Chiltern Railways Apprentice Train Driver Guide
Chiltern now takes apprentice driver applications from 17 and a half. Its stages, its training schools and the one rule about psychometric tests its adverts state
Training schools by station
Chiltern runs services from London Marylebone to Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire and the West Midlands, and recruits apprentice drivers into training schools named after a station. Copies of its adverts on the StudySmarter jobs board show three recent intakes:
- London Marylebone, for a February 2026 training school.
- Birmingham Moor Street, for April 2026.
- Aylesbury, for "our April 2027 training schools".
The Aylesbury advert says successful candidates "must be prepared to travel to and from our Training Academy in Banbury for the first six months of the programme", then continue practical training at their appointed depot. You must live within 60 minutes of that depot, and the earlier adverts add that applications from further away cannot be accepted.
Applying before you turn 18
The 2026 intakes asked applicants to be at least 20.5 years old. The Aylesbury advert, which gives the minimum licensing age as 18, lets you apply and join the talent pool from 17 years and 6 months, and says "You must be 18 or over to start your training". Chiltern is one of five companies the government named in March 2026 as volunteer pathfinders for the lower age, which meant testing recruitment materials and processes before the rest of the industry. Chiltern asks that applicants have completed secondary education and needs no railway experience.
Chiltern’s four stages
- Application review and postcode eligibility check, where the 60-minute rule is applied.
- Online safety and rules-based testing.
- Interview.
- Medical assessment, including drug and alcohol screening.
The adverts do not say where the train driver psychometric assessment sits among these stages, and "safety and rules testing" is not the name of any test in RSSB’s national battery, so do not assume it is the psychometric assessment. What the Aylesbury advert does say is this: "You must also not have failed psychometric testing with any Train Operating Company within the last six months." Under RSSB’s current rules a failed attempt already means waiting at least a year before the next one, with any company, so the national rule is the stricter of the two. Six months was the wait under the 2013 version of the standard.
Shifts and pay
The Aylesbury advert asks you to be comfortable working shifts, including nights, weekends and bank holidays, and to be able to get to and from work independently. It gives a salary of £33,857 a year. None of the adverts we read publishes the qualified driver’s salary.
The national tests, in brief
The psychometric assessment is the national battery set by RSSB’s standard RIS-3751-TOM. Each test is passed or failed separately, and results go on a national database. Our train driver tests page explains the whole battery. Six of the tests can be practised here:
- Group Bourdon (Dots Test) (11 minutes, free)
- TRP1 Rules and Procedures Memory (21 minutes)
- TEA-Occ Attention (Lift and Directory) (10 minutes)
- TRP2 Dials Reasoning (8 minutes)
- WAFV Vigilance (Grey Square) (32 minutes)
- ATAVT Traffic Perception (6 minutes)
For the waits between attempts and the lifetime limit on failures, see our guide to train driver attempts and standards.
Common questions
Is Chiltern Railways publicly owned now?
Yes. Its services moved into public ownership on 20 September 2026. Nothing published says the driver recruitment process has changed as a result; check the official advert you apply to.
Why do some job boards show CrossCountry adverts under Chiltern?
Some listings filed under Chiltern on StudySmarter are CrossCountry adverts, with SHL online tests and a Values Alignment meeting that Chiltern’s adverts do not mention. Read the body of any advert to see which company it is for. Our CrossCountry page covers that process.
Comparing operators? Northern also asks for an enhanced pass.