I'm involved in the rail industry. Spoke to a lot of conductors recently as jobs have just come out for London Midland (27k) a year, not bad!
Everyone said chances of getting in externally as a driver are extremely slim unless you're already qualified as previously stated. Once in the rail industry it's pretty much a work your way up the ladder scenario. I believe it's 12 months training, and hard graft! A lot of tests. And yer approximately 90% percent of people fail the psychometric test, but as said before its all about testing your personality and your decision making skills as to how you'd cope if something went wrong. However, 40k a years not too shabby. And they reap the overtime.. minimum 8 hours pay on a Sunday at double time regardless of how long your journey is!
I think there's a fair bit of training as to how to try and cope with suicides on the railway as some drivers never come back to the job after something that horrific.