Welcome to the Melbourne Community Daily Discussion Thread.

  • Baku
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    1 year ago

    It’s 2am, I should be sleeping, and all I can think about is how absolutely awesome it would be to drive or work on one of the super long distance trains, like the ones across the nullabor or up north. I mean, probably not that awesome for most normal people, but I love trains, love being in the middle of nowhere, and hate people. Going on a 40 hour train ride through actual nowhere is genuinely a dream

    • Rusty Raven M
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      1 year ago

      It sounds like being a train driver would be a job choice for you. Not sure if you need to be qualified to drive metro trains before you can get to do the long distance ones (given they also run in towns). But you’d probably enjoy metro trains as well - even though there are a lot of people on the trains you don’t interact with them as a driver, the only interaction is putting out the wheelchair ramp as needed. Downside is hitting the occassional person which can be stressful.

      • Baku
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I thought about that and used to really want to (although I was leaning slightly more towards vline than metro). But train driver positions usually draw a lot of applicants, and out of those they accept almost none

        • Rusty Raven M
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          Don’t count it out because of statistics. If you have the right qualities for the job one of the people they do accept could very well be you.

          Obviously having other options as well is important, but I know a lot of people who have gotten those sorts of competetive jobs. It never hurts to try.

        • NathA
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Maybe look into WA then? I’ve seen driver ads more than once - possibly not a popular choice here.

          • Baku
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Certainly a possibility!

    • mysticgreg
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’ve thought EXACTLY the same.

      I’ve gone down the occasional rabbit hole of watching YouTube videos of this kind of thing, and I think there may have been a TV series a few years back following drivers and crews of different trains around the country, these Nullarbor ones included. Plus the whole Ghan slow-travel thing on SBS too.

      • Baku
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, I was up watching videos of the really long freight trains last night until 2:30