Who is (or has been) the Best TOC to Work For.

[D854_Tiger]

Just out of interest - honest.

[Rugd1022]

We have to be very careful what we say about TOCs / employers, there are lots of managers who look in here quite regularly so if the topic drifts into 'worst to work for' it could land someone in hot water! 

Edited November 27, 2017 by Rugd1022

[The Stationmaster]

The one I used to work for was pretty good and I had a nice office which actually overlooked our trains - but in many respects it was fairly BR-like.  And it had the big advantage offering the better (to you) of either its own or the final BR redundancy payment calculation with the only downside being that the number of years service was capped at 32 if you used the BR calculation (but it still gave more money than doing it the other way ).

[PM47079]

For me Freightliner. Freight has its ups and downs as do most industries, but I have always had their support and that means a lot.

[big jim]

Chiltern was the best TOC for me, nice variety in units, loco hauled, london underground routes etc

 

freight wise the short time I was with fastline was enjoyable, where I am now has a lot more variety compared to when I started here nearly 5 years ago now, it was still very much a fledgling FOC back then with a few flows and ad hoc work and I’ve watched it grow into a far bigger beast in that time with regular flows, New locos, new challenges etc, I do have some ‘erratic’ hours and lots of van driving but not once have I thought of jacking it in and heading back to the steady world of passenger trains despite having a few down days when stuff has got on top of me

[Mike Storey]

I worked for GNER in its early days, and it was a great place to be, primarily because they were looking at how to grow the business and not how to save pennies every five minutes, which is mainly what we had been used to, for my twenty previous years in BR. We had to change our mindsets and that proved difficult at first. Although, ironically, most of their improvements (except their iconic branding) came from work we had already done in preparing for a possible management bid for the franchise!

[Zomboid]

Chiltern was the best TOC for me, nice variety in units, loco hauled, london underground routes etc

My least favourite as they're the only TOC to decline the opportunity to employ me. After that I decided not to pursue a career in the TOCs...

[cb900f]

BR

 

Pete

[101]

BR

 

Pete

 

Yes definitely BR, but apart from that for me RES was head and shoulders above what followed, everyone seemed to be working together and trying to make it work - shame EWS threw it all away

[cb900f]

Yes definitely BR, but apart from that for me RES was head and shoulders above what followed, everyone seemed to be working together and trying to make it work - shame EWS threw it all away

Something that EWS could never be accused of doing.

 

Pete

[beast66606]

With no personal experience but from discussions with staff and customers - Wrexham and Shropshire were very good to both their staff and customers. When the last train arrived at Wrexham there were lots of tears from all parties.

[Oldddudders]

After some years at BRB, including being on the BRIS Privatisation team, I felt like a fish out of water in a TOC. The 1994 separation of infrastructure and trains meant we only seemed to do half the job. After all, my last experience of actually running the railway was as Operating Assistant to the South Eastern Division, rather more than a decade earlier. Initially I was a consultant to Silverlink, but I jumped ship from my employer, where the privatisation had not ended up as the MBO team expected, and became an employee. Silverlink paid less, but I earned more! As with most of my career, I felt well looked-after, and when owners National Express tightened their belts post-Hatfield I got a new job working for a delightful man. I ended my 38 years as a part-timer on the fringes of the KX project.

 

Without a doubt the BR esprit de corps has long gone, but the infuriating strictures of stop-go financing have gone, too. Swings and roundabouts, really.

[Guest]

Connex SouthCentral.

 

Joking... ugh.

[w124bob]

In my final 14 years before I took early retirement I worked for XC, certainly not the most dynamic, but from a drivers perspective a reasonable working relationship. Prior to that I was at Manchester Victoria and was on the company council at the time of privatisation, the franchise went to a GW management buyout who were ok but sold to First Group within 18 months(on that I will say no more).

[The Johnster]

British Rail, who by anyone's definition were a TOC, were by a handsome margin the best employers of any sort I ever had.  There was a sort of Officers and Men culture perhaps dating back to the very early days of railways, with me on the 'Men' side of the divide, which meant that if you messed up, your boss would rightly give you hell for it, then carry the can for you because he felt responsible, and that was why he earned more than you, a situation I have never encountered in the same way anywhere else and which encouraged staff loyalty in a way that many less enlightened employers would envy.  

 

We were trusted and left to get on with the job unsupervised, a trust I believe we very largely repaid, again a situation which seems unheard of in modern industry. 

Edited November 29, 2017 by The Johnster

[caradoc]

In my 38 year railway career (1978-2016), BR was the only employer to do away with my job, serve a redundancy notice on me, and eventually move me to a job and location I would never have chosen myself, forcing me to move house. And in 1994, when my then role was to be split between Railtrack and TOC, I was asked which I wanted to work for - I chose the TOC but ended up in Railtrack ! (for reasons I never established).

 

Having said that, I do not regret how things worked out in the long term; One benefit of working for Railtrack/Network Rail was that it became the only part of the rail industry to cover the whole of the UK, thereby providing great opportunities for staff to move around and advance themselves.