Train Driver Life: Amazing Perks and the World’s Best Sunsets
Helen Gander, 40, has been a train driver since 2008. She is one of a growing number of women working in the rail industry and has dedicated much of her time to advocating for more women and neurodiverse people to join the industry. Here she talks about why it’s a dream job for her I moved to London from Warrington, Cheshire, when I was 18 with no job and no real plan except for hanging out with friends and being with a girl I’d met. I had to find something to keep myself afloat, so I applied to do whatever was available: telesales, telemarketing, railways – anything. Thameslink was the first company that gave me an interview and, eventually, a job at St Alban’s station as a train dispatcher. I was the one standing on the platform, blowing the whistle – I loved it. I worked with a great bunch of people. It was a great job and I’ve never looked back. I then became a shunter, which involves helping to move trains in and out of depots, and becoming a train driver after...