Shunting Apprenticeship
 

Hey all, just joined this forum and its really good. Im not sure if i posted in the right section but here goes. I have reacently turned 18 and have always wanted to work railway freight, but i am struggling to find an opening to get me going. The only lead i have got is on an apprenticeships website which has a post about railway shunting as an apprenticeship but i cannot find anymore on the matter. so I was wondering if anyone could help me out with any information and if possible any information on other jobs i could possibly apply for in a rail freight yard. I live in wolverhampton and the nearest freight depot near me is bescot rail thanks

Enquire directly with the depot as to any openings. You should be able to obtain the address and contact details of someone relevent from your local Yellow Pages, the website of the railway company who runs the dept, JobCentre Plus etc.

Welcome to the Forum ETH4N123. Hope you manage to find some leads.

Best wishes,

John H-T.

Hello ETH4N123 and welcome to the Railway Forum. Good luck with your search.

Hi ETH4N123 hope you enjoy the forum, have you thought of joining Network Rail as they are always looking for staff. An it would be a foot in the door for other jobs on the railway as well????. Anyway all the best with the job hunting.

Hi mate. As I'm sure you're aware there's a recession on, so there aren't (m)any openings at the moment. However this won't last forever. When the fog starts to clear you could try the following FOCs....

GB Railfreight do an apprenticeship scheme. Apprentice Train Manager is a posh name for a yard dogsbody, but it can lead on to training as a driver.
See this link....http://www.gbrailfreight.com/the-fir...p-scheme/p_30/

Freightliner took on its first trainees only a year or two ago. They regularly advertise for yard operatives, in fact they are at the moment. See their main page here...http://www.freightliner.co.uk/default.aspx?PageID=203

Also DRS took newbies off the street for the first time recently.See this URL...http://www.directrailservices.com/Co...tion.aspx?id=2

Don't be shy about this. Ring them up, chat to their Recruitment people and show them that you're interested. You can be pretty sure that the answer will be a firm 'no thanks' at the moment, but if you can get them to keep your name on file it's a start. Also you will stand a much better chance of landing a job if you're prepared to move round the country. If you wait for one to come to you it may never happen.

Rather than sitting around doing nothing, you could try volunteering at your nearest preserved railway. It will give you an insight into the work and technology involved.

Remember also that statistically it's miles easier getting into passenger operations than freight, and you can always cross over when you've got some experience.

...oh and Good Luck. It's a long hard road getting into today's railway, but most people who do are glad they persevered.

FP

At the moment there's a freeze on job wise at Networkrail,and they are looking at job losses at the moment :mad:

All the best, Ian at the moment working for Network Rail