Train drivers what do they do??

1) Pikey’s keep nicking all the cables to the black box.
2) See above 🙂

Hi peajay, yes archie is still in Edinburgh. Where you based?

oh, and urbanhiker if you can design a black box that can respond to calls from the public about groups of kids on the line go ahead.

Steel on steel, I see. I can feel a “what tire for a tr…” coming on!

I’ll work on that black box. I’m sure a recorded message “we thank you for your call and will get back to you just as soon as the black box is finished” should cover most situations 😉

It must take a lot of training to drive the train on them little thin rails.

Well, in actual fact train wheels do have tyres – solid steel ones are pressed onto the axle/wheel forging.

They don’t do too well when the track is slippy – they either spin or lock up (because a lot trains are fitted with an advanced ABS system). Locking the wheels up causes flat spots. Autumn is the worst for tyre grip because the leaves stick to wet rails (cold mornings mean wet rails from condensation) and when they get rolled over they turn into a teflon type substance which adheres to the rail as solidly as the non-stick coating sticks to a frying pan (and is just as slippy). Network Rail employ rail head treatment trains which jetwash the top of the rail. If the treatment train stops with the jets running they would cut through the rail in about 2 minutes!

However, steel tyres mean that trains can coast for miles and miles using minimal energy (with an experienced driver in the cab, an HST125 once up to speed can coast from Prestatyn to Chester easily)

Very old stock might have tyres, all modern wheelsets are solid. Tyres have a habit of rotating on the wheel in time. Thats why white lines used to be painted on wheels to gauge rotation and spot failures. Spot on about the leaves tho. University study commissioned by the railways came up with those findings.

Re airline pilots – there is an awful lot of sky out there with nothing in it in all three dimensions. And anything that does manage to be there you can see on a readout from hundreds of miles away, not only that someone below can see you and everything else and is basically controlling your plane by proxy.

Not many leaves, floods or drunks walking home at 36,000ft.

Not many leaves, floods or drunks walking home at 36,000ft

Pilots don’t earn their money at 36,000ft, they earn it when the plane’s near the ground.

Experienced a very heavy landing at Edinburgh few years back in awful weather. Pilot earned his pay that day.

steel tyres mean that trains can coast for miles and miles using minimal energy

Funnily enough, someone told me on a bike ride a couple of weeks ago that apparently if you give a train at Caterham station, which is on the North Downs, a little shunt, it can in theory a least, roll all the way Victoria station by the Thames about – 18 miles away.

I’m not sure whether it’s actually true but I can well believe it, because despite the only slight gradient, I’m sure the rolling resistance must be minimal.

Pilots don’t earn their money at 36,000ft, they earn it when the plane’s near the ground.

Exactly, hence autopilot the rest of the way.

Banavie, playing with Helensburgh to Oban today, Pass of Brander was enough excitement last year!

brakes
. . . . or if there might be a leaf on the track within a 300 mile radius

Spoken like a true non railway man who has no concept of what leaves on the line actually means!

And to be fair I was the same till about 2 years ago.

I feel I should clarify this further having seen another post above again misunderstanding the leaves on the line issue.

While you are not wrong about leaf mulch in autumn causing grip issues, the real danger lies in its insulative properties, ie the signalling system can briefly loose detection of a train.

This can cause the signalling systems route (which in turn protects the train and its intended path) to release and potentially allow another route to set over the top. 2 trains on trying to occupy the same bit of track rarely has a good outcome.

Leaves are a two fold problem, yes they cause slippage but more importantly they also act as an insulator, in bad area’s trains will disappear off the signalling system as they no longer activate track circuits, this could then allow the signal protecting the train to revert to a proceed aspect and allow another train into the signalling section.

NOT GOOD!

Damn beat me too it!

Spot on sir!

“While you are not wrong about leaf mulch in autumn causing grip issues, the real danger lies in its insulative properties, ie the signalling system can briefly loose detection of a train.”
Wrong side track circuit failures far less common than rail head contamination causing poor brake effect, but yes very dangerous, also theres no alarm given to a signaller by the system if this happens.

“Experienced a very heavy landing at Edinburgh few years back in awful weather. Pilot earned his pay that day.”

It was probably the auto pilot that landed the aircraft, not the pilot.

A mate of mine is an airline pilot and he says its very rare the pilot will land the aircraft. We landed in Manchester in the middle of a serious hail/thunderstorm and the aircraft was pitching all over the place. Some people scream as we came in becuase it felt like the wing was going to hit the deck rather than the wheels. My mate said he was convinced the auto pilot would have done the landing as a pilot would have been too chicken.

Oh and he said the hardest part of the job is not living in one time zone. His bbody is screwed and cant tell when its day or night.

TPWS stops the train after passing a red signal

Does it? I seem to remember being asked to sit next up front to verify every signal to the driver when this got switched off for whatever reason. (This was nearly 15 years ago though)!

15 years ago and I’m thinking of AWS aren’t I.

My mate said he was convinced the auto pilot would have done the landing as a pilot would have been too chicken

That must take some nerve to sit there and not touch the controls whilst a computer lands the plane!

TPWS stops the train after passing a red signal

Does it? I seem to remember being asked to sit next up front to verify every signal to the driver when this got switched off for whatever reason. (This was nearly 15 years ago though)!

15 years ago and I’m thinking of AWS aren’t I. [/quote]

TPWS, if fitted to a signal, will stop a train which has passed it at danger. AWS stops it if driver doesn’t acknowledge an alarm in time.

I did very little last night, or indeed the night before 😆 Hope that answers the op’s question.

Leafall isn’t much fun. I braked at walking pace on a bad night last Autumn. Steep falling gradient (1:40ish) All 16 axles locked up straight away, speedo straight to zero (works off wheel rotation-no rotation train thinks it’s stood still), sanders and WSP (think of it as train ABS) stopped working as the speedo had stopped working beacause the train’s poor feckless computer thinks it’s not moving! Hey presto a 250 tonne skeleton bob!

By the time I’d cleared the worst of the contamination and got the damn thing under control I was doing nearly 40mph. I really may have well not been there, it’s bloody scary. All that mass, all those people and there’s little you can do other that stick the brake in emergency and hope!

Until you’ve experienced it, it’s hard to comprehend. Next time you travel by train on a dank, drizzly Autumn day spare a though for the driver who may well have been through several pairs of p[ants that day.

TPWS, if fitted to a signal, will stop a train which has passed it at danger.

Or indeed if it’s approaching a red un to fast (or the bobbies told you to pass it a red and you forget to press the override button 😳 ) and for that matter a permanent speed restriction if fitted.

IIRC the leaf mulch on rails is more of an issue these days, as modern trains have disc brakes which act on the vertial plane of the wheel, whereas older trains had brakes which act on the tread of the wheel, thus clearing a lot of the much off the wheel as it rotates, I think heat generated by braking also plays a part in keeping tread brakes clear of muck too.

Can’t remember the exact number but the chance of a driver hitting someone is really high, some have hit people a couple of times. Not nice for anybody involved.

(Recently retired from industry after 34 years in a nice warm office except for odd trips to Craigentinny, Forth Bridge, and worked at Heaton for a spell)

Leafall isn’t much fun. I braked at walking pace on a bad night last Autumn. Steep falling gradient (1:40ish) All 16 axles locked up straight away, speedo straight to zero (works off wheel rotation-no rotation train thinks it’s stood still), sanders and WSP (think of it as train ABS) stopped working as the speedo had stopped working beacause the train’s poor feckless computer thinks it’s not moving! Hey presto a 250 tonne skeleton bob!

😯 Remind me again why I pay £130 a month to get on one of these?

So, in summary, if a train skids it thinks it’s not moving?!?! 😯

Some would say that’s a bit of a design flaw there

Leaf fall season Is horrendous , nothing worse than putting on the brakes and the speedo drops to zero as your heading for a red signal . Truly awfull feeling of helplessness. As they say better to walk 50 feet TO a signal than 5 feet back FROM a signal.

Dangerous?
Sat right at the front, I mean, if anything goes wrong….

I guess from a stats point of view accidents are rare on the railways, but when they do occur the driver’s cab doesn’t look like a good place to be.

Is the conclusion then that drivers do actually earn their pay?

Quite a few S&T type people on here it seems.

Is there a demand for train drivers? How easy is it to become one. I think I fancy a wee change of career.

This is a serious question btw!

Not read the whole thread, but my understanding is that much like ‘fly by wire planes’ trains are at such level of automation, the now only rewuire 1 driver and 1 dog.

Railway lore has it that one driver at Selhurst depot had so many jumpers that he was called “The Terminator”.

Many years ago a colleague of mine was sent out to….. erm look for bits after an incident and barfed when he saw what he thought was the top of a scalp in the mud, turned out to be a large bit of hairy coconut shell! 😀

Tiggs Its a case of just looking at the passenger companies websites . The likes of First Scotrail took on a few ‘Boil in the bag’ drivers a few year back as they get government grants to train them up. You would be wasting your time trying the freight companies as the industry really is in a poor state. I’ve clung onto my job for the past few years by doing other duties (Shunting) but the future looks pretty grim for future freight. If you were succesfull at an Interview you would have to face an aptitude test then company medical . I was 18 weeks in Doncaster then 150 hours with a minder driver before getting my final assesments . So Its a fairly long process.

Have a look here if you want to see how easy the job is and ho wit is never ever scary and the signallers and train drivers sit on their arses all day….
http://www.raib.gov.uk/latest_news/110131_pn_carstairs.cfm

This was a close one which could have been much much worse if the signalman was not on the ball.

I work in the industry but thankfully not on the ops side, don’t think i would be able to remember even half of the rule books that the drivers/signalmen have to…

For those that think you could train a monkey to drive a train, you’d be surprised how many people struggle with the job. Early mornings, late nights, weekends, takes it’s toll on the family life. And yes, it carries it’s own stress. Long periods in the cab on your own, not “doing a lot” but if you don’t do what you are supposed to do precisely when you are supposed to do it then there may be trouble ahead, literally. When you’re clocking up anything up to 15,000 stops a year, with irregular stopping patterns and potential railhead adhesion problems to contend with (explained above but yeah, bloody scary), aggressive passengers, trespassers, stuff lobbed at your window (i’ve been bricked and had my 2nd man’s window put through with an air gun), the constant back of the mind fear of a fatality, not to mention the all too regular killing of wildlife and pets, dogs, foxes, birds of prey etc, it is pretty bloody horrible hitting something as beautiful as say,a buzzard, an owl or some poor family’s pet.
The rules, working instructions, local instuctions, route and traction knowledge all add up to a fair weight of knowledge and also a fair weight in books! Yeah, it’s good money but we “work” for it, even if it’s not the conventional idea of work. Besides, as any railwayman or woman knows, the money means nowt compared to the cameraderie, the stunning sunrises, sunsets and natural spectacles you get to see whilst bombing along, plus working shifts and weekends means we get to hit the trails when it’s all nice and quiet, and you can’t put a price on that. 🙂

Your right about the scenery Johnny , I used to go over the Forth bridge at sunrise most mornings and down the Ayrshire coast passed some of scotlands best golf courses truly stunning. I tend to work 3 weeks of long hours and get a week rest free so it Is good for quiet trail centres etc.

Dibbs – Member
Sitting in the cab knowing that if some pillock decides to jump in front of your train you’d not be able to stop for a mile or so!! Not for me thanks

Neighbour drives for Virgin Trains out of Liverpool to London. He’s had a couple of people jump in front of him and to be honest he’s not the sort of personality to deal with it well, longer periods of time off sick etc.