Fog blocking lines

[Deepgreen]

Its not necessarily how bad the SPAD is, its about what comes next for the driver and in some cases it can be career ending.

Indeed, but the driver presumably didn't necessarily know at the time what would happen. My point was; was the driver in shock owing to the SPAD itself and therefore unable to do anything further?

 

[D1009]

To be clear I meant that it would be desirable if they spent at least 3 months out and about.

I doubt any toc control social media staff spend any length of time with front line operational staff.

Wouldn't it be equally desirable if some of the front line operational staff could spend a shift with the social media staff?

 

[dk1]

Wouldn't it be equally desirable if some of the front line operational staff could spend a shift with the social media staff?

That has happened on several occasions. I don't think many of us frontline staff could hack the nicey nicey attitude to rude or arrogant ****ters without giving them as good as they get. I find Virgin & Cross Country & to an extent GWR the best for arguing back & stating it as it is.

 

[D Foster]

I have worked in fog so thick that the driver couldn't see the ballast from his cab window. It didn't stop the train but movement was at less than walking pace. I was flagging at the time and didn't see the train creeping toward me until it was hardly more than arm's length away. Frightening conditions. That wasn't even a freezing fog.
Back in the 70s a freezing fog blanketed London for several days and nearly everything stopped dead. On LUL they had Fog Repeater Signals and even those didn't help much. Both ends of platforms were marked with some sort of flare arrangement - I suspect they were buckets of rags soaked in oil (or similar).

BR "Fog Working" is a whole subject in itself. Essentially, with Absolute Block and its derivatives, "Fog or Falling Snow" becomes the controlling condition when the Signalman cannot see his Fog Marking Point. This would normally be a specified location at 200 yards from the Box. Once the FMP vanishes Double Blocking would be introduced until Fog Signalmen were in position to "Fog" the nominated signals (primarily the Distant Signals - except at junctions where it got more elaborate). Fogmen weren't required where the Distant was a Colour Light and CL also meant that Double Blocking wasn't required.

I hope this helps.

 

[edwin_m]

I have worked in fog so thick that the driver couldn't see the ballast from his cab window. It didn't stop the train but movement was at less than walking pace. I was flagging at the time and didn't see the train creeping toward me until it was hardly more than arm's length away. Frightening conditions. That wasn't even a freezing fog.
Back in the 70s a freezing fog blanketed London for several days and nearly everything stopped dead. On LUL they had Fog Repeater Signals and even those didn't help much. Both ends of platforms were marked with some sort of flare arrangement - I suspect they were buckets of rags soaked in oil (or similar).

BR "Fog Working" is a whole subject in itself. Essentially, with Absolute Block and its derivatives, "Fog or Falling Snow" becomes the controlling condition when the Signalman cannot see his Fog Marking Point. This would normally be a specified location at 200 yards from the Box. Once the FMP vanishes Double Blocking would be introduced until Fog Signalmen were in position to "Fog" the nominated signals (primarily the Distant Signals - except at junctions where it got more elaborate). Fogmen weren't required where the Distant was a Colour Light and CL also meant that Double Blocking wasn't required.

I hope this helps.

To add to that, there are plenty of reports into historic accidents caused by fog on Railways Archive, which also give an insight into the difficulties and workarounds it required particularly with traditional signalling. Colour lights, AWS and now TPWS will have helped a lot, and while current pollution may be just as harmful it doesn't impede visibility as much as coal smoke did in past decades.

But this thread shows that it can still be a problem for the railway when things get really bad. The disruption at Heathrow should give some perspective (if the visibility is good enough to see it...).

 

[Great_Western]

That's what you get when non-operating staff get jobs on the Twitter feed. I cringe at some of the explanations given. Some seem to not even understand the basics of running a railway let alone signalling. Talk about making the network even more of a laughing stock :roll:

I think if you saw the amount of responses they have to deal with and the workload they have you'd change your opinion. They are just as much a public face as the trains or frontline staff and have respond accordingly under what can be rather high pressure, especially at peak times. Additonally, at my TOC staff from our office are periodically send off around the company observing the other various roles for "in my shoes days", and there are always a few people with that extra bit of rail knowledge should a technical question or something requires answering.

 

[PHILIPE]

I think if you saw the amount of responses they have to deal with and the workload they have you'd change your opinion. They are just as much a public face as the trains or frontline staff and have respond accordingly under what can be rather high pressure, especially at peak times. Additonally, at my TOC staff from our office are periodically send off around the company observing the other various roles for "in my shoes days", and there are always a few people with that extra bit of rail knowledge should a technical question or something requires answering.

And have to withstand abuse and sometimes bad language in Tweets as though are to blame for everything.

 

[Minilad]

And have to withstand abuse and sometimes bad language in Tweets as though are to blame for everything.

As, of course, do train crew. Difference being that is face to face and not words on a screen

 

[Flying_Turtle]

Find the red (Portugal)

[YOUTUBE]POzogmcY8HQ[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Master29]

May not be a solid object, but thick enough it will stop most things..cars, trains, ships, and of course aircraft (and aircraft more than trains)

Really. I must get out more, but not in fog obviously.

 

[GB]

Really. I must get out more, but not in fog obviously.

What exactly is the point your trying to make?