I've seen a few would-be pilots entering the train driving world these days, all training is paid for by the employer, you get £25-35k during training and about £50k thereafter for a 4 day 35 hour week. There have been a couple of huge pay deals recently so at some places basic plus an average of half a day a week of overtime will net about £75k. Final salary pension too. It's a good career in itself but a few also use it to fund the modular route into the airlines.
The top signalling grades do alright too, their training wage is something like 90% of qualified pay so anyone above Grade 7 (on a scale of 1-9) will be on £40k+ during training. It is possible (but very competitive) to get in off the street on the top grades though.
Last edited by Chris the Robot; 6th Feb 2018 at 10:04.