New Train Driver Assessment

[DunfordBridge]

I passed stage 1 of the new test this week for a position with Northern.

I'm really not too worried about the second tests. I have the practice material and I believe with preparation I'll be fine, but the MMI is a real concern. Having read comments on this thread I'm even more worried, and I currently work in an office so my experience of emergency situations and face to face customer service is not vast. I did pretty well in the manager interview, but I'm expecting a sterner test here.

Also, I take it if you pass all the tests but fail the MMI it counts as one of your two strikes?

Thanks

It is my understanding that you have lost a strike if you fail the MMI.

Working in an office is a tricky one for emergencies, working alone, etc, as I am an office worker myself. Lucky if I see daylight. The nearest we normally get to an emergency is when someone burns some toast and the fire alarm sounds. Have you always worked in an office?

Like Ultra4 said, the examples do not always have to be work-related. They could arise from leisure or voluntary activities. You should try driving on the A64, often the scene of a noteworthy accident. One Saturday, I encountered two accidents on there. Revellers on a Saturday night can be a good source of emergencies, I have found myself intervening on occasion, although I hasten to add that I have had experience of conflict situations in another role.

By the way, is it still true that Northern stipulate that you must live within 30 minutes travelling distance of the depot for which you are applying?

 

[benno79]

Yes you are correct DB if you fail the mmi it is the loss of a life. I'm still waiting for feedback on my failure. The assessors have a backlog apparently which makes me think I must be one of quite a few failures.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Just had my feedback, failed on a question that I had actually thought was one of my better responses. Was told I had good responses on everything else. So close but so far....

Oh and one thing I didn't realise the six months is from the date of your first assessment so I'm already one month into perjury

 

[DunfordBridge]

Cheers Benno79. Did not actually realise that myself. Should be good for March in that case. Do you reckon you will be ready for next time with the one question?

 

[benno79]

Well assuming the questions remain the same I can be confident about the others, the problem is I'm still unsure where I went wrong. It could be the example I used but unlikely because I wasn't prompted for another therefore I can only assume it was one of my answers to the supplementary questions. I was asked one question several times and I think it could be that.

I couldn't get anymore tips from the assesors just what I had passed and failed.

 

[train_lover]

I passed stage 1 of the new test this week for a position with Northern.

I'm really not too worried about the second tests. I have the practice material and I believe with preparation I'll be fine, but the MMI is a real concern. Having read comments on this thread I'm even more worried, and I currently work in an office so my experience of emergency situations and face to face customer service is not vast. I did pretty well in the manager interview, but I'm expecting a sterner test here.

As the changeover to the 'new' test was only in October I know not many people have taken the MMI yet, but if anyone has any info at all to help me out, and maybe get my brain working towards formulating some good examples I can use in the interview, it would be much appreciated.

Also, I take it if you pass all the tests but fail the MMI it counts as one of your two strikes?

Thanks

Well done on passing stage one.

I did my stage 1 and 2 Thursday. My advice is don't underestimate the tests my friend. Although I passed them they are a lot harder than I thought.
All the best

 

[Pepperami]

I had to post this in response to a few of the posts in this thread, and in other parts of the forum

I am a qualified HGV1 Lorry Driver, and I have held my licence for about 8 years now

How anyone can compare Lorry driving to Train Driving is beyond me lol

Yes, it does require a test, yes you have to be competent, but its not a patch on driving a train is it?

Most of us drive from the age of 17, by the time you hit 25, for those of us that are HONEST, bad habits creep in, sometimes people just get in and drive, they have been doing for for a while, and how many times have you sat at a junction or a roundabout and some ignorant PRICK turns off with no indication?

Thats a driver of a car, I have seen lorry drivers use there lorry as a missile getting into lanes on motorways and worse because they have no regard for other road users

I gave up Lorry driving because I was sick to death of the ignorant ones on the road, and I ended up hating it

Train driving is on another plane completely!

Route knowledge..... Lorries... M25 - M1 - whatever easy......

Train Drivers, Length of this tunnel, that tunnel, SPADs that are flagged as sometimes hard to see, Making sure there are no faults on the unit your operating (Makes the Lorry Drivers Walk Round every morning look like a walk in the park!) and so it goes on an on and on

From a guy that used to do HGV, sorry, I side with the majority on this one, Train driving is a far far far greater challenge and one that requires CONSTANT concentration

Ive applied to be a trainee train driver, not sure how I will do, but here's hoping!

 

[TDK]

From a guy that used to do HGV, sorry, I side with the majority on this one, Train driving is a far far far greater challenge and one that requires CONSTANT concentration

Ive applied to be a trainee train driver, not sure how I will do, but here's hoping!

It may be a greater challenge but driving an HGV is far more taxing. You have to concentrate to a much higher level in an HGV. you have to encounter muppets on a more frequent basis and as for a challenge this part you are correct. The challenge is initially getting the job and once you have it keeping it.

The roles of HGV driver and train driver are like comparing a plumber to gardener, totally different jobs.

 

[Sunday_mornin]

I had to post this in response to a few of the posts in this thread, and in other parts of the forum

I am a qualified HGV1 Lorry Driver, and I have held my licence for about 8 years now

How anyone can compare Lorry driving to Train Driving is beyond me lol

Yes, it does require a test, yes you have to be competent, but its not a patch on driving a train is it?

Most of us drive from the age of 17, by the time you hit 25, for those of us that are HONEST, bad habits creep in, sometimes people just get in and drive, they have been doing for for a while, and how many times have you sat at a junction or a roundabout and some ignorant PRICK turns off with no indication?

Thats a driver of a car, I have seen lorry drivers use there lorry as a missile getting into lanes on motorways and worse because they have no regard for other road users

I gave up Lorry driving because I was sick to death of the ignorant ones on the road, and I ended up hating it

Train driving is on another plane completely!

Route knowledge..... Lorries... M25 - M1 - whatever easy......

Train Drivers, Length of this tunnel, that tunnel, SPADs that are flagged as sometimes hard to see, Making sure there are no faults on the unit your operating (Makes the Lorry Drivers Walk Round every morning look like a walk in the park!) and so it goes on an on and on

From a guy that used to do HGV, sorry, I side with the majority on this one, Train driving is a far far far greater challenge and one that requires CONSTANT concentration

Ive applied to be a trainee train driver, not sure how I will do, but here's hoping!

Just out of interest, if given the opportunity to sell yourself in a DM interview, will you be quite so dismissive of the skills you gathered during your HGV days? Or will you as I suspect, wax lyrical about those long stressful shifts working alone. Working under many rules and regulations, dealing with many unique situations on a daily basis, using your own initiative and being self motivated? Will your route learning then become a deep geographic understanding of the UK's roads with knowledge of all weight and dimension restrictions rather than "M1 - M25 easy", will your simple walk around the truck then become a safety critical requirement that failure to comply with could result in heavy fine or loss of licence.

Just wondering?

 

[Pepperami]

Wow genuine interest or just bored so decided to use a little sarcasm?

Don't take that as me being dismissive of your criticisms just wondering

Did I say I was dismissing the skills I had obtained? I didn't think I was, I had hoped I was just saying that I thought driving a train would be a far bigger challenge than driving a lorry

Route Knowledge is just as important on the roads yes, but I thought it might be a tad easier on the roads that on the railways

Stressful shifts.... Cant actually say that I had more than a handful of those, I was a Night Trunk Driver, the roads are a lot quieter, the queues, well there aren't that many at night

Simple walk around the truck was meant as in I would imagine the checks needed for a train vs a lorry would be more, yes there are walk around things you have to do for a lorry before every shift you take the lorry out, I imagined the ones for trains would be far more complex, am I wrong?

As for the DM interview, if I get that far, I would I hope be able to do well and use my experiences as this is what I think they might ask about, having never been in the position I wouldn't know, but yes I would tell them about what I have been doing with my life over the past 20-30 years, if they wanted to know

Oh and the M25 M1 bit, that's all I did, it was a night trunk, same route, every night, with minor diversions occasionally, so for me personally it will be a greater challenge, sorry if I sounded like I was making lorry driving easy, it isn't by any stretch of the imagination, but my route learning was easy
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

It may be a greater challenge but driving an HGV is far more taxing. You have to concentrate to a much higher level in an HGV. you have to encounter muppets on a more frequent basis and as for a challenge this part you are correct. The challenge is initially getting the job and once you have it keeping it.

The roles of HGV driver and train driver are like comparing a plumber to gardener, totally different jobs.

Yeah agreed, I think I will keep my opinions and observations to myself in future, safer that way

 

[EdZ]

Update! Assessment part 2:

Starts with providing short (one, maybe two sentences) on a selection of questions, that will later be used for the MMI. Very similar types of questions to the CBI, so look up the large amount of information on that.

Next, the Situational Judgement Exercise. It's judgement based, so I can't really offer any advice. Done on a computer, you click on-screen buttons with the mouse, if you can't do that you have bigger problems than trying to drive a train.

The MMI itself seemed to be entirely based around further questioning on the examples provided at the start of the day. Rumors that the MMI would be more based on theoretical responses to situations and less on personal experiences seem to have been utterly incorrect. This came as a rather unpleasant surprise.

Next, you have the perception and vigilance tests:

WAFV: A small square in the centre of the screen will blink regularly (or close to regularly, seemed to be about once per second to me) light grey. Occasionally, it will appear as light grey and then after half a second switch to dark grey. (i.e. it will not appear as a dark grey, the switch will be fairly obvious) You then press a button on the provided Schuhfried WTS controller. You do this for 30 minutes solid, though it will only feel like 10 at most. There are only two tricky things about this test: first, eye strain. Staring at a fairly bright screen for half an hour is more tiring than you think. Second, the button on the controller is awful. The activation force is so light that resting your finger on it will cause you to press it accidentally, but there is no positive engagement force, so it feels really mushy when you actually press it.

ATAVT: Watch the youtube video for an example of what the images look like. Don't worry about trying to memorise which button corresponds to which category, the answer screen after each image will have the buttons and their labels displayed.

2HAND: For those thinking "I'm used to the Playstation's dual-thumbstick layout, I'll be fine", be warned! The joysticks do NOT move the dot by velocity (i.e. pushing the stick up further, the dot moves up faster) as you would normally expect. Instead, the absolute position of the stick corresponds to the absolute position of the dot on the screen. If you pushed the stick halfway up from it's centre position, the dot will be 2/3 of the way up the screen, and if you let the stick go it will flick back to the centre position, and the dot will jump back to the centre of the screen. Left stick controls left/right, right stick controls up/down. Also, there is only one pattern you need to trace, and you do it multiple times. If you crammed together CVT so the letters joined, that's the sort of path you need to trace.

 

[Sunday_mornin]

Interesting post Edz. Interesting to read about the MMI, I wonder just how different it is compared to the old CBI? Maybe they compare your hypothetical responses in the SJE to your real life responses in the MMI to see if they correlate?

 

[Rjhsteel]

Where did you sit this?
I completed the assessment tests just over 2 years ago and it consisted of the dot test a memory test, the fault finding test and the reaction test.
Structured interview was another day.

 

[SPADTrap]

Where did you sit this?
I completed the assessment tests just over 2 years ago and it consisted of the dot test a memory test, the fault finding test and the reaction test.
Structured interview was another day.

Process has changed now mate.

 

[theageofthetra]

Regarding the SJE although this is a very subjective exercise are they generally looking for a safety at all costs? e.g in the sample materials given it talks about driving (a car) while tired. I would have thought the 'correct' answer would be the one that looks at the risk and takes the most risk adverse approach? similarly questions where a company rule is involved should need you to give a 'follow the rules at all costs' answer. Does anyone else agree or could offer any advice?

 

[falcon]

I had to post this in response to a few of the posts in this thread, and in other parts of the forum

I am a qualified HGV1 Lorry Driver, and I have held my licence for about 8 years now

How anyone can compare Lorry driving to Train Driving is beyond me lol

Yes, it does require a test, yes you have to be competent, but its not a patch on driving a train is it?

Most of us drive from the age of 17, by the time you hit 25, for those of us that are HONEST, bad habits creep in, sometimes people just get in and drive, they have been doing for for a while, and how many times have you sat at a junction or a roundabout and some ignorant PRICK turns off with no indication?

Thats a driver of a car, I have seen lorry drivers use there lorry as a missile getting into lanes on motorways and worse because they have no regard for other road users

I gave up Lorry driving because I was sick to death of the ignorant ones on the road, and I ended up hating it

Train driving is on another plane completely!

Route knowledge..... Lorries... M25 - M1 - whatever easy......

Train Drivers, Length of this tunnel, that tunnel, SPADs that are flagged as sometimes hard to see, Making sure there are no faults on the unit your operating (Makes the Lorry Drivers Walk Round every morning look like a walk in the park!) and so it goes on an on and on

From a guy that used to do HGV, sorry, I side with the majority on this one, Train driving is a far far far greater challenge and one that requires CONSTANT concentration

Ive applied to be a trainee train driver, not sure how I will do, but here's hoping!

Who are you trying to convince.LOL.:roll:

 

[SPADTrap]

Regarding the SJE although this is a very subjective exercise are they generally looking for a safety at all costs? e.g in the sample materials given it talks about driving (a car) while tired. I would have thought the 'correct' answer would be the one that looks at the risk and takes the most risk adverse approach? similarly questions where a company rule is involved should need you to give a 'follow the rules at all costs' answer. Does anyone else agree or could offer any advice?

Answer what you would do. Not what you think they want to hear. You won't go wrong! Follow rules and don't take risks!

 

[theageofthetra]

Cheers for that.

 

[DunfordBridge]

Great post, Edz. Two hand is not quite what I was expecting.

Regarding the WAFV, what kind of interval do you get between the stimuli, when the square darkens? I was guessing a minute.

I do not reckon the WAFV will be as boring as what it first seems. I am not worried about eye strain as I look at a computer for almost every minute of the working day.

 

[Rjhsteel]

Is every TOC using this now?

 

[Sunday_mornin]

Is every TOC using this now?

Yeah, it's all very different now.

 

[EdZ]

Regarding the WAFV, what kind of interval do you get between the stimuli, when the square darkens? I was guessing a minute.

It did seem bout that. We all started the test at the same time, and generally all hit the button within a second of each other, but in different orders. Roughly once a minute, but with a randomised offset.

I do not reckon the WAFV will be as boring as what it first seems. I am not worried about eye strain as I look at a computer for almost every minute of the working day.

Trust me, this is significantly harder than normal computer usage. Set your screen to entirely white, put a light grey 15mm*15mm square in the middle, and see if you can stare at it for 30 minutes solid without looking away. You're going to start running up against Change Blindness, and as your eye's natural saccades aren't going to be producing the sorts of image shifts your brain is expecting, your eyes will start to saccade more wildly. You can see the square seem to dance and slide about as your brain tries to detect movement that isn't there.

 

[DunfordBridge]

Trust me, this is significantly harder than normal computer usage. Set your screen to entirely white, put a light grey 15mm*15mm square in the middle, and see if you can stare at it for 30 minutes solid without looking away. You're going to start running up against Change Blindness, and as your eye's natural saccades aren't going to be producing the sorts of image shifts your brain is expecting, your eyes will start to saccade more wildly. You can see the square seem to dance and slide about as your brain tries to detect movement that isn't there.

That is quite intriguing, I think I might just give that a try.

I thought mental fatigue might have been my worst enemy. Whoever devises these tests certainly knows what they are doing. I do not think it is possible to get a more boring stimulus than a grey monochrome block.

 

[theageofthetra]

Having just passed stage 2 one bit of advice I will offer is not to rush into the next part ( the road scenes) straight after the 30 min grey square part. There is no rush. Shut your eyes for a short while after the grey square part is over, then look away from the screen ideally out of a window for a minute or so. It allows your eyes to adjust before you have to quickly absorb the street scenes. The whole stage 2 I found much less time pressured than the old tests. There is time to rest your eyes and relax between the 3 stages so don't rush yourselves unnecessarily. Good luck to all sitting it.

 

[gazcat]

hello, just wondering if anyone could clarify something in relation to the paper based group bourdon test in an assessment centre?
do you need to count the amount of strikes or boxes you mark, and remember that so as to fill in a 'total completed' box anywhere?
or is it a case of striking through as many as you can as accurately as you can, leaving the assessor to count them?

 

[tlionhart]

hello, just wondering if anyone could clarify something in relation to the paper based group bourdon test in an assessment centre?
do you need to count the amount of strikes or boxes you mark, and remember that so as to fill in a 'total completed' box anywhere?
or is it a case of striking through as many as you can as accurately as you can, leaving the assessor to count them?

Exactly the second part you mention. Striking through as many as you can and as accurately as you can. The assessor will cross reference them with a marking guide. This generally doesn't happen on the day and the results are a few days later.
Important to bear in mind for this test, don't worry about what other people around you are doing. Do your best, but certainly follow exactly what they tell you to do. So its work as quickly as you can (so working fast, but not fast as in to make mistakes. There's rushed and fast.) rushed will blow your chances, fast could be interpreted in many ways. Main point is, don't miss any. Use the group bourdon tool to help train you into a rhythm. Every post I have read on here is obsessed with a score. Try not to worry yourself over it as you can only do what you can do.

 

[gazcat]

Exactly the second part you mention. Striking through as many as you can and as accurately as you can. The assessor will cross reference them with a marking guide. This generally doesn't happen on the day and the results are a few days later.
Important to bear in mind for this test, don't worry about what other people around you are doing. Do your best, but certainly follow exactly what they tell you to do. So its work as quickly as you can (so working fast, but not fast as in to make mistakes. There's rushed and fast.) rushed will blow your chances, fast could be interpreted in many ways. Main point is, don't miss any. Use the group bourdon tool to help train you into a rhythm. Every post I have read on here is obsessed with a score. Try not to worry yourself over it as you can only do what you can do.

Thanks for the advice tlionhart - got first ever 1st stage assessment on Thursday 2nd Jan! :eek:

 

[theageofthetra]

The most important thing about GB is consistancy. If you do the first 2/3rd at a really high pace and then you drop of in the final 1/3 you will fail. Think about it its no good as a driver you being 100% vigilant for the beginning of your shift & then you making mistakes towards the end.

 

[mightychris]

Hello everyone. I have been doing my research into the new tests and the tests which I am worrying about the most are WAFV, 2Hand and TEA-Occ as it is hard to get any kind of practice. Can anyone who has had the new assessment already please give me some feedback on how hard you found these and any advice which may be useful? any feedback would be much appreciated!

 

[jaffa17]

Also to add to the above post, are the test always administered in the same order or are they randomly set? Anybody know?

 

[Game146]

Did anyone who took stage one with LM in November here any thing back, I have passed stage one got an email saying they with be doing stage 2 in new year