They do actually have to know the route, and they are in constant to & fro contact with the signalbox. They have to know where the points are, they have to monitor their speed, there are up roads and down roads, and there is a raft of equipment in the drivers box that they have to know. They don’t have an assistant (like pilots do) and they get trained on track suicides and what to do in the event of same. Oh and emergency stops…there’s a procedure for that too. Then there are landslides, snow, leaves etc, which require a certain protocol, plus dealing with idiot passengers who complain that the train has stopped in the middle of nowhere and think banging on the drivers door is going to make the train start up again. 
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Train drivers don’t actually drive trains though, they supervise a console.
A pilot does the same, but when things go wrong at 400mph at 30,000 feet its a much different kettle of fish than at 100mph with an emergency handbrake. You can’t just step off a plane in the middle of a journey.
So what? So am I. Well, not a Marxist in today’s meaning of the word anyway.
You can’t just step off a train in the middle of a journey, either 
Hmm, interesting that you think this. Ok, so maybe nobody is plummeting to the ground in certain death, but a train in an emergency stopping situation is pretty helllish. Especially when you have kids and hot drinks.
Yes you can, you can stop the train, open the doors and get out. The control will be automatically updated with the details of the train thats stopped and will alert the supervisors. The London Underground is mostly automated with driverless trains anyway - its called ATOS (I think).
You can’t do that at 400mph at 30,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean. Imagine the mess a plane makes when it, say, hits a building like in 911.
It’s nice that they can have a nice chat with the signalboxes. It might break up a boring day.
I’m not sure about points. Do they have to get out and change the points themselves?
Yes monitoring speed. Now that could be quite a challenge, just like we motorists have to do.
Up roads and down roads? I thought they rode on tracks.
Do they need an assistant? Perhaps someone to chat to when it gets boring.
Trained in suicides? Surely, if anything they’ll have to stop or at least report it. Perhaps they’re trained in first aid so that they can get out and reattach the poor suicide’s head.
Emergency stops? Yes, I believe they have to take their hand off the dead man’s handle and apply an emergency brake. Complicated stuff.
Landslides, snow, leaves? I suspect they’d have to stop if things got really bad, or slow down.
Now, idiot passengers banding on the door. Yes, that would require him to have the patience of a saint, though of course the train will have stopped to he apply all his attention to it.
Yes, it’s a hard life being a train driver. Much harder than that of an airline pilot. Perhaps that’s why they’re both paid a similar amount?
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The drivers take their kids with them?
Sorry. I apologise for my sarcasm, but I do enjoy it!
Good, I’m glad. Maybe if you put the same energy into informing yourself of the rail industry, as you do into sarcasm, you would be able to form a readable post 
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Oh, I’m glad you enjoyed it.
I think that I can write readable posts. I think you’ve even liked some in the past.
What do they say? “Sarcasm is the highest form of humour”?
Actually, I do know a little about the rail industry.
For example, do you know why the standard gauge of 4’ 8 1/2" was first arrived at?
The height of Jimmy Crankie ?
Are the Unions too thick to realise that by causing such havoc they are alienating the very people they look to for support?
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Absolutely, they never did care about workers only about subscriptions.
It’s already starting to back-fire.
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Notice the unions were silent over the 100,000 NHS workers about to be sacked for not getting vaccinated ?
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If they strike on July 9th - I’ll hang the lot of them! I am off to Doncaster to a Craft Fair.
Same width as a Roman chariot’s wheels…
Because thats what it says there and thats how we have always done it ?
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But they’re not. Right now they’re in the vanguard of the active reaction to the utter mess Bunter and his cabal have created. People have had enough.
Actually Unison were anything but quiet.
A common misconception.
Yes, but that’s now considered a myth. Though perhaps it isn’t.
The width of most cart wheels was between 4’ and 5’ and that accounted for the width of the average cart horse. Stands to reason.
I think the real reason for this strange figure of 4’ 8 1/2" was Robert Louis Stephenson who began by laying tracks of 4’ 8" in the North-East mines. Perhaps he was thinking about horse-drawn carts or even Roman chariots, but that’s what he came up with.
He later changed the width by an additional 1/2" to account for curves in the tracks, where the flanges of the wheels might rub against the rails.
Of course, as in so many other things, the rest of the world (or most of it) copied our ‘Standard Gauge’ since!
Then again, in Wales there are a lot of narrow gauge rails - 4’ - probably because the Welsh people are thinner.