on the job

LUCINDA FIFI IS A TRAIN DRIVER.

A while back I was lost and didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I didn’t have any real drives or passions – I was in fashion, but that wasn’t really something I was interested in. I’m obsessed with travelling, so I just wanted a job that allowed me to travel a lot. My boyfriend’s uncle is a train driver, and he was like, “If you don’t know what to do, this job pays really well. You get four weeks off every nine months, and you get five-day weekends every month.” I was like, “That sounds really cool, but as if I’m going to be a train driver!” He told me they were doing a massive push for women because it was a very male-dominated industry, so I thought, “OK, I’ll give it a shot”.

I had to do 10 or 11 months of training. For six months, you’re in a classroom every day learning all the theory. You have to learn rules about signalling (i.e. directing railway traffic) and safe working procedures and route knowledge. Every railway line has different speeds and different rules, and there are three different types of trains, so you need to learn about traction and ‘fault-finding’ – how they work and how to fix them if they stuff up. Then, we spent five months out with a trainer. Now, I’m out on my own.

I work five days a week. In the mornings, the trains all get prepped, so you have to go around and make sure it’s OK to take passengers, and check the safety-critical devices (which keep everyone safe if a particular mechanism fails) are all working. On a typical day, you could drive three different lines, or you could do a prep and then a line, or you could do prep in the afternoon. It really varies and the hours are all different – you could start at 6pm or 8am.

At the start, I was worried I’d just be by myself all day, but I’m coming and going all the time – it’s not like I’m just sitting on a train for eight hours and not interacting. Everyone thinks you just drive one line up and down, up and down, up and down all day, but there’s way more variety than what I thought there’d be. It’s more social than people think. You get to be out and about, even though you’re on the train. I like to have the window open, go past the beach and get the view.

The most stressful thing is when stuff goes wrong, because you’re in charge of a thousand people in peak hour if you’ve got delays, and they want to know what’s going on. And things like signalling issues – there are a lot of procedures you have to get right. As a passenger, though, I still get annoyed! When I’m on the other side, I’m exactly like I used to be. If I’m at a level crossing in a car, I’m like, “Oh my god, they’re taking so long.”

When I tell people I’m a train driver, they’re shocked. Sometimes I get stares. Recently, I had a passenger say, “It’s really nice seeing someone like you driving a train.” There are some people who think girls can’t drive trains, like older drivers who’ve been there 40 years. A lot of people wave, especially kids. It’s really fun to wave back at them – they get really excited.

I love the flexibility of this job – it’s a lot of weekend work, but you can swap. Travelling is probably my biggest motivation. I don’t want to live for work; I want to work to live. I don’t think I’ve found my purpose in driving trains, but it’s helped me find a lifestyle that suits me, and I don’t know if there are many other jobs that would allow me to do that.