Redundancy/ what next.?

[millemille]

Railway is a good place to be, rolling stock maintenance can be a good number and they take a lot of contract staff so you can keep your flexibility....

I'm afraid you couldn't be more wrong. I'm 28 years in the railway industry, in rolling stock manufacture/maintenance/operation and I'm now the Engineering Director of a tier 1 safety system and services supplier.

The railway industry is on its arse and will be for a good couple of years at least. All of the franchises have been taken from the operators and all are now operating under Emergency Management Agreements (EMA's) - concessionary management contracts - where the government is paying a flat fee for the operators to run the railway and the treasury is picking up the tab for all the operating costs. This fee is around 2% of turnover - which was the average gross profit margin of a TOC before covid.

Right now the operators are running about 85% of the trains they were running pre-covid, so nigh on normal operating costs, but with only 10% of the passengers, and hence income. The government is funding the shortfall to the tune of millions of pounds per day. This is why Boris is urging people to get back to work, against the advice of SAGE, because the treasury doesn't have the collateral to keep up this level of subsidy indefinitely.

The EMA's were for a 6 month period initially and are due to be reviewed in September. The railway industry has no frame of reference as how long it will take for passenger numbers to recover and to what level they will recover to, the closest we have is post Hatfield and 2009. It took 2 years for numbers to recover in both cases but no-one knows how much impact home working is going to have on passenger numbers.

Given that the Williams Review has been open in its position that franchises should go and be replaced with concessions it seems unlikely that the EMA's are going anywhere for the foreseeable. If the government did return the franchises every single operator would hand the keys back and chaos would ensue.

With the government funding keeping the railway running we can expect a significantly reduced timetable with probably a 1/4 of the services that there are now to drive the cost out. That means fewer drivers, fewer operational people, fewer maintenance staff and so on...

We are working with several industry groups on nation wide rolling stock engineering projects that are seeking central government funding on the basis of the jobs they will secure and create in the wider economy to satisfy Boris's desire for "shovel ready" projects.

But the rail industry is not a good place to be right now and definitely not the industry to be joining.

I'm Railway too - joined in 1987, we have spoken before and have mutual friends in the industry.

What I was suggesting is something along the lines of a rolling stock maintainer role, plenty of roles in that side of the business. I work in the consulting game, so yes things are changing there, but there is still a massive push for the current projects to be completed. I'm currently involved in the new fleet introduction for Greater Anglia/Rock Rail and we've pushed ahead through the whole COVID headache.

Yes, many projects will be caped but the ongoing maintenance will be unaffected - the industry is still crucifying out for ex-forces techs, along with those with suitable automotive/heavy engineering backgrounds.

Rolling stock maintainers are, I fear, going to be amongst the first to go.

If the trains aren't running the miles, because the timetable's been cut right back (talk is we'll move to a Swiss style "Clock face" service with massive padding in running times to improve punctuality), then the trains don't need the maintenance. And if the maintenance isn't being done you don't need the maintainers.

I'm all for advocating the rail industry as an industry to work in - I have done for years - but right now I don't think it's the right thing to be doing. There may be hot-spots of local buoyancy - we're seeing a marked difference between a few TOC customers and the majoirty in terms of the heavy maintenance they're doing and I'm sure new fleet introduction like yours is generating demand for manpower - but overall we're in for a tough time over the next few years.

[rodbargee]

I didn't mean to be overly negative, the HMRC made life difficult for us by banning companies that we might work for from paying us as sole traders, Our job title wasn't on the list, so we all went LTD company because that was the only way we could get paid. then the HMRC started on the high earning news readers who were effectivly employed full time by the BEEB BUT WERE CLAIMING FREELANCE STATUS with the corresponding tax breaks. This never applied to us as we may work for thirty or forty production companies a year so we were never employed by the same employer time and again. this is still undergoing change as HMRC are trying still to regard us as PAYE except we get no sick pay or holiday entitlement or any other of the benefits that full time employees get(or furlough). They have banned the BBC employing us unless we pay, PAYE EMERGENCY TAX which makes working for them uneconomic for a day here and there. having got that whinge over and done with we're all in the main fine though all earning less than we did when in a full time job back in the day, but I now like being able to pick and choose who I work for. Having said that it dried up completely post corona as no ones shot anything for Months, eventually it will come back, but I may have to pack in freelancing as funds will eventually run out.
Im not starving though

[Horse]

I didn't mean to be overly negative

Sorry - I didn't mean it it like that! More that it's a pisser of an experience to go through and, like you, it worked out well for me.

[MrLongbeard]

Get a counterbalance or reach forklift license, easy money sat on your arse.

[Mussels]

If I had just been made redundant then I would keep an eye on this.
BBC News - 'Fix your bike' vouchers launch, as doctors to prescribe bikes on NHS
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53558629

Servicing push bikes is pretty simple but I do have experience and most of the tools I'd need, if you have some interest this may be worth a punt without investing a lot of money but it will be a lot of hours working to get it up and running

[Buckaroo]

Get yourself an HGV license, you can have a stress free life of eating Yorkies and driving

..and murdering prostitutes.

And taking a dump in the parking layby. Leaving bottles of driver tizer....... the freedom of the road.

[MrLongbeard]

That's what my BIL did years ago when construction was on another downturn (he was a brickie),

S'what I did, albeit 20+ years ago.
Got a temp job at GEC and ended up staying there for 2 - 3 years until something I fancied came along

[Docca]

Onlyfan?

Teaching assistant at a college in a spannering class?

healthcare?

[weeksy]

If I had just been made redundant then I would keep an eye on this.
BBC News - 'Fix your bike' vouchers launch, as doctors to prescribe bikes on NHS
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53558629

Servicing push bikes is pretty simple but I do have experience and most of the tools I'd need, if you have some interest this may be worth a punt without investing a lot of money but it will be a lot of hours working to get it up and running

I'd happily do it... but it's one of them tricky jobs where time and money can play a massive factor for customers, e.g on a bike they paid £60 for on ebay are they happy spending £120 when you tell them XYZ is broken. Then things like siezed bottom brackets, nuts and bolts rusted .... Mmmm

[Tomcat]

Not a problem if you have a few hundred grand tucked away

Best throwaway I've heard here

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Isn't it normal to have £100K in savings when you're in your 50s?

[Horse]

Isn't it normal to have £100K in savings when you're in your 50s?

£98k if you bought that lovely little bike you were thinking about

[Yorick]

Isn't it normal to have £100K in savings when you're in your 50s?

I'd put that as a minimum.

[Yorick]

I was made redundant at 54 with a years salary. I was happy as we were moving here the next year, so just did lots of track day instructing.

If I hadn't been coming here, I'm not sure what I'd have done. We had property rental income, but I may have had to do some work to keep up the lifestyle and pay off the mortgage. Glad we were coming here.

[weeksy]

Isn't it normal to have £100K in savings when you're in your 50s?

I'd put that as a minimum.

£99,500 left to find in 18 months. Hmmm.

[MrLongbeard]

Isn't it normal to have £100K in savings when you're in your 50s?

I'd put that as a minimum.

£99,500 left to find in 18 months. Hmmm.

I was panicking there for a minute, but I've got 3 years to get it done, unless I include the wife, then we're boned.

[weeksy]

I'd put that as a minimum.

£99,500 left to find in 18 months. Hmmm.

I was panicking there for a minute, but I've got 3 years to get it done, unless I include the wife, then we're boned.

If i can get away with hiding her under the patio it will be £250k so i'll make it

Where's that shovel gone ?

[Dodgy69]

I'm of an age where I'm not as worried as i would of been 20 years ago. I'm 54 in November. My lads 21 , wife works part time. We owe nothing.

We get statutory +50% then there's years post 41. I'm too young to do nothing. Been furloughed since March 16 and you do get to a stage where you need some purpose in your life. So a stress free day job would do me fine.

It's been a very strange year for many folk and there will be many in a worse situation than me. I heard last week, one or two from work were in tears when they got their news, many with mortgages still to pay.

I've been scanning indeed etc and what is very apparent is the pay is poor in many sectors. Hgv class 2 £9.50 hr. Class 1 £12 if your lucky. Some jobs advertise, plenty of hours available. Think there more suited to folk with no 'real home' to live in, maybe for overseas worker's who's primary aim is to earn money whatever the hours.

I've concluded that I've been in an employment bubble for 26 years on pretty decent money, It's paid for the house and bringing up a child, so I've done OK. Life's gonna get hard for many over the coming months. I think, because of my age, I've just got away with it, but for younger families, it will be a very difficult period.

Happy days... and its raining in Whitby.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Much as I'd like to be all smug about having lots of savings, I suspect it's going to get eaten up by my children going to college, I'm trying to convince them that a degree form Suffolk University is as good as one from Oxford or Cambridge, but they're having none of this (and neither is my wife) so our £100K savings will go on their living expenses while they do degrees - tbh I'd rather give them a good start in life without a massive debt than have a few toys I don't need.

[Bigjawa]

Hgv class 2 £9.50 hr. Class 1 £12 if your lucky.

Last HGV job I did only paid you for driving time and a bit of time for getting loaded.

In reality it was a 12 hour day and at the end of the week I took home £257.

Last week, on the buses, I took home £421, the week before I had some overtime and it was over £500.

Haulage companies pay absolutely shite money, their latest trick is to lease fancy Scania artics, write off what they can through tax, then pay kids straight out of their test minimum wage who are wanting the dream of a V8 and their "Cowboys Don't Care" LED thing over the bunk, when the reality is, they're away for weeks at a time and barely have enough money to eat, let alone save.

There's going to be a driver shortage because all the old hands are packing it in and when the number of foreign drivers falls, there won't be enough to make up the difference. It really is a shite job.