One thing that I’m interested is how signallers maintain their attention and diligence is situations of extended routine running.
I’ve read a few reports and watched a video or two about signallers causing fatalities on level crossings or SPADs where the signal is changed to Danger immediately in front of a train. It must be highly challenging not to slip into ‘Autopilot’ and that is something I find a bit worrying. What techniques do people in the job use to maintain their concentration?
People will have different ways of dealing with maintaining attention. One of the questions that used to be on an application form was something like how would you deal with the time between trains and maintaining that attention span? Depending on the amount of traffic on a route that may differ from box to box. Some may read a book, but that isn't without its pitfalls...you may get a bit engrossed and delay a train or panic and think you've not done something. And yes, I've done that before.
There used to be a poster in the boxes advising to keep away from levers and buttons, in order to not replace signals in error. Don't forget there are times when a signal needs to be replaced in front of a train, but those circumstances are readily explained, or catered for in the rules and regulations.
That said we are all human and it has to be accepted that mistakes occur, and sadly people have been killed or injured as a result of this. Equally the signal(wo)man involved has probably lost their job and may have faced a court appearance.