I’ve never worked a single manned location, only multi manned places so I can’t talk about that. Let me tell you though that my colleagues across the network aren’t ignoring your phone call because they want to, sometimes it’s genuinely out of our control so when we finally answer the sarcastic tone of being held at a red isn’t appreciated.
Apologies it came off worse after I read it a second time, wasn’t meant to come as quite as scathing as it sounded!
. this I think should be the way forward.
I take it then, that if you come to a stand at an automatic signal at danger and you can see there's nothing in the section ahead, then you should still press SG as there could be a signal fault, or the signaller could have changed it to red. As I understand it, automatic signals can be changed by the signaller in an emergency.
2018
I am never sarcastic to the signaller. I wasn't saying my phonecall is being ignored. I know you are probably busy , I am just saying that there could be a reason why we informed our control first , because we tried you and didn't get through.
I completely get it, there’s just some drivers that can really ruin your day with their attitudes and I don’t doubt for a second there is signallers who are the exact same!
Personally I make an effort to visit Signalboxes when route learning/route refreshing and generally if I ring in advance I'm made to feel very welcome and I think it's a fantastic tool. It works two ways though and I find it frustrating that it's seemingly made so difficult for Signallers to have regular cab rides on their patch to see things from the other side of the fence. To be honest, some things I've heard Drivers say regarding signalling shows a complete lack of understanding of the Signallers role but on the flip side, I can imagine the same being true of some Signallers thoughts towards the Driving grade.
Without wanting to turn this into a slanging I can confirm, there are definitely some Signallers that have ruined my day with their attitudes
As others have said, of course, we're required to 'SG' straight away unless there's an obvious cause. From conversations that colleagues have told me about, it seems that some signalmen don't realise that the straight lines on their panel/workstation aren't representative of the actual geography, and that they can't actually see the train standing at the next signal that's the 'obvious' cause! I'm sure that there's sometimes an element of frustration in there though. I've been there, late running and following a stopper as it's run past an empty loop, knowing that it'll delay me by forty minutes by the next regulating point (and in turn that I'll probably receive abuse from passengers who subsequently miss connections as well as obviously being late home myself), and as much as we (should) all try not to let it get to us, and as much as we know it'll make absolutely no difference, sometimes it just makes us feel a little bit better for it (and it's far preferable to the foul-mouthed exchange that would have resulted in days gone by - been there, on the receiving end, too!)
I have to say that this one surprises me, although on reflection there's bound to be situations (with no station staff to assist?) when you might have no choice. I had a situation recently which highlights a potential risk though - signal cleared (for the wrong route, which highlighted the issue, but let's pretend that the route set was acceptable), and it turned out that the signalmen hadn't been told (or had forgotten about) a set swap and thought that my train was something that it (now) wasn't. Mine was due out a few minutes later than the one that he thought it was. Let's say he'd tried and failed to contact the driver of the train that he thought it was (somehow, perhaps a fresh unit working the original service forward from a different platform) already registered on GSM-R but with the driver out of the cab conferring with the guard), and eventually takes the signal back, just as the train that was actually there departs right time.
There isn't, at least in our part of the world, and there really should be. I know that it does happen occasionally but I never had a cab ride when I was training as a signalman. I did try to engage with drivers held outside my various boxes ("kettle's on!") and even that gave a useful insight sometimes. I really think that it'd benefit both parties to have some sort of mutual improvement scheme up and running though - the drivers who did things that used to frustrate me as a signalman and conversely the times that I know they were cursing me for missing the distant when there was actually a very good reason, and the signalmen who frustrate me as a driver because they're routinely slow to get the barriers down at certain crossings where the protecting signal is poorly sighted (one example - we're routinely held at the signal protecting a single line for one to come the other way, yet when that train passes and the signal clears for us - often now a couple of minutes late - we only get a single yellow because the next signal protects a level crossing and it seems that they don't start to get the barriers down until they've signalled us onto the single line. The next signal is poorly sighted around a long curve, so we end up trundling towards it and losing another minute or two completely - seemingly - unnecessarily.
That’s why I was thinking a Driver manager asks the drivers “Give me all your bitching about signallers, preferably specific examples”, he then collates it into a (polite!)list of frequent questions and sends it to a manager at the relevant signalling centre. That manager then collates the answers, referring to the signallers if he can’t answer specifics, before returning them to the driver manager to distribute. and vice versa.
Spot on, unfortunately. In many other jobs (outside the railway!) though, it’s expected that people will take an interest in the bigger picture and take reasonable steps to keep their wider knowledge up to date, e.g. reading industry publications. I don’t think it’s a lot to ask! On a recent (pre-covid!) route refresh day, I planned it so that I’d have a spare half hour to visit a box that I had a couple of curiosities that had always interested me. Personally I found it enlightening but it also helped me to approach situations there better as a driver because I understood the signalling better! It doesn’t take much time or effort and I think we’d all be better off for it if we did that sort of thing more widely. Would it be too radical to suggest, e.g., some signalmen occasionally cab-riding on their journey to/from work (with the correct documentation obviously) rather than having to be released for a full day for it?
) but when I have done they've been unfailingly helpful and obliging even on busy workstations.
