New Train Driver Assessment

[EdZ]

Dates

Whoops, yes, Wednesday 16th was my assessment day.

While you could try timing things with your watch, I suspect you'd waste more time clock-watching than you'd gain by rushing out some answers at the end.

 

[Waikikibaby]

I took the new tests on Friday. I was fairly nervous but decided to be extrovert rather than fret in a corner.

I met a lot of really nice people so I hope we get through and train together. I was nervous because there wasn't too much information online about what the new tests were like, but I'm very pleased with how I think things went. Of course I'm trying not to get too excited as even if I get through, there's still another assessment day to pass, then managers interview and then medical (shouldn't be a problem).

It's very reassuring to hear that some of this weeks groups have heard an outcome already. I guess that they need to recruit quite quickly? Fingers crossed so tight they're blue like the national lottery symbol LOL

 

[Silv1983]

I am curious to know what these million and one safety systems are and what the back up of those million and one safety systems are.

I'd like to know how he's witnessed so many fatal road accidents aswell.... trend?

Definitely a troll.... or recently failed the assessments.

 

[TheVicLine]

Who was the interview for, just interested to see who is rolling out the new style assessments.

Glenn25 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing', can only assume you are trolling from your posts. HOWEVER I've also got to admit I do sometimes think that the driver assessment process has gone mad. Sure you can justify each part if you try hard enough but to me it just appears to be a way of whittling down the huge number of applicants that apply for driver positions. But then again I guess this is the whole point of any interview process, I'm not going to worry about it too much...

 

[Waikikibaby]

I believe that the assessments this week were all in Novotel Reading for FirstGreat Western. Trainee Train driver positions at Oxford, Reading and Paddington.

 

[notadriver]

Who was the interview for, just interested to see who is rolling out the new style assessments.

Glenn25 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing', can only assume you are trolling from your posts. HOWEVER I've also got to admit I do sometimes think that the driver assessment process has gone mad. Sure you can justify each part if you try hard enough but to me it just appears to be a way of whittling down the huge number of applicants that apply for driver positions. But then again I guess this is the whole point of any interview process, I'm not going to worry about it too much...

Just my opinion here - I hate the way certain people try to reduce train driving to the level of bus/truck driving or below. It isn't. The length of training and responsibility (potentially having 1000 passengers on board at 100 mph) makes the job to closer to being a airline pilot than a bus driver and I'm very proud of what I do.

You could easily argue than an airline pilots job is easier than a bus driver as a plane could operate on autopilot from take off to touchdown but no fool would make that comparison.

 

[W230]

Just my opinion here - I hate the way certain people try to reduce train driving to the level of bus/truck driving or below. It isn't. The length of training and responsibility (potentially having 1000 passengers on board at 100 mph) makes the job to closer to being a airline pilot than a bus driver and I'm very proud of what I do.

You could easily argue than an airline pilots job is easier than a bus driver as a plane could operate on autopilot from take off to touchdown but no fool would make that comparison.

This argument seems to go round and round. People don't seem to understand what other people are required to do in their role as driver of <insert vehicle type here> and likewise some people believe their job the most important in existence.

Ultimately, be it bus, lorry, train, ship, aeroplane etc they are all different machines that require different training and different skills to an extent. Not sure why Glenn25 seems to find that so hard to understand?!

Just because you can drive/pilot one it doesn't mean that you are incapable of ever learning to drive/pilot another. Neither does it mean you would have the skills required to be capable at them all!

 

[DunfordBridge]

Additionally, the margin of error between a warning sign and the required reaction is far slimmer due to the increased speed, massively longer stopping distance, and the inability to manoeuvre.

I seem to remember from my experience with BVE Train Simuulator for the PC that the distance of warning boards to the actual start of the permanent speed restriction actually depends on the line speeds which I think was laid down in a document published by the RSSB.

I would have thought in any case that train driving is about checking and being proactive as much as it is about reacting, although do not get me wrong, there will no doubt be unusual circumstances where you will have to react very quickly.

As an example, if I was driving a train on the down line on the approach to Scarborough station for arguments sake, I would expect the warning board for 35mph to occur after I had passed the signal adjacent to the local store of a certain electrical retailer. On seeing a clear aspect, I would expect to see the AWS magnet for the warning soon afterwards and would be getting ready to brake.

Alternatively, if the signal near the store was showing a caution aspect, I would be half expecting to park permissively at one of the five bay platforms in Scarborough station, before I even got anywhere near the station.

As a matter of interest, I have noticed that not all warning boards have an AWS magnet in rear of the board, particularly if the difference in speed is only 10mph.

 

[notadriver]

I don't think driving experience on a game is anything like the real thing. Just my humble opinion.

 

[theageofthetra]

Regarding using a timer, what I am suggesting is having an app or a device which gives you say a final 30 sec warning. I agree you don't really have time to clock watch.. I really think it would help if wrong answers are irrelevant.

 

[DBE]

Regarding using a timer, what I am suggesting is having an app or a device which gives you say a final 30 sec warning. I agree you don't really have time to clock watch.. I really think it would help if wrong answers are irrelevant.

As has been said, the only things allowed to be available to you during the GB is the test paper and a writing implement. This is to ensure that the test is fair and consistent for all, as if all sorts of devices started going off towards the end of the test many people would no doubt be put off at the least.

 

[DunfordBridge]

I don't think driving experience on a game is anything like the real thing. Just my humble opinion.

Fair comment, Notadriver. There are not even any emergency situations for a start. My rendition of the Scarborough Bridge at circa 20 chains outside of York station would reinforce the opinion of missing realism. The features I described on the home stretch of the Scarborough down line are real however.

Having said that, the realism of the simulation depends on the amount of effort that you are prepared to invest. I actually emulated the same route on the up line in the opposite direction and I am fairly confident that most of the features of the line are present although the location of gradients will be inaccurate and Seamer station is about 3-5 chains out of sequence.

In my naivety, I believed that creating a simulator route for my private consumption would be quicker than the time it was taking to find a route on the internet.

 

[A-driver]

Fair comment, Notadriver. There are not even any emergency situations for a start. My rendition of the Scarborough Bridge at circa 20 chains outside of York station would reinforce the opinion of missing realism. The features I described on the home stretch of the Scarborough down line are real however.

Having said that, the realism of the simulation depends on the amount of effort that you are prepared to invest. I actually emulated the same route on the up line in the opposite direction and I am fairly confident that most of the features of the line are present although the location of gradients will be inaccurate and Seamer station is about 3-5 chains out of sequence.

In my naivety, I believed that creating a simulator route for my private consumption would be quicker than the time it was taking to find a route on the internet.

I don't mean this to sound as blunt as it does so please note that I don't mean any offence with this but how good or realistic a simulated route is it still dosnt begin to compare with being a train driver and certainly dosnt make you an expert of the job.

If you take a single route on a train simulation game and get up at 3am 5 days in a row and spend 10hour of your day constantly driving up and down the same simulated route in the same traction on your own allowing 30mins off for lunch and not listening to music etc in the background and then do the same thing starting at 3pm and finishing at midnight occasionally staying up over night for a week for 6 months non stop then we could start to take you more seriously but trying to say that you understand the job of a train driver because you have built a detailed route on a game is rather silly. I have tried simulators like BVE in the past and whilst they are very realistic in some ways they don't even begin to scratch the surface of the challenges if the job such as repetitiveness, boredom etc.

As I say, don't read my post the wrong way but it didn't matter how realistic a route is, it's still a game and nothing else.

 

[TDK]

I seem to remember from my experience with BVE Train Simuulator for the PC that the distance of warning boards to the actual start of the permanent speed restriction actually depends on the line speeds which I think was laid down in a document published by the RSSB.

Line speed is just only one factor you also have gradients and line speed reduction, AWS is provided if the speed reduction is 33% or greater generally. As quoted, you cannot really compare a computer game to the real thing but it will give you an insight of driving a train but not the insight of being a train driver.

 

[DunfordBridge]

Line speed is just only one factor you also have gradients and line speed reduction, AWS is provided if the speed reduction is 33% or greater generally. As quoted, you cannot really compare a computer game to the real thing but it will give you an insight of driving a train but not the insight of being a train driver.

Thanks TDK. I could not help being curious after having watched a cab ride between York and Picadilly. I had not taken gradients into account. I believe that I was driving on the level on the one occasion when I have driven a train briefly.

My main reason for mentioning my simulator experience was to introduce the concept of the relevant RSSB document relating to warning boards and as you say, line speed reduction. Unfortunately, I was unable to recall the name of the document.

 

[mickeyjenson!]

Just completed the first part of the new assessment regime (paper-based tests only), so I though I'd give an overview of the new tests.

First off, the Group Bourdon and TRP are done back-to-back. As far as I am aware, these are unchanged from the previous assessment, so plenty of information on them can be found elsewhere. As I understand it from the research papers on the selection of the new tests, the computerised Group Bourdon is no longer used.

The second half of the day was for the new TEA-Occ (Test of Everyday Attention for Occupational Assessment), which is done in 3 parts back-to-back:

First is an exercise where you must count low tones, interspersed with high tones that you must ignore. This was the part I found the most difficult, especially as 'low' and 'high' are relative. You cannot make any tally marks, and counting on your fingers is not going to help you (the tones are too quick, and often count above 10). Remember: the first tone you hear is always a 'low' tone, so you always start by counting 'one'.

Second is a test where you have to search a faux Yellow Pages for symbol pairs. There is a lot of flim-flam about going on holiday and having to hire a plumber, but that is irrelevant to the task. You also have a 'symbol card' on which four symbol pairs are shown, but there are only four varieties of symbols on the answer sheet so this also is a bit of indirection. What the test boils down to is ignoring any text on the answer sheet, and circling any and all pairs of matching symbols. That's it, and you have 45 seconds.

Third, you do the same symbol matching task (with some new waffle about finding a restaurant, again irrelevant) but at the same time you must count sequences of tones. Unlike the first task the tones are all the same, so this is much easier. There are several answer boxes on the answer sheet but you do not necessarily fill them all (e.g. there may be 15 answer boxes but you may only be played 8 sequences of beeps), so you cannot rely on looking at how many boxes are left to fill as to how much time you have left. You have 60 seconds.


The invigilator understandably kept schtum on any marking criteria for any of the tests, but we were told that OPC would mark the exercises within a week and hand them to the TOC, who may take another week before contacting anyone.

Roughly how long was the test day in total, got mine at 12 30 tomorrow and don't know if we will be doing it in stages.

 

[ultra4]

Roughly how long was the test day in total, got mine at 12 30 tomorrow and don't know if we will be doing it in stages.

3 hrs

 

[DRFT101]

Hi,

Does anyone know what the Driver Fault Finding Test (DFFT) is? It's not in the practice material they send out, but it's something London Midland will run.

Thanks

 

[mickeyjenson!]

3 hrs

Cheers, just trying to prepare for the tests but not sure exactly which ones I will be doing as in the practice material there is around 10 different ones ! From what I can gather though it sounds like it will be a similar day to the one you had.

 

[142094]

On a similar vein, does BVE and other simulators allow for wheel slip/slide conditions? Over the past few days it has been quite bad up here and the shows the skill the drivers have in stopping in such difficult conditions.

 

[DunfordBridge]

On a similar vein, does BVE and other simulators allow for wheel slip/slide conditions? Over the past few days it has been quite bad up here and the shows the skill the drivers have in stopping in such difficult conditions.

There is no wheel slip or slide as standard on BVE as far as I am aware unless it is planned for an update. What you could do is to change the programming on the route so the rail head adhesion would have a very low value. There are no facilities such as sanding or WSP however.

 

[notadriver]

I'm pretty sure Microsoft train simulator (the original) supported low adhesion. Does anyone know if the latest one (2014) does too ?

 

[A-driver]

On a similar vein, does BVE and other simulators allow for wheel slip/slide conditions? Over the past few days it has been quite bad up here and the shows the skill the drivers have in stopping in such difficult conditions.

Even the training runs we do on the official simulators at work for low adhesion don't come close to the real thing. I think it's one of those things that can't really be fully simulated, even if you had a moving soundstage sort of thing I think you'd struggle to come close.

 

[142094]

Even the training runs we do on the official simulators at work for low adhesion don't come close to the real thing. I think it's one of those things that can't really be fully simulated, even if you had a moving soundstage sort of thing I think you'd struggle to come close.

TBH I was surprised at how bad it was, even in places which are not usually known for wheelslip. No coincidence that some of the Pacers I was on today had bad flats.

 

[DunfordBridge]

I'm pretty sure Microsoft train simulator (the original) supported low adhesion. Does anyone know if the latest one (2014) does too ?

Quite interesting news. I was always interested in the York-Leeds route that I believe was available.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Even the training runs we do on the official simulators at work for low adhesion don't come close to the real thing. I think it's one of those things that can't really be fully simulated, even if you had a moving soundstage sort of thing I think you'd struggle to come close.

I have experienced wheel slip/slide on a class 185 simulator at York LMD. The slide was quite unnerving but I managed to stop at the end of the platform. BVE has never been the same since. I tried a Heritage unilt on the Wensleydale for the added complexity of working with semi-automatic gears, which I quite enjoyed, but I found that I was missing the sounds of the AWS and DVD, as the AWS was isolated on this unit.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

trying to say that you understand the job of a train driver because you have built a detailed route on a game is rather silly.

My main aim for devising a simulated route between Scarborough and York was to improve my route knowledge on the said route. I would say I was successful with that aim in mind.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

If you take a single route on a train simulation game and get up at 3am 5 days in a row and spend 10hour of your day constantly driving up and down the same simulated route in the same traction on your own ....

I have tried simulators like BVE in the past and whilst they are very realistic in some ways they don't even begin to scratch the surface of the challenges if the job such as repetitiveness, boredom etc.

I must admit that I felt a certain amount of trepidation by these comments but then I realised I was a security guard in another life working an average week of 60 hours with some shifts starting at 17:30 and finishing the following morning at 08:00.

A great deal of the time was spent watching static displays on CCTV. At least with a train, you get a sense of movement.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The second half of the day was for the new TEA-Occ (Test of Everyday Attention for Occupational Assessment), which is done in 3 parts back-to-back:

First is an exercise where you must count low tones, interspersed with high tones that you must ignore. This was the part I found the most difficult, especially as 'low' and 'high' are relative. You cannot make any tally marks, and counting on your fingers is not going to help you (the tones are too quick, and often count above 10). Remember: the first tone you hear is always a 'low' tone, so you always start by counting 'one'.

My apologies for hijacking your thread. With regard to the speed of the tones, are we talking about the pace of space invaders or is it a bit less hectic? I was wondering if it was a very fast lift.

Also, what kind of gap do you get between different sequences, presumably long enough to be able to jot down your answers? To be honest, I get a bit concerned about the unfamiliar.

 

[EdZ]

The beeps were about 2 per second IIRC, and as far as I could tell the speed was constant throughout. There was then an audible spoken prompt to write your answer, with a 1-2 second pause to write it, then the next "listen to be beeps" (or words to that effect) prompt.

 

[DunfordBridge]

The beeps were about 2 per second IIRC, and as far as I could tell the speed was constant throughout. There was then an audible spoken prompt to write your answer, with a 1-2 second pause to write it, then the next "listen to be beeps" (or words to that effect) prompt.

Thanks Edz, I will have to try listening to a TV program with a load of swearing in it. A bit faster than the lifts I have known. Probably used for astronaut training to become accustomed to weightlessness.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Hi,

Does anyone know what the Driver Fault Finding Test (DFFT) is? It's not in the practice material they send out, but it's something London Midland will run.

Thanks

I knew I had seen this one earlier in the year on the Transpennine thread so I searched on Google. I was surprised to see that I asked the very same question as you in my very first post.

The reply I got from Flyboy contained the following link:

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=70192&highlight=dfft

Well worth a read. The DFFT sounds like a glorified TRP part 2. I have yet to take this test.

 

[youngboy]

Thanks Edz, I will have to try listening to a TV program with a load of swearing in it. A bit faster than the lifts I have known. Probably used for astronaut training to become accustomed to weightlessness.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


I knew I had seen this one earlier in the year on the Transpennine thread so I searched on Google. I was surprised to see that I asked the very same question as you in my very first post.

The reply I got from Flyboy contained the following link:

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=70192&highlight=dfft

Well worth a read. The DFFT sounds like a glorified TRP part 2. I have yet to take this test.

I did it earlier this year, basically a set of information to cross reference as quickly as possible in order to report a fault on a train and carriage. Each question uses the same train and carriage, except obviously the information and dials, change. If you can follow a flow diagram quickly its not too hard, I did eleven and passed but some others did eight and also passed. Don't think it's as much of a whittling exercise as some of the others as two lads who got eight are now trainee driver's.
I did hear some people say one lad did all 20 but I don't believe that's possible.

 

[DunfordBridge]

I did it earlier this year, basically a set of information to cross reference as quickly as possible in order to report a fault on a train and carriage. Each question uses the same train and carriage, except obviously the information and dials, change. If you can follow a flow diagram quickly its not too hard, I did eleven and passed but some others did eight and also passed. Don't think it's as much of a whittling exercise as some of the others as two lads who got eight are now trainee driver's.
I did hear some people say one lad did all 20 but I don't believe that's possible.

It made my day reading that. I can do flow charts quite easily as I program computers on a daily basis. Probably the same kind of diagram that train drivers would consult when trying to localise an air leak, for example.

 

[TDK]

It made my day reading that. I can do flow charts quite easily as I program computers on a daily basis. Probably the same kind of diagram that train drivers would consult when trying to localise an air leak, for example.

Train drivers do not normally have to consult any diagram they get out the train and listen for the leak and then identify it.