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Bevan Price[_5_] · November 25th 19, 03:23 PM posted to uk.railway,uk.transport.london

On 25/11/2019 11:43, wrote:
On Sun, 24 Nov 2019 11:55:09 -0000 (UTC)
Anna Noyd-Dryver wrote:
wrote:
The test for a commercial vehicle is a LOT harder than a car. You don't get
away with many mistakes and the test enviroment is a lot more varied. Kev and

Trace might scrape through driving their corsa a bit erratically on a car
test
but they'd be failed in minutes on an HGV or bus test.

And yet with the same breath you dismiss train driving as 'pulling levers'.
Surely you realise that the train driving assessment is just as strict, if
not more so?

I can imagine being a steam locomotive driver was a bugger of a job. Physically
hard and you had to get the feel of the engine under different loads. I suspect
driving a modern freight loco is still tricky (although not physically) as you
could be just driving the loco itself or have 2000 tons behing you.

Driving a computer controlled EMU though that won't allow you to play silly
buggers with the throttle and brake, doesn't change much in behaviour from
empty to full load, doesn't have to be steered and when it goes wrong needs
a technician with a laptop to turn up anyway? Don't tell me thats particularly
hard.

Seems to me the only hard part of being a modern EMU driver is the shift work
aspect of the job, other than that - piece of ****.

Nonsense. I have never driven a real train, but I was once allowed to
drive a dmu simulator. The most difficult part was knowing when / where
to apply the brakes for checks or station stops. And that involved just
one check and one (simulated) station.

Dependent on the extent of their route knowledge, drivers may need to
know the locations of dozens of stations, numerous signals and speed
restrictions - at daylight - in good or bad visibility, or at night -
and then need to be able to judge the best places to apply brakes -
often on several types of unit - and in all sorts of weather conditions.
In addition, they need to be prepared for short term temporary speed limits.

So it is not as easy as you might think.