Becoming a Train Driver – Part 9: Simulator Assessment

BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! went the alarm on Monday morning, at 3 o’clock to be precise!
These bones have got used to ‘sleeping in’ during training. I was only getting up at around 4 to be out the door by 04h50.

If you can recall, Monday meant that it was my chance to drive one of the Dead Head trains, the Facilitator overseeing every action and move and instructing when to apply power notches or brake steps. I must say that it’s quite a job to program yourself to be proactive rather than react to situations. On the Simulator, when certain things happen, one is used to responding in a certain way, now – with the help of the facilitator, as it will be with my Trainer Driver – it’s a new ball game altogether and you have to trust their knowledge and stay your hand so to speak. In short, it went quite well! (Yes, it was uneventful – that’s the whole idea behind getting your first taste of real train driving with a Dead Head train, lol!)

I know who my Trainer Driver is going to be and I’m quite happy that he is one of the best Drivers and, as a bonus, he is from the first group to be employed as Train Drivers on the Golden Railway. From my time as a Conductor, I have experienced first hand his train handling capabilities and this fits in with my goal of becoming a Top Driver.

At the suggestion of the Facilitator, Ash and I took our Simulator Assessment on Wednesday. This is what I like about our Facilitator, if he sees a person is ready, he encourages you to get things out the way so you can ‘ease the load’, it was the same with Practical Train Preparation. I’m pleased to say that Ash and myself both passed on our first attempts! We now only have to focus on Theory Assessments and a few practical exercises.

In brief my Scenario was thus:

Normal Scheduled, 4 Car train
Departing at 08:00
Train ID: MR4107

I would be faced with a Flashing Red Signal*, Wrong Direction Running and a Power Failure (Before your assessment, you pick a number between 1 and 10 from a bag and hand it to the Facilitator, he then prints your Scenario for you and marks it while you are going through the various procedures). As he forewarned us – that Blue Driver’s seat became Red HOT!

On Thursday and Friday, we learnt how to isolate the brakes on a car following our Driver’s Procedures Booklet. My partner – Zorro – and I were the first guinea pigs and it took us 45 minutes. The best time is held by ClassCaptain and Deco who did it in 25 minutes. As a person practices more and gets used to the procedure booklet, I believe it will be easier and we all will be able to do it in 20/25 minutes.

On Friday we did our last assessment on the EMU and now we’re left with ODM Assessments, the last one being on Wednesday this coming week!

From what I understand, we will be practicing other ODM faults and writing an assessment on Coupling and Uncoupling on Monday and Tuesday. Thursday is earmarked for any rewrites we have and Friday will be more practicals on cranking points. I have received permission to attend the breakfast with the CEO and the other winners of the awards of last week!

If all goes well, then we will be having lunch with HR next week as a treat for passing. We start on shift with our Trainer Drivers on Tuesday – I cannot wait!

Aaaand, that’s what happened this previous week – until next time!

*On the Golden Railway, Flashing Red signals function as Permissive signals and can be compared with the Calling-on function of these signals, as they instruct the Driver to proceed but to be prepared to stop short of any obstruction.

Becoming A Train Driver – Part 4: Nicknames

Good evening ladies and gentlemen 🙂

Well, it’s been a weekend of studying as we are going to have more assessments everyday up to Thursday. Our facilitator also plans to take us out for more practicals on cranking points (turnouts) on Tuesday.

I had my first scenario on the simulator, after learning the North/South and Airport Lines, and got through it quite well. Our Facilitator treated us to a Brunch on Friday after our assessment at O’ Galito.

Our Facilitator wants to begin with EMU (Electrical Multiple Units) on Friday – the part I’ve really been looking forward to as we get to learn about every nut and bolt of the Golden Railway’s rolling stock.

A few of the other members of our class have new nicknames – one is Lonmin (after the mining company), as he revealed that he used to work on the mines, hehe. Another got Deco after muddling up a practice phonetic message and saying Deco instead of Delta – in his defense, we were in the Depot area, so I’m sure you can see how the two melded together, lol!

I got Professor2 as in the class before ours, just over two years ago, there was a lady that wrote out rules word for word in her assessments – she was obviously Professor. It hasn’t stuck, so I don’t count it yet. So far we are up to, excluding mine: Zorro, Foxtros, Mbeki, Deco, Lonmin and Class Captain (Ash was my own nickname for him as this was on his BBM profile name, so won’t include it either until he gets one from the class), this leaves three of us yet to get an official name.

Anyway, enough jibber-jabber, hope you all have a wonderful and successful week ahead! Until next time, bye for now…..

Becoming A Train Driver – Part 3: Quick Update

Hey e’rbody!

I haven’t forgotten about you but I’ve been extremely busy lately. The assessment we were suppose to write got postponed until yesterday and I was found Competent – whoop whoop!!

Tomorrow we are writing our second assessment in Signalling and boy oh boy, lots to study!

Simulator is going great I’ve practiced on the Airport service and North/South lines in both directions and now our Facilitator is going to start us on learning scenarios.

We’ve been enjoying Vetkoek every morning before class, that fortifies a person until lunch, yummy!

Had an induction presented by HR today, was interesting to learn new things about the company.

Okey dokey, back to studying – go well!

Becoming A Train Driver – Part 2: Communication and Signalling Assessments

We wrote an assessment on Wednesday and man was it a tough one! Mainly because it deals with Communication as a whole and not just in terms of ‘this is how to talk on a radio’ but also using body language and voice tone and how to conduct oneself in all forms of communication – written and verbal.

Very interesting stuff!

On Thursday I got to the Depot nice and early – 05h30. Ash and myself were the first two to familiarize ourselves on the simulator. This is unofficial training, the Facilitator allows us to come earlier before lessons so that we can all get used to the simulator before doing the scenarios.

Well, to say the least, it was nerve wrecking! Much more fun than on a computer though! We started with the days activities – namely, a walk about tour of the Depot and practicing to Crank Points. Only myself and Class Captain got to crank though as they had to cancel our permit because they lost radio contact with us, oh well, try again.

Today we wrote our first assignment on the Signaling Module, which we started yesterday. We went out again today to see the Neutral Section up close and practice cranking points again. We had to wait for the end of Peak Time as trains come by often and the Neutral Section is located on a viaduct, so we had to go in between the head ways of the trains. Trust me – a train flying past you at 160km/h is no joke!

Well, that is the first week of class, I’ve got studying to do this weekend on track layouts and points (turnouts), etcetera. Also got to learn the signaling layout and Train Preparation Theory (Our facilitator is really good, he prepares a person well in advance, this is for EMU).

Enjoy your weekend my friends and followers!

Becoming A Train Driver – Part 1: Here We Go!

So FINALLY it happened! After two years and a few months as a Conductor, I have made it to the Trainee Train Driver’s course here at the Golden Railway and will eventually qualify to become a full on Train Driver.

Up to now, I had to go through psychometric and VTS tests, Medicals and interviews and I made it through, so here I am!

So yesterday we started with the Traction Power module – you know, where the trains on the Golden Railway get their juice from and the various locations of substations and voltage ratings and anything really to do with the overhead power lines.

But before we got stuck into that, our facilitator introduced himself and laid down the ground rules for the class and what he is expecting from us and so on. We dived right in and got down to it and finished quicker than expected too! Perhaps it helps that the class this time is a full house of Conductors and therefore know the basics of most stuff – compared to someone from Customer Service perhaps, for whom it would be more challenging since they don’t cover it in their course work.

The Facilitator also asked during the course of the day who would like to join him at the Depot at 06h00 on Thursday. He didn’t specify the reason but I volunteered and then so did Ash (I shall refer to my colleagues by their nicknames during this series). We were elated to hear that we would be the FIRST two to familiarize ourselves with the Simulator on Thursday. Earlier we had elected a class captain (This will also be his nickname) and afterwards the Facilitator asked Class Captain to make up a Roster so that every day two different people would have a go from Friday onwards.

So, finally, the day came to an end and this Trainee’s brain was fried! Panic Stations as today we had to write the Assessment for Traction Power. I was up until late and up early studying and I’m pleased to say that yours truly was found Competent!! Yeah Baby!!!

Today we covered the Communication Module – again in one day – and tomorrow will be yet again another assessment. I must say this is challenging me as I have not studied so much in a while and I think it’s all good!

So that’s the update until now and today is the Gov.’s birthday so lemme enjoy some cake while studying! Bye for now!