Virginie has been a TER driver since 2014. A job that is often considered to be reserved for men. However, she has found her place and is one of the few women to drive trains in France. She tells us about her journey.
Firefighter, policewoman, archaeologist or even a works supervisor, are professions that are too rarely heard in women. Fun fact: women also do this type of job and they do it brilliantly! Because nothing should prevent a child from dreaming and doing everything to exercise the profession of his dreams, we have collected inspiring, fascinating and edifying testimonials. Proof that: yes, whether you are a girl or a boy you can become whatever you want!
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When you take the train, you think of your ticket, your luggage, the destination of arrival… but very rarely of the person driving it. However, they are the ones who are responsible for your safety throughout the journey and transporting you from point A to point B.
A train driver is a great job that you don’t often hear about. However, it is accessible to everyone, provided they want it. While some have dreamed of it since childhood (a bit like the fantasy of being an airplane pilot), others arrive in it by chance. This is particularly the case with Virginie.
As a child, she never imagined being at the head of the cabin of a train one day. If her father was not a controller at the SNCF, she might never have had the idea. Today, however, she is one of the few train drivers in France. A job she loves, despite the disadvantages and stereotypes she faces. She tells us about her journey.
“I had a baccalaureate in economics and I registered for a DUT in work-study business, but I couldn’t find a business. I wanted to switch to continuing education, but my registration was not made so I found myself without a school. At the time, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with a living, but I dreamed of independence. One day, my father told me that they were recruiting at the SNCF and I started “, she says.
Ten years of control
Virginie started out as a controller for ten years. A job for which she had to pass several interviews, including a psychological one, and several tests. Once recruited, she followed a six-month training course (now shortened).
“When I joined the SNCF as a controller, there were already quite a few women. In my dad’s time, it was like a driver, there were very few women at the controls. But it has been democratized since and now there is a lot more diversity ”, she explains.
If she liked the commercial side and the safety responsibilities of the job (a controller alone manages the safety and comfort of hundreds of travelers during a trip), however, she had more trouble with the behavior of some travelers. “They are not always very courteous. In addition, we are asked to do numbers so it is not always easy. At the time, I often told my boss that I was above all a commercial and not a police officer and that if I left full in the morning it was to come back full in the evening. There are unfortunately some attacks, some insults and gratuitous threats, which are not always easy to live with ”, she recalls. A complicated situation especially since she was very young when she started in the profession: “I was hired at 21 and it’s true that when you have to issue a ticket to someone older, you can get picked on. “
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From control to train cabin
During all the years that she was a controller, Virginie was also interested in what was happening with the drivers. “Even if it was already forbidden at the time, I often went to see them in the cabin”, she confides.
In 2014, she took the plunge and decided to start training to become a TER driver. “Even today, very few women exercise this profession. In my area, I am the only one. Moreover, the SNCF is trying to hire women, but they should not go about it in the right way, because out of the 30 people recruited recently there is not a single woman. So we are talking about diversity, but there is no real strategy on the part of the company to achieve it ”, she concedes. When she began her training 8 years ago, she was the third woman to exercise this profession in the entire Nord Pas-de-Calais region.
Moreover, upon the announcement of her change of post, she was confronted with some sexist reactions. “When I announced that I was leaving to train as a train driver, I was told ‘you know you have to have a good level’. I had some thoughts that the training was difficult, that I had small children and that I might not be successful. It is true that it is complicated, especially when you have children, but you can do it if you have the will and the motivation. It is a one-year training course, alternating between pure and hard school and on-the-job training, in pairs with a driver who teaches us to drive. I was lucky enough to be in a school not far from my home, so I was not cut off from my children ”, she says.
Even today, she sometimes suffers from gender stereotypes: “There are some colleagues who are happy to see women driving trains and others who are not. There are those who feel a bit macho. As it is a very independent job, we are all alone in our cabin. But there are still a few machos, unfortunately. As with travelers. Sometimes when I get to the front of the train to enter the cabin, we say ‘oh it’s a woman driving’. It’s not mean, but it often shocks people. “
Driving a train is still seen as a job for men, even if it is accessible to women. A perception that Virginie would like to change, especially among the youngest. “When we intervene to talk about railway risks in schools, children never guess that I am a driver, or so last after having eliminated all the other hypotheses”, she laments.
A business with staggered hours
Virginie admits, driving a train is a tiring job. Mainly because of the staggered hours. “It’s an advantage as well as a disadvantage. Sometimes I have a service call at 3 a.m., it’s complicated when it comes to waking up, but it allows me to be present at noon after school. On the other hand, I sometimes miss birthdays or events, because we work all year round, weekends and holidays. Sometimes I have to go to bed early for a family meal, because I start very early the next day. The day before a service, I can’t afford too much alcohol or anything else, you have to have a healthy lifestyle. “, she explains.
She also has one or two trips a week, which requires her to sleep off. “We sleep in residences, in hostels or in hotels. It’s not always easy to separate from your family like that. At the first confinement, I realized that it was a luxury to be able to sleep in your own bed every night. But travel is also what makes the salary on the payslips ”, she continues.
Nevertheless, it is a profession that brings him a certain pride: “Driving a train is a great satisfaction. It is being responsible for the lives of the people you transport, it is not nothing. ” When she announces that she is a train conductor, she is always amused to see how surprising it is. “When I say it, it surprises, people make me the big eyes. I don’t have the profile apparently ”, she jokes.
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If she drives TER, she also sees herself one day driving TGVs. But not for the moment, because it requires a lot of constraints. “To drive TGVs, you already have to have fifteen years of service and you still have to undergo training for several months. It’s also being even more separated from your family so if it was offered to me now I wouldn’t. Maybe later, but today I care too much about my family life ”, she says.
In the meantime, she does not regret having followed this path and hopes to encourage young girls who want to do so. “It’s a great job. Unfortunately, when you’re a woman, you sometimes need to have twice as much character as a man to practice it. But I would like women to come and prove to men that this is not a job reserved for men. Maybe it was back in the days of steam trains, but with new technology, it’s gone. I don’t need a man’s strength to drive a train. And if I have succeeded, others can do it too ”, she concludes. A nice message of empowerment for women!