Should train drivers be paid nearly £100k?

I FEEL only disgust at rail company Avanti West Coast and the Government if they approved the latest pay settlement for train drivers. No wonder the drivers’ union ASLEF accepted the offer instantly.

To agree to pay already well-remunerated workers on a four-day week the equivalent of almost the average weekly wage in Britain for just one extra shift, with no ending of antiquated working practices that go back to the days of steam, is an insult to the rest of the country.

Given that train operators have refused to implement the newly granted powers of minimum service levels, we can hardly expect to see value for the ever-increasing taxpayer funding of the railways. The union bullies will simply be emboldened by this agreement and continue holding us to ransom.

MARTIN HOWES, telford, Salop. HOW can the government agree to pay train drivers nearly £100,000 a year when they are simultaneously arguing with doctors asking for a well-earned raise? Doctors save lives, having spent years in training. Yet they feel they have to work abroad to get a decent wage and lifestyle, when a train driver gets a huge salary and extra pay as overtime simply for sitting in a cab.

SHARON MATTHEWS, Gloucester. CAN someone explain why there is a shortage of train drivers to do such a simple job for ridiculously high wages? Now we learn that Avanti drivers will be paid £600 for an extra shift.

Are operators frightened to hire more drivers because those who were on strike will then demand that lost overtime payments be added to their basic four-day-week wage?

B. BOND, St neots, Cambs. IT IS misleading for media outlets to use the figure of £60,000 for the average train driver’s salary.

I am in my 24th year at Southeastern trains, all spent as a driver. our salary (available to view online) is £54,575 a year; and despite the cost of living skyrocketing, we have had no pay increase for five years.