Re: Train missing stations!

terzal wrote:
snip
but maybe he didn't realise his mistake until he stopped. I realise
passengers were apparently banging on his
internal door, maybe he was too busy on the CSR (radio) talking to the
signaller, to make an anouncement and didn't have time to.

"Mr. Smallweed" <chrisclarke1948@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Passengers banging on driver's doors are generally not regarded as an aid to
concentration.

"jonmorris" <j.morris@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
A guy who had walked up the train came back said someone else had
already spoken to the driver. I obviously don't know when exactly, or
what was said, but it was before we stopped (certainly before we
entered the tunnels at Hadley Wood).

How exactly ?

There is nothing wrong with a bit of criticism, its the this is the end
of the world, you should be sacked attitude, that I've faced numerous
times for even daring to be a few minutes late, let alone missing a
couple of stations.

Agreed, criticism OK, self righteousness not OK. Strangely those with jobs
that have
no safety role or responsibility are those that want any transgression by
others to be severely punished and the incident amplified in the newpspers

snip
I suspect he hoped that he could get away with it

Rather a sweeping assumption

I have been reading this thread with interest, as a driver who has run
through a couple of stations by accident in his career! I have a
couple of observations, and hope you don't mind me sharing them.
On the face of it, it is really bad PR work for a driver to appear to
have made no PA announcements, and I hadn't previously thought about
the possibility of passengers being frightened by the train not
stopping. (I am however sceptical that would account for much more
than a fraction of the passengers). However, PA systems are not
perfect, and I have personal experience of faults, such as one coach,
or indeed the whole train, not having a working PA even though I was
talking away in the cab to it. I'm not saying that was the case in
this instance, necessarily.
People I get talking to at parties, or socially, when they find out
I'm a driver, often ask the question, "How can a driver miss a
station, they're so big?" A couple of things to bear in mind are that
generally, during the course of a driver's day, he or she might have
to pass through a great many stations without stopping at them;
therefore, it certainly isn't unusual to whizz straight through them,
so that in itself is no guaranty that the driver is going to realise
his error. The other thing to think of, although it doesn't apply in
this instance is that generally braking distances are much greater
than car drivers are used to, which means it isn't always possible to
stop at a station if you were doing 100 mph, and you've been
distracted for a few seconds. There are many reasons that a driver can
get distracted, some of them much more legitimate than others,
frankly.
In this case, the trains that leave Finsbury Park most of the day, may
be either next stop Stevenage, or next stop Potters Bar, that is the
normal stopping pattern. In the rush hour, for various reasons, the
stopping patterns can be all over the place, and sometimes, just to
make it doubly hard for the driver, the type of rolling stock in use
could be of a type more normally asscociated with a different kind of
work. For example, on WAGN, you might get an 8 car 317 instead of a 6
car 313, and this can help to trip a driver up as regards remembering
his next stop. The 317 is an outer suburban style of train which from
the cab has a completely different feel to it, and is faster, with
brakes that seem less effective sometimes.
In general, when a driver books on, far from what some people may
imagine, there is no briefing about what your job is going to entail
today, and there will be no discussion about unusual stopping
patterns, or anything else in all probability. Some drivers, on the
first day of a new timetable period, may take it upon themselves to
write the stopping patterns down on the back of the bit of paper that
tells you what trains you'll be working today, but very often, that is
the most you will get. So, unless you look at the timetable for every
single train, you will at some stage be surprised at a stopping
pattern that is perhaps a little unusual, to say the least. Whilst
that sounds easy enough in principle, there are times when you may
arrive at Moorgate 12 mins late, and you were due out 4 minutes ago,
so that you don't really have the time to examine the timetable as
assiduously as perhaps you'd like.
So, it's very easy for a driver to be given the right away at Finsbury
Park, and to now think that he's next stop Potters Bar; it's a mistake
granted, but the consequences are much bigger than the actual error.
Hands up anyone who thinks they can say unequivocally that they have
never made an error at work, but it just resulted in someone having
too many cans of beans on a shelf, or a slight increase in the budget
for a new bridge over the M25?
I have been on trains where the driver has over run or forgotten a
station, and I've spoken to them in messrooms on the subject, and I
can tell you when it happens, the worse thing you feel, for many of
us, is a great sense of embarrassment! Now when you get embarrassed,
do you perhaps try and curl up in a corner, and try not to be noticed?
Not logical I know, but a bit understandable.
There's been some talk in this thread about signals helping drivers
know where and when to stop at stations, but I'm afraid that's
complete rubbish, they have no bearing on us in that way, except
coincidentally.
After you've had a runthrough as a driver, you probably get a bit
better at learning how to deal with it, but I don't think there's many
drivers who treat them lightly left on the railway these days. Yes,
many companies do treat them as punishable offences, or certainly as
grounds for greater monitoring of drivers, but you don't tend to get
away with them these days, as there so many systems in place for
noticing them, and so many people anxious to not see "overpaid" and
"careless" drivers get away with anything that they will report you.
It's one of those things that you get paid for, so one just has to put
up with it, but I feel very sure that this driver wasn't trying to get
away with it, he or she was just embarrassed, perhaps inexperienced,
and very very cross with himself !
I hope some of the more reasonable of you have picked up a few things
from this post. Cheers!
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Train missing stations!
    ... lifes and have never made a mistake in whatever jobs they do. ... that if the driver is going to be on the carpet anyway the last ... train for months, due to staff shortages, they were prevailed ... SPADed as he must have gone past the red signal at the stations he was ...
    (uk.railway)
  • Re: Train missing stations!
    ... to Royston forgot to stop at two stations and ended up going to Potters ... I take it the posters lining up ready to shoot the driver lead perfect ... Few drivers enjoy a completely mistake free career, ... same stopping pattern although was a different service. ...
    (uk.railway)
  • Re: printer installation
    ... You have a mix of 64 and 32 bit XP stations or all 32? ... Printers are attached to the SBS, or are ip printers on the network or are shared from local workstations? ... Verify that you are installing the correct printer driver for the OS you have, and if "pulling" from the SBS or another shared station, be certain you have cached the correct OS version drivers. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: Viscount Linley
    ... behind the flight engineer's bulkhead during supersonic flight, ... LED counters with digits that, if you stand there long ... driver and all that). ... the entrance to the stations means), ...
    (uk.rec.motorcycles)
  • Re: Professional Ways of Despatching Trains
    ... circular 'bat' to indicate all is safe for the train to leave. ... The dispatch bat is used to indicate 'station duties complete' and is an indication to guards (or drivers of driver only trains) to close the doors. ... The procedure varies according to whether the platform is staffed or not, whether the train has a guard or is driver only operated, and whether 'close doors' and/or 'right away' indicators are fitted. ... Stations on the line into Paddington are equipped for driver only operation. ...
    (uk.railway)