Women in Irish Rail

foggy_lad

Are there many Women working in Irish Rail outside of those working in offices and selling tickets and cleaners? It occurred to me that i have never in all my travels seen a female driver, ticket checker, RPU agent, flag person, station mistress, porter or even a booking office clerk(except in Connolly and Heuston)!

Are Irish Rail actively promoting equality in their employment policies or do they in any way prevent women from entering trackside jobs for some safety or traditional "railway" reason?

It would appear with so few women working on the railways that it is eother not a good environment for women through bullying etc and any that seek employment and are successful quickly leave for a better life or that it is just a chauvanist male dominated area where women are not permitted to work at all?

Is there anywhere to find figures for the total workforce excluding office and booking office staff and what percentage of these are female?

The_Wrecker

Theres a lady in Dun Laoghaire station, mainly behind the scenes.

corktina

Are you just looking to pick a fight that isnt your business? Hard to see why this would be a bother to you.

positron

Funny you should mention this - I only occasionally use the trains these days, but I thought I saw a female train driver coming out of the drivers cabin couple of weeks ago (on the northern route).

PS: I could be wrong - it could have been a feminine looking man for all I know.

meganj

I travel Maynooth to Grand Canal and now that you mention it OP I've never seen a cashier in Maynooth, at least not in the hours I travel. I've seen female staff at Connolly and one I think at GCD.

I don't think I've ever seen a female train driver :eek:

I'm sure they've a gender equality policy, it's a state body after all. But it's a kind of a 'huh I never noticed' moment.

flyingsnail

foggy_lad wrote: »

Are there many Women working in Irish Rail outside of those working in offices and selling tickets and cleaners? It occurred to me that i have never in all my travels seen a female driver, ticket checker, RPU agent, flag person, station mistress, porter or even a booking office clerk(except in Connolly and Heuston)!

I have seen all of the above, maybe you need to widen your travels.

Judgement Day

flyingsnail wrote: »

I have seen all of the above, maybe you need to widen your travels.

You've seen a porter!!! :eek: Gone for decades AFAIK.

quietriot

Used to travel from Dublin to Cork regularly and definitely saw female staff on the trains.

LXFlyer

There are certainly a few female train drivers and the station managers in Claremorris and Westport are certainly female also.

Some of the train hosts on both the Belfast and Cork routes are female.

But why let the reality get in the way of some long-established prejudices?

bk

I was literally about to post the same as Ixflyer (train host on the Cork train and station manager in Westport).

Genghis

Don't think I have ever seen a male worker at Monasterevin station - it appears to be run by 2 ladies.

AlekSmart

corktina wrote: »

Are you just looking to pick a fight that isnt your business? Hard to see why this would be a bother to you.

Hard for many people,but this is Boards,and therefore the normal rules of engagement do not apply......

There are many things which stimulate peoples juices and Foggy_Lad is a well proven example of somebody who has a very full engagement with all forms of Public Transport,it's passengers,staff and vehicles.

All that being said I would Imagine articles such as these may well have stimulated Foggy's creative cortex to the extent of climbing the highest tree to find examples of despicable conduct....

http://bullybehindyou.blogspot.com/2009/04/news-bullying-and-harassment-rife-in.html

http://www.railusers.ie/forum/showthread.php?p=52267


Apart from that,I suspect Ireland's Public Transport must be operating well today..? :rolleyes:

Jehuty42

positron wrote: »

Funny you should mention this - I only occasionally use the trains these days, but I thought I saw a female train driver coming out of the drivers cabin couple of weeks ago (on the northern route).

PS: I could be wrong - it could have been a feminine looking man for all I know.

No, there's definitely a female driver based out of Connolly, she operated an M3 Parkway service I was on yesterday, and have seen her leaving cabs at Connolly. Fairly sure she's new.

mickydoomsux

foggy_lad wrote: »

Are there many Women working in Irish Rail outside of those working in offices and selling tickets and cleaners? It occurred to me that i have never in all my travels seen a female driver, ticket checker, RPU agent, flag person, station mistress, porter or even a booking office clerk(except in Connolly and Heuston)!

For a start, some of the jobs you listed are done by the same person and there hasn't been a porter in decades. I'm not sure what a "flag person" is.

You also say you only see women working in offices and selling tickets and then go on to say you've never seen a female booking office clerk

Anyway, there are a lot of women working as gate keepers, a lot working backroom clerical, a few drivers, a few station mangers, i know a few women in the signal and electric division doing infrastructure work and most definitely a good few female booking office staff.

I have never see a woman working in the per way gangs though.

Jehuty42

foggy_lad wrote: »

and cleaners?

My perception is that all cleaning is done by contractors staffed by foreign nationals, not IE staff. And they have all been male from what I've seen.

foggy_lad wrote: »

do they in any way prevent women from entering trackside jobs for some safety or traditional "railway" reason?

I suspect the reason is actually a lack of interest in applying to those trackside jobs, similar to the dearth of female firefighters, miners, oil-platform workers, and so on. Only this week a train I was on had an emergency stop to avoid hitting a patrol ganger.

Having said that, I have seen female engineers trackside a couple of times, consulting on planned works. Oh, and if you watch the video125 Dublin Cork Driver Eye View and WRC Driver Eye View, there was a female gatekeeper at Emly and another at Killonan, possibly more, but there were segments specifically filmed for those two crossings.

foggy_lad wrote: »

It would appear with so few women working on the railways that it is eother not a good environment for women through bullying etc

Or alternatively, women just don't have any interest in working on the railways. That's a possibility too, surely?

Ben D Bus

There are a number of female engineers, including at one point a female Chief Civil Engineer.

dublinman1990

I've seen a few female train drivers on the DART before. It is very, very rare to see them I have to say.

foggy_lad

quietriot wrote: »

Used to travel from Dublin to Cork regularly and definitely saw female staff on the trains.

I know there are female train hosts and also lots of female staff working for network catering but my question was more about those working on the more physical side of the jobs including those employed laying and repairing track and engineers working on trains in inchicore, Portlaoise etc

dowlingm

Ben D Bus wrote: »

There are a number of female engineers, including at one point a female Chief Civil Engineer.

How could we have forgotten?
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=65248462
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=66025019

kingshankly

There are female drives both on the dart and on the commuter trains.
Plenty of female staff in connolly as well.

I once saw a female driver in Tralee station, she had just arrived in from Dublin (or Mallow maybe?) on a 201 and was changing ends. I'm also aware of a few female DART drivers.

parsi

So aside from cleaners, guards, ticket checkers, drivers, gatekeepers, booking clerks and engineers are there any women working in Irish Rail ?

juan.kerr

We need to start giving girls trains as Christmas/birthday presents to stimulate their interest in this area.

dublinman1990

parsi wrote: »

So aside from cleaners, guards, ticket checkers, drivers, gatekeepers, booking clerks and engineers are there any women working in Irish Rail ?

What types of other women were you looking for, rather than stated as above?

Is it women who are in the senior management of Irish Rail or women doing contract work from Corporate Communications?



BTW, I also had an experience of being answered by a woman on the phone while I was asking for the price of a train ticket.

parsi

dublinman1990 wrote: »

parsi wrote: »

So aside from cleaners, guards, ticket checkers, drivers, gatekeepers, booking clerks and engineers are there any women working in Irish Rail ?

What types of other women were you looking for, rather than stated as above?

Is it women who are in the senior management of Irish Rail or women doing contract work from Corporate Communications?

What did the Romans ever do for us ?

foggy_lad

dublinman1990 wrote: »

What types of other women were you looking for, rather than stated as above?

Is it women who are in the senior management of Irish Rail or women doing contract work from Corporate Communications?



BTW, I also had an experience of being answered by a woman on the phone while I was asking for the price of a train ticket.

I have only ever seen women working in the booking offices and on the trains as host and have never seen female track staff or station staff/flag women. I have also never seen female ticket checkers/guards or female drivers but I don't use the dart much.

Does anyone know are there figures available for the number of female staff working outside of an office environment in irish rail and how does it compare to other industries?

corktina

parsi wrote: »

What did the Romans ever do for us ?

as it happens, we just watched LOB on dvd this afternoon

L1011

The former station master for all stations from Maynooth to Drumcondra was a woman; I believe she was promoted from that post.

Poxyshamrock

A woman called Bernie often works the Cork train! :P

parsi

corktina wrote: »

parsi wrote: »

What did the Romans ever do for us ?

as it happens, we just watched LOB on dvd this afternoon

A fine film.

Run_to_da_hills

Meanwhile in Dubai.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2093749/Mariam-Al-Safar-Dubai-woman-train-driver-Middle-East.html

Victor

foggy_lad wrote: »

Does anyone know are there figures available for the number of female staff working outside of an office environment in irish rail and how does it compare to other industries?

Transport and construction/engineering are male dominated, but not exclusively male.

I'm not sure if I have seen and female tram drivers, but RPA / Veolia do employ quite a few women in CSOs, general customer service, communications, admin and engineering roles.

dmcronin

foggy_lad wrote: »

I have only ever seen women working in the booking offices and on the trains as host and have never seen female track staff or station staff/flag women. I have also never seen female ticket checkers/guards or female drivers but I don't use the dart much.

Does anyone know are there figures available for the number of female staff working outside of an office environment in irish rail and how does it compare to other industries?

Don't have numbers, but seen or am aware of female drivers/LC keepers (a dying breed these days)/Station Managers/Depotpersons/Engineers/Revenue Protection on IE. As an aside; grades like Porter/Stationmaster/Booking clerk/Guard are rather archaic terms these days, and even Checker is on the way out.
Not aware of any in the physical side of perway but I guess that's down to the heavy manual labour (well, much reduced nowadays with technology) of that job.

ekellyie

I've seen a few female's operating Darts mainly in Connolly

-Corkie-

I have seen a female driver on the Tralee route several times. I also met a female engineer at Buttevant before Xmas where the new bridge was constructed.

909er

First woman to work on Per Way was somewhere near Claremorris, if memory serves me right, in 1990s. First female train driver was a Tralee woman in late 1990s. Quite a few Civil Engineers are female, and at top level.

marko99

There are now two female locomotive drivers in Irish Rail - one drives between Maynooth & Rosslare and the other is based in Cork.

marko99

marko99 wrote: »

There are now two female locomotive drivers in Irish Rail - one drives between Maynooth & Rosslare and the other is based in Cork.

Yep. I was on the 15:15 Tralee to Mallow on Tuesday and it was operated by a female driver. One of the new 2011 ICRs, can't remember which one exactly.

Hilly Bill

marko99 wrote: »

There are now two female locomotive drivers in Irish Rail - one drives between Maynooth & Rosslare and the other is based in Cork.

One drives the dart as well.

ajjmk

There's a female ticket checker on the Dublin Sligo line

spiderman1885

There are plenty of women working in Irish Rail, I worked with 4/5 different female engineers while I was there.

mtjm

Seen a female driver on the dart this morning

Vahevala

I better hurry and create a topic - Men in Irish Rail.. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Get a grip people.

LXFlyer

Perhaps the OP might like to recognise that he was actually wrong about this - this whole thread is really a load of nonsense.

gobnaitolunacy

Vahevala wrote: »

I better hurry and create a topic - Men in Irish Rail.. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Get a grip people.

Or Animals In Irish Rail! The uk have a few...


http://www.purr-n-fur.org.uk/featuring/wk-rail04a.html

bikeman1

As mentioned by a few people there are a handful of female drivers.

The longest serving is down in Tralee. Second is based in Fairview and works the Dart. Despite belief, there is only one female Dart driver, about 7 years driving now. It was believed at the time that this appointment was to save face for IE as there was a distinct lack or female workers on the operational side in Connolly. Not sure how true that is.

Finally, a new lady has started working out of Connolly on the Maynooth/M3 Parkway routes. I had her driving me late last summer with her mentor driver, so she must be fully passed out by now.

When there was guard's jobs, there was an English lady who worked out of Heuston and a very nice women used to work the Mk2s out of Sligo years ago.

The station master's at Athlone, Claremorris and Westport are women. I have seen female engineers.

However overall it is very low on the operational side of things, but plenty of women keeping the railway going behind the scenes.

.BM