24/02/2012 Another test

After a long week of Shunting and also how to deal with signalling irregularities, we came to another exam today. For us it was good as we were supposed to being doing it on Monday but felt we were ready early.

Shunting has been a bit of a mine field as a lot of what is in the rule book isn't actually performed by South West Trains such as shunting using rope!! We learnt a lot about how shunter's work and what their different hand signals mean to me as a driver. We also learnt some of the more interesting things that are done very rarely. For example, did you know in the rule book you can drive from a cab that is not at the front in certain circumstances? One of the many interesting things we have had to learn.
We also looked at signalling failures and irregularities. We learnt how to pass signals at danger properly (with authority) what to do if you pass one without authority and also where in the can we can override certain things to do with signalling (when allowed!)
We were on the simulators again this morning, where I drove and had to deal with temporary block working. One thing that has hit me is that since the route learning exam I talked about in an earlier blog is that my route knowledge has become poor. As I was driving along at 50mph (maximum speed in temporary block working) I suddenly saw a set of points ahead of me. One goes a hard bit of braking (as you can only do 15mph over points!) and I only just managed to get to 15mph as I crossed the points! So I think I will be looking at the route learning notes I made before the exam.
Anyway, we finished with an exam this afternoon which I passed so I can relax over the weekend.
Next week is going to be difficult as we are looking at the TW modules which mean that we will be looking at train failures and how to deal with them which is very dry and very boring, but all has to be learnt!

See you all Monday!!