ČD bunkhouses are worse than Pakistani prison

He worked for ČD (Czech railways) as a train driver. He said it is more convenient to drive a passenger train to a high-speed train for long distances. It is due to the fact that a rail for the passenger train keeps turning right or left all the time and it stops quite often at train stations. On the other hand, driving the high-speed train for long distances is as monotonous as driving a car on a highway.

When he drove a locomotive, he had to pay attention constantly and think only about driving the locomotive in order not to cause an accident. He was afraid to look anywhere but in front of him or to drink water so that nothing bad would happen.

A conductor wants to have a chat from time to time. If you are on the train and nobody is coming over, the conductor is talking to the train driver. The conductor also hands over information about train brakes and checks them so they are functional.

ČD paid him train driver courses. The courses are very expensive. A five-year commitment is mandatory.

While in training he received minimal wage. After that when he started driving, he earned quite a lot of money. The job also has dark sides. One of them is bad leadership, conduct of superiors and breaking a law regarding overtime, not paying out overtime and not adhering to working hours from ČD.

He didn’t like it. He confided it to his boss, because he thought it was moral to deal with the issue with him first before going up to the chain of command. Today he assesses it as a wrong step. The boss didn’t take it into consideration and he was forced to leave one year earlier. He didn’t finish his five-year commitment. Afterwards he had to return a portion of the money for the training courses. Sometimes the returning price can go up to 150 000 CZK.

He also approached a trade union but the members of the union are the same people as management of ČD by his words.

I asked him why he thinks ČD works this way. He answered he doesn’t know. One of the causes can be being a state organization as Česká pošta (Czech post service).

I also asked him what accommodation for employees at train stations looks like. The accommodation is used when employees have to wait for a connecting train. He showed me photos of one of them. Instead of a bed sheet a curtain was laid over the bed. The interior of the accommodation with the bed resembled to a Pakistani prison than a place for a rest. I asked him if this is the worse one or the better one. He laughed and uttered: “It is one of the worse ones.”