My point is that if you are driver, pilot, HGV/Bus driver, there is an assumed level of professional competence. In 2014 any driver once type trained should be capable of taking any train on any route without specific route knowledge. A simple and universal signal system should apply 'thru UK. Apart from a very few specific airports , an airline pilot is expected to fly to any destination based on self briefing, ATC instructions and company procedures. An approach to a destination is normally "pilot interpreted", ie you study the airfield "plate" and fly following the often complicated procedure and within strict constraints. Finally, any "memory" procedures should be kept to a minimum, in flying often a quick path to disaster. Much better to follow checklist procedures. And why not automate all train operations? Some auto protection is in place and human/driver error is often to blame in accidents. Is the real cause of this archaic system driver/ASLEF restrictive practice?
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Southern Train Crew - London Bridge
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MCR247
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You do understand how trains work right? Signals are not the same thing as traffic lights for trains
Dieseldriver
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So yeah, I'm guessing pembroke is a troll...
I am not a "troll" and only wish the best for what is an important part of UK transport. I have a background of senior positions in aviation at all levels and am very aware of safety/risk analysis. Presently I am an instructor/examiner for light aircraft.
Presumably a signal indicates go/no go, slow or stop and a speed limit is displayed as necessary. If the signals are appropriate to the track conditions and confirmed by an on board display, what's the problem? As I said, I found it difficult to find a forum and try and understand why this industry is so chaotic. I use Southern regularly and simply observe and hear how station staff and crew cope with problems, always with a smile and to the best of their ability.
Presumably a signal indicates go/no go, slow or stop and a speed limit is displayed as necessary. If the signals are appropriate to the track conditions and confirmed by an on board display, what's the problem? As I said, I found it difficult to find a forum and try and understand why this industry is so chaotic. I use Southern regularly and simply observe and hear how station staff and crew cope with problems, always with a smile and to the best of their ability.
Signals are not repeated in cab, except for areas controlled by ETCS (so far just the Cambrian Coast line) and TVM430 (HS1). AWS - on all trains - does repeat if a cautionary aspect was displayed at the last signal. But doesn't show what is coming up next.
The issue with route knowledge is that a driver is expected to know EXACTLY where he/she is at all times, without reference to a map or charts. This is so that in the event of an incident, in fog, at night, when he/she has perhaps had a knock of some sort and lost his phone, that somehow disables the train's communication systems, the driver still knows immediately where to go to call the signaller, ie next signal box, station, signal or level crossing with telephone.
It is a valid challenge that in this day and age with the technology available, is this really necessary. And I can certainly see a time under ETCS where detailed route knowledge of signalling becomes less important. But there is still knowledge required of stations, level crossings etc.
The issue with route knowledge is that a driver is expected to know EXACTLY where he/she is at all times, without reference to a map or charts. This is so that in the event of an incident, in fog, at night, when he/she has perhaps had a knock of some sort and lost his phone, that somehow disables the train's communication systems, the driver still knows immediately where to go to call the signaller, ie next signal box, station, signal or level crossing with telephone.
It is a valid challenge that in this day and age with the technology available, is this really necessary. And I can certainly see a time under ETCS where detailed route knowledge of signalling becomes less important. But there is still knowledge required of stations, level crossings etc.
There is a universal signal system that applies through the UK, to which all NR drivers follow. However, routes and traction are not universal, hence why thorough route knowledge and traction knowledge is key.
On the routes they're competent, drivers know EVERY station stopping position, every change of permissible speed, every signal and junction and to where those junctions can take them with all the associated indications, every curve, every gradient, every level crossing, every tunnel, location of every telephone (SPT, ECO etc) and which ones are safe to use, every cutting or bridge, where it's safe to do an uncontrolled evacuation, where you can not evacuate, every mile post, every access gate, where conductor rails or OHLE equipment is etc, where services are on adjacent lines and from which direction they will be coming. If I derail at night in thick fog, I am expected to know immediately where I am and give a location, I am expected to protect the adjacent lines by attaching Track Circuit Operating Clips, if I don't have enough, I need to quickly judge which line is most likely to have a train coming first. If I can't get through on the Cab Radio for some reason, I am expected to know immediately where the nearest signal is and head for it to use the attached telephone. If there is third rail, I am expected to know immediately that I am isolating the correct rails and not over a section gap that would make half the train remain live etc.
If you're in a plane and you have a problem, you can get ATC to give you vectors to the nearest suitable airfield. Train drivers in the middle of nowhere do not have that luxury. You just can't compare.
Passengers in stations only see our faces staring straight ahead as we pull in. They don't see us staring at the stop board at the end of the platform, remembering how many coaches we have and which board to stop at, they don't see our hand moving bringing the train to a smooth stop, whilst our brains are computing how to do so on a downhill gradient in icy conditions with idiots pretending to jump in front of our train, with it being the 100th time we've stopped that day! We don't have an autopilot, we can't just "monitor things" whilst in cruise. We are having to maintain 100% concentration throughout an entire shift.
I do wish the public and media would stop trashing train drivers if they don't know what we do or what we're trained to do. "They just push buttons", nope the public making wild assumptions about an industry they have no knowledge about are the ones pushing buttons.....ours!
Dieseldriver
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Skoodle, brilliant post mate, thanks 
pembroke, you say about your experience in the aviation industry, that is in no way transferable to the railway industry. I am a train driver, I do not attempt to compare that to flying a plane.
pembroke, you say about your experience in the aviation industry, that is in no way transferable to the railway industry. I am a train driver, I do not attempt to compare that to flying a plane.
the sniper
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This is like us coming to you in complete ignorance and asking why a commercial airliner needs a whole flight crew when the process could just be fully automated or questioning why Pilots need so much training when most airliners can fly themselves already and airports all look pretty much the same. Surely you can appreciate why people thought you were trolling?
Honestly, you seem so far from appreciating what is involved in train driving that it's hard to know where to start with explaining it! For a start, the signalling system itself if largely standardised in principle, but you don't appreciate that the standard signalling system has to be applied differently to suit the circumstances of each location. It has to take into account the linespeeds at the location and the impact this has on signal spacing required to accommodate the differing braking performances of different types of trains using the line in differing weather conditions, plus any junctions or possible train movements that have to be catered for at the location. Most of these factors are strongly or entirely influenced by the way the railway had to navigate the topography of the area it passed through when built, so can't just be 'standardised' out.
As for drivers route knowledge, I think what a lot of the public don't appreciate is that drivers have to know all the braking points for all the stations they might have to stop at, normally from at least two directions. This could be a hundred stations located over many hundreds of miles of railway. These things aren't driven on line of sight like a road vehicle, you must appreciate that a train travelling at 70mph to 125mph takes a long time to stop even in emergency, more so in normal braking steps. This means that the point at which the driver has to start braking for a station can be a mile or more away, long before the station comes into view. The braking point obviously changes if the approach speed is changed, this in reaction to running under restrictive aspect signals or unusually skipping/calling additional at a preceding station. The only thing that indicates this braking point is the driver's route and traction knowledge. Particularly in the leaf fall season they need to know the road well enough to be able to anticipate where poor adhesion might occur in differing weather conditions, know the impact this'll have on their braking ability and drive accordingly. This is all in addition to what Skoodle has pointed out.
The basic operating of a train is easy, actually driving the thing out on the main line is where the skill is.
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notadriver
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Why don't we have pilotless planes ? They work on autopilot most of the time after all don't they ?
andrewkeith5
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Largely because, unlike trains, they can't just stop in mid air if something goes wrong with the many hundreds of sensors on board.
For example Qantas QF32, where an uncontained engine failure severed both the primary and backup electrical lines to all the sensors on one wing. The computer went nuts with error messages, but the Flight Deck Crew were able to clear all 500+ of them and land the aircraft without a single injured passenger.
The equivalent on a train would probably be inter-carriage electrical lines being severed, in which case the train would (or realistically should) emergency stop. No such thing as an emergency stop in the sky!
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It is possible to automate the driving, the Docklands railway shows the way. However, is the technology sufficiently reliable to eliminate staff, given that open air railways have an interface with the unpredictable rest of the world that say the Post Office Railway or a lift does not?
Where the railway is archaic is in its manning practices, particularly in relying so much on voluntary overtime to operate the services, in a way that has not been seen for many years in the road passenger industry, and probably never in the aviation industry. A complete overhaul is long overdue, and sufficient staff employed to cover all of the scheduled duties every day, including a practical level of spare, with overtime more the exception than the rule. The current system appears to rely far too much on the goodwill of staff, and being humans, this will ebb and flow both individually and collectively depending on the circumstances.
Trains can "get away with it" - people will moan about the delays and cancellation, the closure of King's Cross etc., but for many train travel is a distress purchase. They have no choice. However bad it is, people will put up with it.
In the case of the airlines, there is strong competition. Air France go on strike? People switch to British Airways. Flying London to New York - a range of airlines will take you in 3 or 4 different cabin classes. All easily bookable via an agent or a website. Airlines cannot afford to treat their passengers with contempt (or be perceived as such).
BUT, if we look at airports. Not so much choice there. I feel some of the problems and attitudes around the weather "related" closure of Heathrow a couple of years back mirror what goes on in the railway industry.
In the case of the airlines, there is strong competition. Air France go on strike? People switch to British Airways. Flying London to New York - a range of airlines will take you in 3 or 4 different cabin classes. All easily bookable via an agent or a website. Airlines cannot afford to treat their passengers with contempt (or be perceived as such).
BUT, if we look at airports. Not so much choice there. I feel some of the problems and attitudes around the weather "related" closure of Heathrow a couple of years back mirror what goes on in the railway industry.
Fincra5
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Doesn't the DLR still have a member of staff on every train? Who can drive if need be (and who does the doors). PSA? or something.
Which therefore goes back to my earlier post. How the hell do you remember all of that? I doubt I could.
GatwickDepress
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Passenger Service Agent, yup. I preferred their former title "Train Captain", though; it was so cheesy.
If you give passengers a full explanation of a delay theyd switch off after a few seconds.
Offen being stopped at a red is more than just being stopped at a signal. You maybe awaiting a Class 1 at a junction, which in turn has been delayed by a signal fault, caused by a short circuit, which was caused by a freight train derailing in a yard and taking out a axle counter of something, which was caused by a maanger undertaking shunting duties as the booked Shunter was sick.
99% of passengers weren't listerning or sstitched off after you say "sorry for the delay, we're........."
As a whole the railway runs on the goodwill of the staff, most depots struggle to maintain minimum staffing leaving once training, leave, RDs, sick etc are all thrown in the mix.
NX
Offen being stopped at a red is more than just being stopped at a signal. You maybe awaiting a Class 1 at a junction, which in turn has been delayed by a signal fault, caused by a short circuit, which was caused by a freight train derailing in a yard and taking out a axle counter of something, which was caused by a maanger undertaking shunting duties as the booked Shunter was sick.
99% of passengers weren't listerning or sstitched off after you say "sorry for the delay, we're........."
As a whole the railway runs on the goodwill of the staff, most depots struggle to maintain minimum staffing leaving once training, leave, RDs, sick etc are all thrown in the mix.
NX
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You've just never flown an aircraft, have you?
Sir, I give you Ryanair.
Probably thread drift and few thoughts to close. Rail seems to be where aviation was in the 1960s. Fight Engineers have gone (me included!), competition is fierce and aircraft are flown to their optimum capacity, as are the airports! Automation, with back up redundancy is used widely in safety critical transport systems worldwide. I worked in Switzerland for a few years and return to see friends most years. The rail system is efficient, clean and punctual. The fares are reasonable and the tracks not littered with old rails and assorted debris. As said by Skoodle and Sniper, a driver in the UK is expected to retain information in such detail that it restricts that driver to specific routes. Why is there such inertia to change? I read the EU directive, ETCS carefully and it's implementation is slow, especially in UK. If there is a direct analogy between rail and aviation then surely it would be a sensible step to implement ETCS level 3 asap. This would provide individual trains with on board integrity, integrated to allow automation from route signallers via the transponder (balise). With secondary redundancy( fail passive/active) the driver would simply monitor progress , possibly taking control leaving and entering stations.
I have it first hand from one of the original project team that the only reason there are staff on the DLR trains is that when it opened there were more stations than trains in service. Given the need to manage safe dispatch, it was thus cheaper to have people on every train than every station.
It is of course entirely possible to have unattended train operation with no staff routinely on board or at stations. Lille VAL, Dubai Metro, one of the Paris meter lines (14? - used to be METEOR) to name but three.
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Busaholic
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It has been a few years since I was last on the DLR but, travelling offpeak, I have witnessed the train being driven manually on several occasions: the first occasion was, I think, the only occasion on which it was necessary, the first weekday of DLR operation as it happened, and the 'conductor' was sweating like the proverbial all the way from Poplar to Stratford, though we eventually got there, at a steady 5mph! The other occasions were a combination of the staff member keeping his/her hand in and staving off boredom, I felt.
Except ETCS L3 doesn't exist anywhere except as a concept.
And in Switzerland, the drivers still need route knowledge and the training to get it accordingly.
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Busaholic
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Sorry, was writing my post when yours got put up, but I think you're wrong on that, perhaps not now but when the system first opened. We, the passengers, could hear the control room making it quite clear that the line would come to a halt if that guy didn't override the defect by driving it himself.
No doubt about the need to drive in an emergency, but I can assure you the original plan was not to have anyone on board - except in an emergency of course. If a train wa stranded between stations, someone would have had to walk to the train!
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Do they, or do they use the German style Buchfahrplan to supplement reduced route learning?
Neil
Ryanair have always been very good at keeping me informed about delays and information on the plane.
A lot of complaints about them are tired and come from believing Michael Ryan's obvious trolling for maximum PR.
Agree fully about it being pretty patronising that passengers switch off if you give genuine reasons and information. Some will but they may shut up a bit as they couldn't be arsed listening to the reason. Not all, but some. Many others will appreciate honesty. Again, not all, but some, and that's less people having a go at poor old staff on the platforms and at stations.
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the sniper
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Eventually this may well happen, but it's a matter of great cost, time and the complexity of its implementation. Switching to ETCS would be a monumental change. I also don't think ETCS would be the golden bullet for solving the 'problem' that you perceiver route knowledge to be.
it's nothing to do with privacy as no one, as far as I can see, is suggesting that the announcement says that 'the train has been cancelled because driver P has a sore throat'. However, if a TOC has high levels of staff sickness, especially at this time of year, it is a legitimate matter of public scrutiny as there is the use and potential misuse of public finds involved. TOCs should feel the heat of public criticism is they were failing to get to grips with such an issue.
Pembroke, I think you need to talk a little more to your driver friend about what is involved. You seem to have some major misconceptions about the railway. Without route knowledge, how do you stop a train doing 90 in a precise place in the fog? Radar? How do you stop at a red signal without knowing where it is? The last cautionary signal may be miles from the red and without knowing where it is you would have crawl at caution which would diminish the efficiency of rail as a form of transport. We also have to deal with enormously varying conditions that don't exist in the air - gradients, curves, poor sighting, poor railhead conditions, the actions of people and animals on the lineside. As for automation, well maybe that should have happened but it isn't the rail industry stopping it. Perhaps you are not aware of the fact that rail has been largely neglected by pro-road and air governments since 1948 and this is why the infrastructure is out of date in many ways. To take Victorian mechanical engineering and retrofit it for automation would take the sort of funding that no one is likely to stump up. It's been 20 years since we last electrified a major trunk route - and it was supposed to be a post war project. The signalling is archaic for the same reason - ideally it would be in cab and it would be not be possible to pass a red. But starving the industry of resources has led to a piece meal approach which has to stick with coloured lights on sticks, and poor man's safety systems that will only intervene after the mistake has been made. The railway pretty much has to adapt and work to the conditions imposed by the political system and this is why it is frequently illogical, inconsistent or inefficient. A recent example is Thameslink being forced to run 8 cars trains through the Thameslink core even though that cuts capacity from the preferred 12 cars and introduces more conflicts at Blackfriars. BR could barely plan beyond a year ahead because they were constantly making do. I think you are asking well meaning questions but without much in the way of research or comprehension of the subject. You are also not comparing like with like. Think of the rail network - thousands of stations, different types of lines with varying conditions, having to serve communities of every nature. And with a huge service element which has to place imperatives such as getting thousands of people into London for work or villagers to shops in the far north which will never make money over any commercial aim. If the industry can take short cuts, it has and does already. Private operating companies don't take a year to train a driver for fun, they do it because it takes that long. We have Driver Only Operation to save salaries on many routes, this happened despite disputes so when the industry can make efficiencies, it WILL. I hope all these responses are helping to enlighten you.
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