UK Train drivers overwhelmingly middle-aged white men

The average train driver is 46 years old, male and white, according to new data compiled by an industry body.

The National Skills Academy for Rail (NSAR) figures show that only one in ten drivers are non-white, with even fewer being women.

The rail industry has long recognised itself as being one of the least diverse employment sectors.

Southern Railway said it is trying to enable a wider range of people to apply for jobs.

Donna Pryce is an apprentice driver at the company, on a training course at Selhurst Depot near Croydon.

"It was my experience, growing up, that all the drivers were fifty-plus, white men," she said.

"But lately I am seeing a lot more diversity. More younger people, black people, women. I'm here for it, I love it!"

22-year-old George Browning, from Portsmouth, is Southern's youngest trainee driver.

He said: "It has been a dream goal for me since I was a little boy. The median age of train drivers is quite high, so I definitely feel like one of the young ones. Age doesn't matter, but I'm proud to achieve that at a young age."

Zoey Hudson, head of talent, diversity and inclusion at Southern railway, said recruitment methods had changed to enable a wider range of people to apply for jobs.

"It's really important that we have diversity of thinking within the railway, which is as important as diversity of ethnicity," she said.

"It freshens us as an organisation, it brings creativity, so that we get different people enriching the working environment for the railway of the future. Ultimately, the railway will look and feel different, and that will make a more successful business."

But train drivers remain overwhelmingly male, and overwhelmingly white.

Fewer than one in ten drivers are women: 91.5% are men, 8.5% are women, up from 6% two years ago.

More than nine in ten drivers are white: 90.8%, with 9.2% coming from other ethnicities.

NSAR also compiled statistics for drivers under the age of 40. It found the proportion of female drivers is significantly higher for this younger group, at 14%. The proportion of non-white drivers is higher too, also at 14%.

NSAR told the BBC: "Indicators are heading in the right direction, often as a result of government action to improve the deployment of apprenticeships for new train drivers.

"Average age is decreasing, gender balance increasing."

NSAR's data does not include services run by Transport for London.

It said that Elizabeth Line and Overground services, run by MTR and Arriva respectively, show greater diversity - with two in three Elizabeth Line drivers under 45 years old, and one in three non-white.

On Overground services, more than half of all drivers are from non-white backgrounds. But on both operators, nine in ten drivers are male.

BBC News
Archive [April 30 2024]

 

[indomitable snowman]

Lmao trains have been too safe, on-time, and boring for too long, it's time to shake things up! We must replicate the DEI success that the airlines have been experiencing, and really make travel more exciting and culturally enriched!

East Palestine chemical spills coming to a town near you!

 

[KiwiFuzz2]

A couple years ago I looked up what it takes to operate a train and you have to be able to comfortably lift 50 lbs.

That takes a lot of women out of the running.

 

[The Last Stand]

Me. Actually, Russian women in general. Unfortunately I was born too early. Russian women never stopped burning their savings to sue for the right to drive trains and all of them failed, until Putin's 2019 (I think) order lifted the ban. Glory to Vladimir Vladimirovich, our father and protector.

Then apply to be a train driver.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I'm amazed at their capacity to see problems where there are none in the most obscure of places.

That's the "political correctness" (and later SJW) "ideology" core: make up endless new problems where there were none before.

It's how relatively sane mainstream "political correctness" of the '90s evolved to insane "identity politics" of Current Year.

 

[Kel1 shi1]

That takes a lot of women out of the running.

Fortunately there is an autistic set of women who fucking love trains!

 

[Procopius]

They're all old because one of the first casualties of privatisation was the training programmes. Why spend huge amounts of money training your own drivers when you can just go headhunting from one of the other dozens of identical companies that the old British Rail was split up in to. Big cost saving, extra profit, bigger bonuses all round. Let your replacement 10 or 20 years down the line worry about what happens when they all retire. That's why they're all stupidly overpaid yet it's impossible for anyone else to get in on the job.

 

[CaptainAutism69]

Who else is into trains?

Your momma loves them

 

[anklyscr]

We need more diversity in sanitation and electrical linesman.

I’d just like to earn ten grand a month flashing my arse on only fans.

 

[JohnnyG]

I'm impressed that they had to discard multiple other services to arrive at this figure including one with greater than 50% non-white drivers.

Been a while since you've had to use the train regularly I'm guessing?

Whatever you think of the current levels of service, reliability, and safety, which direction do you expect it to go once they mandate the removal of any standards to accommodate Womyn of Calories?

And lest you think this is an exaggeration, New York is paying millions to individuals who cannot form sentences, because 20+ years ago they repeatedly failed basic literacy and education tests to become teachers. So once the decision is made that X industry/company desperately requires duhbersity, there is no standard that won't be obliterated in the name of achieving it.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

Your momma loves them

Even after she got thrown from one?

 

[Spud]

Even after she got thrown from one?

Now who would throw a women from a train?

 

[The Dude]

"We have too many experienced, highly skilled men who are native to England operating trains in England. How do we fuck that up?"

That's what I get from this.

 

[Sexy Senior Citizen]

Your momma loves them

Your momma's nickname is "The Train."

Because every man in the county has ridden her.

Memes aside, what does this even mean? How does one’s personal perspective affect one’s ability to drive the train? How is creativity necessary? There aren’t multiple ways to approach this job. You just drive the fucking train.

Well, an unimaginative person would slow the train down before taking a curve. It takes a unique, niggerly imagination to floor it and hit the curve at full speed.

 

[eg. John Smith]

after they replace the workers and nuke the pay average theyll say white people didnt want to work and its a good thing. cant wait for the full amtrak experience

 

[Racist Trash]

Why don't we have self-driving trains?

We do, in London the docklands light rail is driverless, you can sit right at the front and feel like you're the driver. The problem comes with bigger trains if there is an issue that a driverless train can't conceive or the cost of setting up the advanced singling on a longer line.

 

[Norbert the Tiger]

Train "drivers" or engineers should only be white bc non-whites are categorically not British as the term is properly understood. Women should not work as such because traditional gender roles exist for a reason.

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

The reason for this is simple - Train Drivers in the UK are expected to work there way up as Crew you might join at 18 and then apply for the driver training when your approaching 40 and the training lasts a few years, I think this has been called "Placement Drivers" and are supposedly not as flexible as they are only taught specific lines or even sections of the line or possibly relife Drivers (i.e. end of the shift driver clocks off an the train is driven to another station or a depot), that's something they used to get the trainie drivers to do on there first year or so as a Solo driver.

A Kid I was in school with wanted to be a Driver, his Dad was a Goods Train driver and apart from getting him a interview he still had to do his 15 years working up till he could apply for training and has only recently been driving solo goods trains.

I thought this was about American engineers and conductors. Our level of autism isn't enough to stop frequent wrecks. Hope yours are.

The UK rail network is the oldest in the world and is supposedly the safest but not the most technically advanced, we have safety systems most larger networks don't employ and the Rail network is maintained an constructed mostly by British Rail who was Government owned and one thing they spend serious money on is Track Safety and fault / error detection things like Automated Bridge Strike Detection is getting rolled out now rather than relying on public reports, Fail stop regional signal control, 3rd Rail remote isolation etc.

One thing that helps is our Loading Gauge is narrower than most places, so we don't have wider off centre loads as much as other places and strictly enforced speed an loading limits because we know the track and how loads work at speed on that section better than most other networks, we also have central scheduling and where pioneers on Telemity for trains as far back at the 1920's so we can see if a section is clear before releasing other traffic without having a signal box report or signal a train has passed through.

It's not perfect far from it, but we're really really autistic about Railway safety.

 

[The Dude]

Now who would throw a women from a train?

Danny DeVito and Billy Crystal?

 

[Otterly]

There should be a standard for the job, and the best people who meet or exceed that standard get the job. Regardless of sex or colour or creed.
Anything else is asking for very bad things to happen

 

[FierceBrosnan]

Memes aside, what does this even mean? How does one’s personal perspective affect one’s ability to drive the train? How is creativity necessary? There aren’t multiple ways to approach this job. You just drive the fucking train.

I can think of one way..