Hi all, I'm a UK based train driver with over 2 decades of experience. We've recently returned from a long stay with family in Southern Ontario and it reignited a desire in my partner to emigrate there.

I've been looking into this as it's something I would be happy doing but don't want to get her hopes up just yet.

​​​​​​Do they rail companies accept applications from overseas or are they instantly disregarded?

I've reached out to Metrolinx, TTC, CPKC and CN posing some questions but nothing back at all. Via rail don't seem to have any external email to do so.

Any help/advice would be appreciated

For asking questions you need to appear in Canada, have a Canadian phone number and an email address that is not ".co.uk". If you don't appear in the country you won't get any responses because companies are flooded with email from people in India, China, and other countries looking to immigrate. You should also seek out online discussion groups for people already in the industry to see if you can build some networking and connections, a LinkedIn account might be another way to do this (again don't disclose you are in the UK).

Brilliant, thank you. I will look into your suggestions. I'm exploring linkedin for contacts and have family looking into things there for me which will hopefully give us an idea on if it's gonna be possible

Do you definitely need a job offer to get a visa? It’s going to be much easier if you are already work authorised and don’t require sponsorship.

Looking at it I don't need an offer for a visa. I would want a job lined up to leave it just seems very difficult to do that from the UK in my industry

It’s any industry tbh. Most people just have to take the leap, unless you have very specialist skills that are in demand the chances of finding a job remotely are pretty slim. It’s the risk most immigrants take.

But once you’ve got your visa (probably about a year away anyway - depending on which visa route you’re looking at?) then you’ll be much more employable. So you can get over to Canada and knock on doors when you have it in hand. Being work authorised and able to start straight away should make it much easier to find a job.

Best of luck.

Some discussion here, although slightly dated:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads...rivers.197449/