24-04-2012 And so to the driving...

Well I am at the point of the training I have been looking forward too. Proper driving! :) Monday I spent the day at Basingstoke training school, where I had a human factors brief. It showed how your mind works and how different factors can adversely affect you. It also showed how your short term memory can only hold about 7 items and for no more than about 10 seconds although for me that sounds wildly optimistic!! We further learned how, being tired effects you and what you can do to make sure that your concentration remains high. An interesting day in all and at the end of it we had a nice chat about the next stage in our training. It was also the first day in a few weeks where the entire course was together again in one place and it was good to trade stories and experiences and was good to see only a few mistakes were made like missing the AWS!

I came back to the depot today and as luck would have it (as I was raring to start driving) I had a company development day. It was a day you do twice a year with other drivers and you get together and discuss what's going on with the company and what drivers can do to help. We talk over incidents that may have occurred not just at SWT but all over the UK and try to learn why they happened and what can be done to avoid doing it as well. Not a bad day and it gave me a chance to meet some other drivers and also spend the day with my DI ready for tomorrow.

And here it is... This is my first duty in full driving and as you can see has a 0700 start so I think an early night after dinner for me!

Just a quick one to help you with abbreviations...

PC - Prepare Circuits (Set up cab for service)

TC - Trip Circuit (Close cab down when finished)

RELD - Relieved by (someone takes your train)

REL - Relieve (you take the train from someone)

PNB - Personal Needs Break ( Grub :) )

PASS - Travel Passenger (Get on the train but don't drive it)

AP - Attach Portion (Couple to another train)

DOO - Driver Only Operated (Empty coaching trains that have no guard)

444/450 - Class of train that service should be

Anything else you would like to know, leave a comment and I'll try and answer it!!