It's because of this. I also don't see it as a SOL incident but I can see an interpretation in the rulebook that could push it as competency. I really do see them as much more than what they were previously.
I don't think there's anything in the Rule Book that they could use against you there, but I'm sure they'd have no problem finding something in the PDP or other company instructions. That's the thing, though - it'd have to be pushed as a competency issue, an area requiring development or whatever ("minor [or major] improvement required" on ours), but still surely couldn't be considered a SOL incident.
Our CMS has a separate section for "safety incident history", where a minor competence issue that's been identified on a ride out or other assessment is unlikely to appear. Maybe a wrong route incident would be shown here even if there's no blame attached, I don't know. The only incident (a passenger doing something silly with doors and slightly injuring themselves as a result) on mine is there because I reported it, it's clearly identified as something that I'm not at fault for, and my written report is the only item attached to it.
I think the big thing that's puzzled me is why any manager would go looking at downloads, seemingly trying to pin something on the driver, for a simple wrong route that the signalman is clearly responsible for and the driver correctly stopped and challenged.
Hate to say it but that's a route knowledge issue. Any terminal station, even with through platforms, I need to allow to be stopped at any signal and go permissive. He would also have been checked down to the red. Simply by being checked down, often and indication of route, he should have been braking for the red. Sounds like he was driving to an expected sequence and not for the red.
I think you misunderstand the situation. Whether a train is signalled into a through platform or the bay, it'll receive clear signals throughout with the normal aspect sequence up to either the signal at the end of the through platform or the buffer stops in the bay. The first route indication into the bay that the driver would've received would have been at the last signal before the station, which he'd be approaching fairly quickly having had a double yellow at the previous one and therefore certain that the route was set all the way into
a platform.
(Obviously it'd be different if the route was set into an occupied platform, but it wasn't)
I agree he should have been informed. With not being able to use the GSMR whilst moving or the Signaller not being allowed to call us on the move (that new rule update weirdness) I can understand how it gets missed.
This happens quite a lot. TBH.
This is where I'm not sure. I don't think I would have done it as a signalman. The train was now planned to terminate there, not to work through, so the correct route had been offered and I'd really expect the traincrew to have been made aware of the change to the plan by their own Control. What if the train had been planned to terminate all along, and it was a diagram error that led the driver to believe that it worked through? I would never object to the driver querying it, but I certainly wouldn't consider it a signalling irregularity as the route set wasn't wrong.
Tom are you a Driver now ?
Yes, I'm afraid that I've (relatively recently) joined you on the dark side.
As signallers we are led into traps all the time with regards to wrong routes - headcodes are the primary problem (i.e every 2Exx goes this way but once in the evening peak it goes another way).
Going off on a bit of a tangent, but the TOCs' planners really don't help by failing to understand and ignoring the long-established conventions. We all knew that our 1Lxx trains were going to the former Anglia region because that's what it's always (well, nearly always at least) meant, so it doesn't help when they throw in an STP working that's running as 1Lxx (and in the same numeric range as one of the WTT workings!) to a different destination for no reason other than that the name of its destination began with 'L'...
Seems like the driver was led into a trap by the signalling - it's not a signalling irregularity (as long as the signalling is working as designed and there aren't any wrong side design faults in the system). Do you mean he struggled to stop at the signal to question the route? If so it's a difficult one, if the speed is the same regardless they'd be no need for approach control/a PRI but this makes your lives more difficult/risky as drivers in terms of wrong routes. If he'd have been wrong routed into the terminal platform and he couldn't stop in time would this be classed as the driver taking the route even though he put the anchors on? (Which would be absurd...)
Yes, he struggled to stop at the signal to question the route - that's it exactly. No need for approach control to any unoccupied platform there. I can think of plenty of other examples of similar issues at much higher speed junctions, including one which (if I'm not mistaken) is 125mph on the approach and through the junction on both routes, no approach control or other advance warning for either route, and one of the routes isn't electrified. Big potential oops there? The driver couldn't carry any responsibility there, although they might look at downloads I suppose to see whether he did absolutely everything he could to stop in time once it became apparent that a wrong route had been offered.
Absolutely. It's our job to allow for such routing. Every red we get is preceded by cautions. So you have to be doing 20mph 200m away. That's plenty of time to stop. Approaching a terminal platform generally comes with some kind of checking down. My home station is exactly as described. We have bays and high speed through platforms. You can tell from a few signals out where you will be routed. The bay's always check down to red at the home signal and the through platforms step up on approach. Its route knowledge that lets you know where your going into.
Not here! (as established in my comments above by now)
I speak to Trainees regularly. Most haven't been taught about checking down and route indication because you get 2 yellows. We had someone who took a wrong route because she was driving to the signals and thought she was signalled through the junction. Even the DM's said she was in the wrong because she should have known that she needed 2y on a certain signal to get to her station :/ This knowledge is being lost and trained out of us.
That was exactly my first thought when I first found out that trainees weren't being taught anything about how approach control worked. How else would you know that a green where you should expect double yellow means that you've been wrong routed at the junction?
I think we have one (at least what I sign) route where the aproach is at linespeed and you don't get any indication till your 1 signal out. From what I know of. If you were wrong routed here and were driving for the junction speed, you would not be at fault because its a know location where you couldn't stop in time. Of course the professional in me just screams that if you knew that. Then you would come round at caution and prepare to be wrong routed just in case.
Similar to my example above, then, I suppose, albeit with a little bit more warning. The signalling sequence presented should always, by design, give you chance to get down to the right speed for the diverging route even if you were expecting the straight route, and sometimes (for medium speed divergences) holding the junction signal at yellow and the signal in rear at double yellow ("approach release from yellow") is sufficient to achieve that.
Funnily enough a similar thing happened to me last week. Intermittent track circuit fault meant signal reverted from Y and J1 to red, then back up to Y and J1. Stopped short and reported it, and asked if I should pass it as if it were showing danger or accept the proceed aspect. Signaller told me to accept the aspect.
I wasn't particularly happy doing so but followed the instruction. However found out later on that a previous driver had potted the same signal due to the same track circuit fault.
Was the signal approach released from red for the diverging route? I've heard of something like that happening at (presumably) another junction signal, during leaf-fall season where the unit wasn't reliably dropping the track circuit in rear of the signal (which was one of the conditions for the signal to clear for the diverging route). The signal only cleared when the unit came to a stand, making better contact with the rails. As soon as it started moving in response, it lost that better contact and the signal reverted to danger as a result. When it stopped, the signal cleared - and so on...
If it was clear why the signal had reverted, though, and it was unlikely to reoccur, then my instruction to the driver would simply have been (after an apology and a brief explanation!) to "obey the signal please".
As I say we are learning the signals from very different perspectives. Signals behave differently from what we are taught. Even the rule book says nothing about 2y as route indication. 
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