2009 Q7 TRAIN OVERRUN SIGNAL

[Peter]

I just attempted this question with basic background from my maintenace side 3 years experience. I am not able to complete fuly the answer.

Your answer is reasonable first stab. I have some observations:

I think the first section is about the very immediate actions. You have out some things which fall into this, but I think that one action needs to be about protecting the the and preventing any other trains from approaching the area because the report (if true) indicates that the signalling may be defective. This needs to be done with care so as not to affect the state of important equipment. Perhaps you mean this by "lock the control panel".

Collecting information from volatile sources is then important - go for the items that are likely to change or be affected by subsequent actions. Hence your point about noting positions of switches and indications is good.

Photographs are good. Data loggers give you the luxury of some time - the tend to keep several days of data. As an aside, in any incident, check what data loggers are available. After one accident near London about ten years ago, a claim was made later about something that was done to protect things, but this could not be verified as no one immediately involved with the investigation knew that there was a logger associated with the piece of equipment in question so no one recovered it, so it got overwritten a week later.

For the second section, you have described high level statements and run out of them - the question specifically asked for 5 which you clearly read as you have put five numbered bullets. Perhaps thinking of some of the next level down would have given you some more to talk about (eg Wrong side failure of train detection, wrong side failure of interlocking, SPAD because of degraded aspect (sunlight, dirt etc)). Another thing to note is the distribution of the marks. You have written more for a) than b), but b) has double the marks available. I think they are looking for some more explanation of the items in here - give a description of what may have failed and how this would have led to the events given in the question.

In the final section you appear to have listed a series of things to be checked rather than describing the process. You have referred back to the types of failure, as it asked in the question, but not quite in the structured way that I think the examiner would be looking for. I note that you say that you are from a maintenance background. Does your employer or railway authority have a process for managing wrong side failures? This would be a good place to look for inspiration on this. Set out the stages involved and the objective of each stage. What are the criteria for moving from one stage to the next and, as the question asks, what levels of authority are needed to move from one stage to the next, or indeed at the end if you conclude the signalling WAS working OK and you are going to say the driver is in error, what authorisation is required to bring the signalling back into use. In the UK, there is a process called Signal Failure Investigation which it may be worth you trying to get a copy of if you do not have anything from your own railway.

I hope this is useful and if you do not understand any of the comments, please come back and ask.

Peter