Recent content by PaulMac

Always very interesting. Thank you everybody!

Indeed. One of the first thing driver trainers impressed on us was that you got two bites of the cherry. If that second application was going to cause you to stop short, so be it. Better that than risking a third application. But of course we all drive now with grey-suited managers breathing...

Indeed. I had assumed that all Westinghouse air brakes relied on triple valves. It’s a remarkable system given its antiquity (I mean, you’re literally using air to stop a whole train). The downside, of course, is that you can’t make a follow-up brake application till the train’s brake pipe has...

Now that’s interesting. What sort of brakes do current locomotives use? Is the braking system distributed down the whole consist, such that you can apply and release in a graduated fashion? Or are you still trapped in that infernal Westinghouse conundrum of having to completely release, then...

Nice to hear a few are still around! I trained on them and really appreciate the difficulty of using them properly - forever worried about whether your train is bunched or stretched, how hot the brake blocks are getting, when or if to engage the dynamic brake, whether you’ll misjudge the...

Are Westinghouse air brakes found in the UK? I’ve heard that most locomotives there use a vacuum system, but I thought that perhaps older models might still use ‘standard’ air brakes (26L, A7, etc).

I saw it on an old JR training video. Looks ridiculous but it works for me.

Thanks for the information, everybody. Sounds like DAS isn’t really living up to its potential. I rely on point-and-calling and a flashing red bicycle light on the console that I trigger whenever there’s something critical like detonator warnings or the staff is absent from cab. I guess it’s...

Lovely to hear about other drivers and their ‘systems’. I’m personally a big fan of point-and-calling (risk-triggered commentary with lots of grand gestures), but in these parts it’s considered quite eccentric. I currently work an extremely simple stretch of the network - only four stations, a...

Thanks. I take it ‘fail to call’ is basically zooming through a station you were supposed to stop at? How do you guys keep track of your stopping patterns? Is there some sort of computer tracking system, or do you rely on slips of paper?

Thanks to everyone who replied. The theory behind these measures sounds very fair, though surely local managers have discretion over how aggressively they apply performance reviews. Regardless, I imagine it’s seen as quite humiliating, particularly for a senior driver, to be subjected to...

Indeed I am! I work for a company that takes violent exception to being mentioned, or even alluded to, on social media by past, current or future employees. But I’m definitely curious about procedures and day-to-day driving life elsewhere.

How are driver infractions dealt with in the UK? Is there a disciplinary standard across the network, or does each operator have its own procedures? Do drivers accumulate points? By ‘infractions’ I’m referring to on-track incidents such as SPADs, overspeeds, overshoots and so forth, as well as...

Wow - that does sound like a handful! It must be a challenge resetting your muscle memory every time you step into a different cab. Our VC system is ‘task-activated’, meaning that fiddling with controls - though not the brake - resets the countdown. The main issue we have is that on...

Interesting - thanks. We just have a button on the console. (Vertically mounted next to the throttle on locomotives.) If you keel over from a stroke running at speed, the train will continue for at least a km before the brakes apply, then another km before stopping. What sort of sound do they...