Assessments & Medicals discussion

[gracefultracks]

Hi,

When I went I got told to expect to be there from 9am-5pmish, but I think it all depends on what tests you and others need to sit on the day. So, I would be prepared just in case you have to wait around a while and are maybe there until 5pm

 

[NeoNeko]

I've got my MMI coming up in a couple of weeks, doing my best to prepare and practice, and not stress!

 

[Pintman]

It will likely say in your invite how long you need to be prepared to be there for

 

[Terry844]

From memory it was pretty much an all day thing, we did the computer tests in the morning then those that passed went on to do the MMI in the afternoon. I finished about 3pm and that was only because I was one of the first in to do the MMI there was still a few people waiting to start their MMI when I left

 

[d44nny]

From memory it was pretty much an all day thing, we did the computer tests in the morning then those that passed went on to do the MMI in the afternoon. I finished about 3pm and that was only because I was one of the first in to do the MMI there was still a few people waiting to start their MMI when I left

How long was your MMI I've heard a few different accounts?

 

[nic777]

Hi everyone,

Does anybody have an idea how long the opc stage 2 testing is on the day? If you start at 9am in the morning will we be done by 12 noon or? Please let me know guys. Thank you

Ps. I have searched for the answer and i couldn’t find it!

Hi I just sat my stage 2 assessment and MMI a few days ago and it literally takes the whole day if you pass the assessment. You do the Assessment morning then what 20 mins for results. More paperwork then go for lunch then about 1.30 it’s the MMI which took an hour

 

[D3WY]

Unless it's changed, GTR it's a whole day of tests for the assessment day, MMI was seperate for me and it took about 90min. I did mine in Nov time

 

[kieran88]

I guess It will depend on how many people in your group get through to the MMI.

4 of us did in my group and we were all done by about 3.

 

[hairynut73]

I've successfully got through all the assessments, interviews and medical and have a start date next month and as this Forum was so helpful to me I thought I'd pay it forward by breaking down how the process went for me to hopefully shine some light on what can seem quite an opaque process.

Timeline
Application submitted & SJT completed: 07/12
Invited for online assessment (miniSCAAT):11/2
Stage 1 assessment: 02/04
Stage 2 assessment: 15/04
DMI: 06/05
Medical: 15/05
Start Date: 16/06

So all in all the whole process has taken me ~7 months which from the looks of things is on the quicker side. On that front I think I just got very lucky as I'll explain later.

I won't cover the application and SJT in any detail as the former should be self-explanatory and the latter is just something you either get right or you don't. I'll just say I initially applied for the Thameslink Cricklewood talent pool.

Online Assessment (miniSCAAT)
Basically you just go through rows of letters and click on ones It's asked you to. You do this three times with each round a little more difficult but I say that lightly as this is an incredibly straightforward test. I've seen a few people on here worried when they get invited to this but they give a practice go before all three runs and you can repeat those as much as you want. Obviously I don't know what score I got but this felt by far the easiest test I did through the whole process and bluntly I struggle to see how you'd be able pass any of the other tests if you can't pass this. Which i guess is the point of using it as a pre-sift.

Stage 1 (Pencil and Paper tests)

Group Bourdon - One of the tests I think practice would have the biggest impact as you'll learn to recognise the patterns. You can practice this actual test online although it's much easier to do with pen and paper than on a computer let alone a touch screen. You can print off practice papers to do it that way or just do it the harder way knowing on the day it will be easier.

Tea-Occ - Done in 3 stages. Firstly you hear a series of high and low tones and count the low ones. Secondly you have to go through what's essentially a telephone directory of IIRC plumbers all with symbols next to them. You circle all the ones with double symbols next to them. Finally you combine the two although the tones are all one tone and you just have to count them whilst circling the symbols. I just focused on the tones and circled the symbols in the gaps between. Not sure this is one you can really practice.

TRP1 - A memory test. They read a sheet of A4 to you about something related to the railways, then gve you 5 minutes to read it as many times as you want and make notes (these are taken away from you after the 5 minutes though), then you're asked multiple choice questions about what you learned. I've got an excellent memory so this was very easy for me. If you have a poor one then maybe look at some memory techniques but i don't think any of the specific practice materials are going to do much.

TRP2 - Dials test - The practice material they give you is almost identical to the actual test so if you can do that you'll be fine, and I'd save your practicing for the Bourdon and DFFT. You'll never complete all 43 questions so don't worry if you don't, I think i managed 31.

DFFT - Basically you get a series of illustrations of train dash boards as well as a instruction sheet telling you how to spot faults and if there are multiple how many and which to prioritise. You then record what was at fault. Probably the most "difficult" test in it requires you to somewhat think for yourself. Well worth going over the practice materials as it familiarises you with how it works and I can imagine some people wasting precious time working that out if they haven't gone over the practice materials provided.

At the end they told us at the OPC we'd hear from the TOC within 10 working days, Thankfully I didn't have to wait that long and they contacted me two days later to say I'd passed and then the following Monday gave me dates for the Stage 2.

Stage 2 (Computer Tests and MMI)
You do the 3 computer tests one after another with no breaks in the order below. Everybody starts at the same time but depending on how long it takes you to read the instructions, have a practice you'll finish at different times so try to ignore other people as best you can.

WAFV - Very straightforward in that all you have to do is watch a screen and press the large green button on your console, as quickly as you can, every time the flashing grey square on screen turns black. However it is IMV the most challenging of all the psychometrics ests and the only one somebody in my group of 5 failed at. Why? because you're doing it for 32 minutes. I don't think I missed a single black square but i definitely pressed the green erroneously a couple of times. The guy who failed said he did zone out at one point, I can't really add anything more than tr not to do that as you can't really practice this.

ATAVT - You hear a beep then see an image for 1 second and then you select if you saw pedestrians, vehicles, bikes, traffic lights and traffic signs. I was worried about this but felt it was much simpler on the actual test than when I'd tried to practice it with either the material provided or youtube. So personally i wouldn't bother practicing and from what I've seen it's rare people fail it.

2HAND - You have to take a ball round a track using two joy sticks one moves it vertically the other horizontally. Every time it goes outside the track you hear a beep. You get a couple of practice runs then you have to do it 10 times for the test*. Everybody thought they'd failed (I only didn't because I'd read on here everybody thinks that!) and everybody passed. I think the main thing is not to panic if you make a bunch of mistakes and then spiral into making more or get too cautious and then become too slow. The only people I've heard fail this was from taking too long. Stay calm and try to remember they're just sifting out people with below average hand-eye coordination not testing to see if you have the fine muscle control of Roger Federer.

*I saw somebody earlier in this thread have a problem with people revealing how many times you have to go round the track. Which I find a bit daft as the instructors tell you before you start as do the instructions on screen so it's not meant to be a secret and I can't see how it gives you any advantage when it's a physical test.

MMI - The 4 of us that passed (they told within 20 minutes) were then all given the SJE and a pre-interview form. The former has no wrong answers they just use it to inform what to ask you at interview and the latter is just asking for one sentence examples to the interview questions that they'll then interrogate further in the interview. You then get given a time slot for to come back for. Overall the interview took almost 90 minutes and was the most gruelling thing of the whole process. I finished the stage 1 and the rest of stage 2 and the DMI fairly confident I'd passed but I was really unsure with this. My main advice would be to think about the type of questions you'll be asked (you can google them, search the forums or even use AI), come up with about 10 and then get confident answering them using the STAR method. HOWEVER you can't just memorise a monologue as the interviewer will really delve into your answer. For one of mine she said my answer wasn't appropriate so asked me to give a hypothetical scenario, which i had to do off the cuff, but i was able to to do as I'd practice enough at the type of answers to give.

DMI
Found out the next day I'd passed the MMI and this is when my luck came in as the recruiter for GTR called me up to check if I still wanted to be at Cricklewood depot as she'd arrange my interview with the relevant manager. I asked what other depots were available and she mentioned Hornsey (for Great Northern) which just so happens to be 10 minutes from where I now live, and even better had space on course dates right around the corner. I'm not a "meant to be" type of person but it felt it at that moment!

Interview was very straight forward with sevral competency based questions plus a few questions about why I wanted to switch careers and become a train driver, what i knew about GTR and what I foresaw as the challenges of driving a train. Honestly after the MMI this felt easy and took a third of the time. Just practice similar things to the MMI, they'll ask you follow up questions if they feel you haven't provided enough but if you have they won't cross examine you like at the MMI.

Got a call later that day to say I'd passed and got my verbal offer.

Medical
They'll scan your glasses if you wear them when you come in (although beware as my prescription was very inaccurate) and getv you to fill out a form then you'll see the Nurse who'll do hearing, eyesight, colour blindness, diabetes, drugs & alcohol tests as well as an ECG. As I said in an earlier post if you need the toilet tell them so they'll do the urine tests first!

After that you'll see the Doctor. Who will ask you some medical history questions then do some very basic mobility tests (standing on one leg, rasing hand above your shoulder) and check your peripheral vision. She told me I was cleared straight away so no waiting to hear. I then got my formal offer later that day and just had to provide 2 character references (Can't be family, employer or somebody you live with).


Hope this helps somebody like similar posts helped me.

Nice one buddy. I've an interview next Friday for southern. Can you remember what kind of questions they asked if it was railway based

 

[LTRV18181]

Hi all,

Just a quick question.

I applied for a role with freightliner and I failed the VSE but passed M7

I’ve now been invited to an assessment centre for another TOC (southeastern).

Do I still need to wait the full 6 month period?

 

[Trainguy1997]

Thanks All for the replies! I feel very prepared for the day now -

 

[Broken Viking]

Hi folks!
Old forum user (Had a username that wasn't appropriate for condolence threads) returning via a different line as I've lost both my old account password and the e-mail address it was registered to, so I can't possibly recover it, meaning that account has (sadly) died it's Death! Been an extremely difficult last six years, but by an abnormal stroke of fortune I have my first Assessment Centre coming up next week.

Anyhow; One thing I was going to ask (And this seems to be the most appropriate thread for it) is about posting/sharing the materials that candidates are sent when invited to Assessment Centres, as these include examples that test for the necessary capabilities/allow interested candidates to try them out but which aren't used in the assessments themselves.

The front cover of the UK RACF Driver Assessment manual (Dec 2024 edition) includes the following notice:

This document may be shared with transport undertakings and candidates who wish to become train drivers or work on the GB Rail Network. It must only be used for the purpose of familiarisation and preparation for the train driver psychometric assessment process. It must not be used for commercial exploitation and any recipient of this document must not permit it to be used for any other purpose without prior written consent from RACF.

From how I'm reading this it appears to say „This document may be shared with those who are interested in becoming Train Drivers“ and with the questions I've seen flying around about driver assessments and the capabilities needed to pass them, I feel that sharing the assessment prep manual could give candidates an early look at/opportunity to pre-assess themselves of the skill sets involved.

I've already tried a thread search and turned up nothing, but I'm not just going to directly upload these without mod approval beforehand (Especially not on the very first post for a new account!) so before I do so how would @Horizon22 and other Careers moderators view this, please?
(FWIW; I have the UK RACF (Dec 2024) and Iarnród Éireann/Translink NIR (2020) assessment prep guides in my collection. I might have a ReNFE one inbound soon too, if a mate I have feels like helping me out.)

Anyhow...I need to keep up with these assessment practices. And the housework. And probably booking a hotel, because a 70 mile journey across the Wessex region first thing on a Monday morning with an 08:15 arrival time sounds a little bit too risky for my liking, at least in a country where the TGV still isn't a thing!
+++ (The) Broken Viking +++

 

[Pintman]

I think "any recipient of this document must not permit it to be used for any other purpose without prior written consent from RACF" means do not share without RACF agreeing to it

 

[Broken Viking]

I think "any recipient of this document must not permit it to be used for any other purpose without prior written consent from RACF" means do not share without RACF agreeing to it

The interpretability of this does seem a little vague; To me it comes across as „May be shared with transport undertakings and candidates (Applying and prospective) for the purposes defined on this page, who agree to these same conditions.“ (Meaning one could share it with anybody who has a reasonable interest in it and who will respect the conditions on the front page) but I get the impression your interpretation of the same thing tends more toward the restrictive (i.e: „May only be shared once by authorised issuers [TOCs] and not distributed any further“) and this shows a recurring problem in Common Law systems where everything sits heavily on varying interpretation.

Annoyingly enough; The best people to answer the question/determine the correct interpretation of that text are the RACF themselves, but how likely are they to answer a question about such use in a clear fashion? When I've tried requesting permissions for things in the past I've found myself getting very vague and unclear responses which really don't help to provide any clarity over the situation.

 

[Terry844]

Annoyingly enough; The best people to answer the question/determine the correct interpretation of that text are the RACF themselves, but how likely are they to answer a question about such use in a clear fashion? When I've tried requesting permissions for things in the past I've found myself getting very vague and unclear responses which really don't help to provide any clarity over the situation.

I would see it as only issuing TOCs, FOCs and OPC can distribute it as they are the ones dealing with recruitment. Just because Joe Bloggs wants to have a look at an example test is not what it’s intended for. TBH the tests are straight forward and no prior experience of them is necessary just follow the instructions given, the only one I would say you might need practice on is the group bourdon test but there are loads of practice examples of that available.

 

[skyhigh]

I think it's pretty clear the intention isn't for the document to be shared for anyone to see on an internet forum.

 

[Spincity]

The interpretability of this does seem a little vague; To me it comes across as „May be shared with transport undertakings and candidates (Applying and prospective) for the purposes defined on this page, who agree to these same conditions.“ (Meaning one could share it with anybody who has a reasonable interest in it and who will respect the conditions on the front page) but I get the impression your interpretation of the same thing tends more toward the restrictive (i.e: „May only be shared once by authorised issuers [TOCs] and not distributed any further“) and this shows a recurring problem in Common Law systems where everything sits heavily on varying interpretation.

Annoyingly enough; The best people to answer the question/determine the correct interpretation of that text are the RACF themselves, but how likely are they to answer a question about such use in a clear fashion? When I've tried requesting permissions for things in the past I've found myself getting very vague and unclear responses which really don't help to provide any clarity over the situation.

I’d suggest you a playing very loose with your interpretation and copyright protection. There’s more than enough information on the forum and no need to share this. I’d also suggest some of info on this site could breach copyright and you can be opening a can of worms.

 

[Broken Viking]

I would see it as only issuing TOCs, FOCs and OPC can distribute it as they are the ones dealing with recruitment. Just because Joe Bloggs wants to have a look at an example test is not what it’s intended for. TBH the tests are straight forward and no prior experience of them is necessary just follow the instructions given, the only one I would say you might need practice on is the group bourdon test but there are loads of practice examples of that available.

I think it's pretty clear the intention isn't for the document to be shared for anyone to see on an internet forum.

I’d suggest you a playing very loose with your interpretation and copyright protection.

In that case, it looks like the weak point here might be in my interpretation of the notice previously quoted. Certain aspects of my neurodiversity in mind I guess that can be understood, but also shows a good example of where I struggle greatly in this area. I suppose it's no wonder I score below average in SJTs!

I’d also suggest some of info on this site could breach copyright and you can be opening a can of worms.

If that's in reference to the usage notice I quoted in my previous post I don't believe RACF are going to have too much issue with that, given it was quoted to reinforce how I was interpreting it. My handle on Copyright law isn't the best (Though I believe those laws do allow short excerpts of copyrighted text - Like the above - To be quoted for reference and commentary) but that's why I kept it to a proposal and tagged the forum moderator in the same post for their attention. I don't think that's the worst way of going about it, is it?