an external applicant who is going though assessments currently. I'm booked in for the stage 1 tests on Saturday. In my case personally I'd need 2 months notice to start training anyway, as that's my notice period for current job(IT)
ReplyDeleteGood luck, mate (and join a union at the first opportunity)
DeleteThank you. Have now finished the tests and not as bad as I was expecting. Hoping I've done enough to pass, was told I'd hear back within 10 days.
DeleteHow does union membership work? This may sound like a very stupid question, but I'm currently in a non unionised job. Do new TOp trainees get a talk from ASLEF or something?
They used to allow reps to chat to the trainees, not sure if they still do. If not check the union notice board at whichever depot you are sent to, that will have contact details for your local rep who can sort you out. Or you can download the application form online
Deletehttp://www.aslef.org.uk/information/113309/113328/how_to_join/
Fingers crossed, mate
Thank you very much. I've just received my AC2 invitation. So now need to spend all week practising for the interview.
DeleteThis may seem silly to ask, but would anybody actually recommend being a train driver?
Delete(I got AC2 also, but I'm fully employed as a web admin)
Does anyone actually recommend being a tube driver?
DeleteI suppose it depends what you want from a job, if you can deal with the shift work, working weekends and bank holidays, if you can handle the isolation of being shut away in a small box on your own for most of your working day and if you can stay focused on your job despite the tedium of doing little other than staring at the four rails stretching out in front of you then go for it. For me its perfect, for others must be a nightmare.
DeleteInteresting reading this in conjunction with the Evening Standard story yesterday claiming Night Tube could start as early as May! Needless to say the ES story didn't quote anyone from TFL and in their editorial simply stated, ".......all the indications are that it will and we may see the new service as early as May."
ReplyDeleteCould it be mischief making on behalf of the ES (god forbid!) or that your facts are somehow incorrect? I know where my money would be!
I expect there will be every bit of pressure put on LUL by politicians to start the night tube before the mayoral election in May.
ReplyDeleteShall I recap for you, Night Tube will need 180 fully trained part time drivers, at the moment they're still assessing the applicants, they've got to go through an interview, a medical assessment and a criminal background check before they start the 16 week training course. The Mayoral elections are less than 9 weeks away so unless the politicians have a TARDIS they've got two hopes and one of them is Bob.
DeleteThe only way they could save a just a bit of time on the training is on the road training in that you would not having to learn for example on the Central the West Ruislip road or at the other end the Loughton-Epping and Woodford-Hainault (no night tube on these sections) I assume that if train has gone defective on the West that it will be stabled in White City sidings, until a day time Driver can take it to West Ruislip if needed. I think it will start after the carnival in early September.
DeleteTfL’s advert for the part time TOps stated a 16 week full time training course, if the first batch of 20 or so DROps started training the first week of May they’d finish their 16 weeks training the week ending Saturday 20 August. If they’ve got enough trainers then maybe they can start another batch every two weeks, if only half are coming off the streets they would have finished their training by the middle of October although I suspect that more than half will be DROps
DeleteThe first batch of internal train ops are due to finish the first 3 weeks at Ashfield house today. A high(ish) proportion of fixed term csas and night tube csas and a splatter of part time csas it would seem.
ReplyDeleteMain training focus at the moment is getting all the shiny new supervisors for the shiny new world ready - training seems to be at various locations to get enough staff ready in time and then the process of training all those left in the limbo of "pool" during the last recruitment drive.
Maybe this "autumn " for night tube if it does not get kicked into the long grass by the new mayor (budgetary or safety concerns being cited). From all the issues out on the "vanguard" stations Lu need to worry about stations being open during the day never mind at 3 in the morning.
I am in this 'waiting pool' for CSS1 and do wonder how long it will take, considering friends have been on the TOp waiting list for over a year. Will be going PT so can't come soon enough!
ReplyDeleteNick Ferrari reckons it takes all morning to train a tube driver to full competency.
ReplyDeleteIs it really as long as that or is he pulling our legs ?
I think he's confusing train operator with radio presenter, that takes 5 minutes tops. Both jobs involve sitting in a small space but unlike a train operator Ferrari only works 3 hours a day and if he didn't turn up it wouldn't inconvenience anybody.
DeleteIt's widely percieved that your job is unskilled and easy. 99% of people think so.
DeleteI was unaware there had been any survey asking people how easy they thought driving a train was but as 99% people have no idea what our job entails then they are speaking from a position of ignorance. I suppose we'll get an idea of how easy and unskilled our job is when we see how many of those 6000 plus applicants for the part-time train operators job successfully complete the training course.
DeleteIt widely perceived by Daily Mail and Sun readers that the Train Operator job is easy to do. Really they have no idea. Although I don't think I could learn to do a radio presenters job in 5 minutes, Scott Mills,Steve Wright or Nick Ferrai I am not going to be as good as them, in 5 minutes for sure.
Delete