Scotland’s Train Driver Shortage Explained

Amina Ibrar is projected to commence driving trains professionally between Edinburgh and Glasgow by next May, assuming her training progresses as planned. She is currently seven months into her ScotRail train driver training program, having previously served for five years as a ticket examiner for the state-owned rail company. Ibrar commented, “It’s harder than everybody outside of the railway thinks it is, knowing what to do when things go wrong is the most challenging bit.” She added, “I’d never experienced being in the front cab. When I first went in it was strange having that view of the track and everything surrounding it. It was scary but I love it now.” Amina is among the 160 trainee drivers ScotRail is recruiting this year, and she is expected to earn over £50,000 annually mere months after certification. This remuneration significantly exceeds the national average; however, a scarcity of qualified train drivers persists in Scotland and throughout the UK. Similar to a substantial portion of the rail sector, ScotRail has lacked sufficient drivers to operate its services for several years. Consequently, it depends on current drivers undertaking overtime and working on designated rest days – receiving £525 per instance for these shifts – to maintain service continuity. A service sustained primarily by voluntary efforts eventually encountered difficulties, and in July, a disagreement over pay led numerous drivers to decline overtime or Sunday shifts, with Sundays not presently included in the standard ScotRail working week. Due to an insufficient number of drivers, Scotland’s train operator implemented an emergency timetable, resulting in significantly curtailed services across extensive areas of the country during the peak summer period. This situation continued until October, at which point the pay dispute concluded, and regular timetables were reinstated, accompanied by an increase in ScotRail ticket prices. ScotRail asserts it is conducting the UK’s most extensive driver recruitment drive, with Amina being one of 112 trainees hired since April, and an additional 48 expected to join by the close of March next year. Nevertheless, the rail operator continues to confront a substantial hurdle in decreasing its dependence on overtime work. The reason for this is that almost record numbers of its current drivers are departing, either for alternative employment or retirement; nearly a third of ScotRail’s drivers are aged 55 or older. A further practical difficulty for ScotRail involves the training process itself, as articulated by Mark Ilderton, the operator’s service delivery director: “Driving a train is a highly skilled job and the training process can take up to two years, with time spent in the classroom and on train.” He elaborated, “There is a limit to how many trainees we can have out gaining practical handling experience at any one time.” He concluded, “So it’s not a case of being able to say let’s bring in 300 trainees and we’ll be able to put them all out on the network learning to become drivers at once. Operationally that just wouldn’t be possible.” A supplementary aspect of the training challenge stems from ScotRail’s drivers acquiring proficiency on particular routes. Consequently, Amina, whose base is the Edinburgh depot, is primarily mastering routes in the eastern part of the country and would be unable, for instance, to transition to operating trains on the west coast without undergoing additional training. ScotRail instructor Colin Morison clarified: “Driving a train is not like driving a car.“We sometimes can take a mile to stop when we’re going full speed at a station so we have to know each route inside and out; every turn, every bend, every signal, every set of points, every station.“We have to know everything about the route before we get qualified on it.” ScotRail had previously stated its objective to diminish its dependence on drivers working on their rest days by 2027. This aim was integrated into a 2022 pay dispute resolution, which incorporated a pledge to incorporate Sundays into the standard working week within a five-year timeframe. However, the departure of drivers suggests this will present a difficulty, as indicated by the minutes from ScotRail’s March board meeting. The minutes specify: “Despite the driver training programme being expanded to accommodate 160 trainees each year, the number of leavers mean it will be 18 months before productive driver numbers start to increase to the numbers required to reduce rest day working”. Jim Baxter, an executive council member for Scotland of the rail trade union Aslef, commented that ScotRail is addressing substantial difficulties inherited from decades of private management. He further stated: “We are now seeing the consequences of that neglect: a significant portion of the workforce, having endured years of intense shift work in a demanding environment, are reaching a point in their careers where job share and early retirement are increasingly attractive options.“Additionally, particularly in the central belt, our members have opportunities to move to better-paying roles outside ScotRail, which only adds to the staffing challenges we face.“We recognise that ScotRail has a long-term plan to address these issues, and Aslef remains committed to working closely with them to ensure these challenges are met effectively, for the benefit of both our members and the travelling public.”