Driver068
Member
- Joined
- 20 Feb 2014
- Messages
- 638
PILOT - This term is actually an abbreviation...On another example - the railway still refers to ‘Pilotman Working’ presumably because it is long-accepted terminology for a very safety-critical type of degraded signalling operation? To my mind ‘pilot working’ implies either a helper locomotive or an assisting driver who is conducting someone over a route they don’t know.
P - Person
I - In
L - Lieu
O - Of
T - Token
So more than likely is gender oriented with having man on the end given women not normally work on railways back when dated.
The person acts as a physical token as you would on some lines giving your train permission to pass through that section where no other train should.