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Jennifer Ngo

For Gigi Yu Pui-chi, a typical day begins early, with a routine that's a little more involved than simply turning up at the office and switching on the coffee machine.
Yu is one of the small number of female train drivers who work on the MTR, and at 5am she arrives at a designated rail depot to take charge of the train that she will operate for the rest of her day.
She begins her shift by checking the MTR's automatic train control system, and takes an 18-minute walk through the whole train, inspecting each car from end to end.
MTR trains are fully computerised and can run on automatic, said Yu, but drivers still have to pay attention. And then there are six different models of train that drivers may be asked to operate - in Yu's case Tung Chung and Airport Express trains.
"The different models require different training," she said. "I can't drive other lines."
Yu, 28, has been operating trains for more than three years, and obtained her train operator's licence even before getting her driver's licence.
She is one of around 100 female train drivers on the MTR network, out of a total of about 1,000 drivers.
Yu, who holds a higher diploma in marketing and management, came to the job from the food and beverage industry, applying out of curiosity rather than for the HK$10,000-a-month starting salary.
Like all drivers, she went through 55 days of training to drive the model of train she now operates, and then shadowed a qualified train driver for a fortnight before taking control of her own train.
Yu said she works a six-and-a-half to eight hour shift and around 42 hours a week and, like all her colleagues, has annual competence tests and training.
And the rail network she helps to keep running is a busy one. With 82 stations and almost 175km of track, excluding the New Territories Light Rail network's 68 stations and the Airport Express, the MTR carries almost 4.2 million passengers every day, with up to 200 trains running through its maze of tunnels at any given moment.
Since its first line opened in 1979, the MTR has sprouted new branches, expanding into a network of 11 lines including the Light Rail and with at least three more lines planned.
Driving trainer Po Kwai-keung, who has worked for the MTR for more than three decades, drove trains on the Tsuen Wan line for 11 years before he began teaching students at the MTR's training centre in Kowloon Bay with the aid of train simulators and other hardware.
He said trains have become steadily easier to run, thanks to improving technology, but they still need drivers to open and close doors, check platforms and apply the brakes.
"The signalling system has changed. [Driving trains] is much simpler now," he said.
Po said that in the past, if a passenger pulled an emergency lever, the driver would not know which car it had been pulled in, nor which lever had been pulled.
Now, the trains are wired for immediate communication with whichever emergency point at which the alarm has been sounded.
The rolling stock is imported from South Korea, Australia, Germany, Japan Britain and - in the latest addition to the fleet - brought in from the mainland.
Yu said the job is a fairly solitary one, the only interaction with other people being through the intercom to station officers and the occasional chat during breaks with other drivers.
Now that she has mastered it, Yu said she hopes to move on to other jobs within the MTR, such as station control operations or work in the company's central office.
Once she moves on, however, there will doubtless be other women motivated by her experience and curious enough to try their hand at a job that is still dominated by men.


A life on the line

Gigi Yu at the controls of a train simulator at MTR Corp headquarters in Kowloon Bay. Photo: May Tse

MTR trains are fully computerised and can run on automatic but drivers still have to pay attention.

News

Hong Kong

Driving trains on the MTR may not be every woman's cup of tea, but sheer curiosity lured one twentysomething female onto the rails
