IRSE Sept 08.indd

CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS
IRSE
O
n 25 June the Younger
Members (YM)
delivered the latest training workshop to
assist students in preparing for the exam.
This was the first of two workshops
planned for this year, and focussed upon
general awareness for module 3 in
particular. The latter workshop will be
more directly exam focused and will cover
modules 2 and 3 equally. Sixteen
students of both mainline and metro
signalling travelled from around Britain to
spend the day learning about topics
related to Signalling Principles.
Content for the sessions did not purely
relate to control tables, and was equally
applicable to those preferring the written
questions. The aim of the event was to
attempt to give a deeper understanding of
the various principles which determine the
interlocking between the various signalling
functions, rather than concentrating purely
on the filling in of the Control Table boxes.
This was achieved through a mixture of
classroom and demonstrations sessions.
The workshops were ‘participative’ rather
than passive turn-up-and-listen-lectures.
On the Day
IRSE – YOUNGER MEMBERS EXAMINATION WORKSHOP MODULE 3
Network Rail Watford Training Centre – Supported by The Railway Engineering Company
The sessions on the day, primarily focussed
on giving an overview of the implementation
of Signalling Principles by an interlocking,
and aimed to improve students’ general
understanding and enhance their domain
knowledge. Prior to the event students
were provided with a layout of the scheme
for the panel (that is normally used for
signaller training) at the Watford Training
Centre, and were asked to prepare control
tables as they would for the exam.
Students were also encouraged to put
their completed control tables on the
student’s online forum, to discuss and
compare answers.
The students were split into two
groups, broadly those that intended to
offer Control Tables at the October 2008
exam, and those who were after a more
general awareness; the programme for
each was fundamentally similar but the
sessions evolved slightly differently
according to their different aspirations.
In the morning the groups attended a
lecture about interlocking and its purpose,
this was given by Anil Rana and provided
students an overview. Following on from
this, Peter Woodbridge led a workshop
session in which the students took their
pre-prepared Controlled Tables to refer to
whilst he demonstrated how to test
elements of the locking for certain sets of
points on the panel. Peter instructed one
of the students to operate the trackside
simulator, primarily dropping track circuits
but also imposing various faults.
Having checked that the points
were free, the first activity was the
dead track and foul track locking
and once its presence had been
demonstrated, Peter called out
the locking to another student
who recorded it on a blank Control
Table drawn on a white board.
There then followed an
explanation regarding the role of
the anti-preselection that had
been observed, but is one of the
functions of interlocking that
does not get explicitly recorded
on the Control Tabless but has
to be tested none-the-less. The
session then continued in
similar vein with the calling and
locking of points in route and
overlap; there were several
times when a Test Log pad
would have been used had this been a real
installation- the most obvious being when
a set of traps which had been called by a
route were found not to be locked by it and
thus responded to another call leading to
aspect reversion!
The final morning session was held by
The Railway Engineering Company (TRE),
with Stevan Collins introducing the concept
of Visual Display Unit controlled signalling;
he also described the other possibilities for
the simulator such as Timetable
Verification, Scheme Plan Evaluation and
Human Factors Studies. Peter Scott
participated in this session, and Peter and
Stevan bounced off of one another,
combining general awareness of IECC with
typical exam questions. This had not been
planned in any detail but shows how by
providing an appropriate facility and the
IRSE
NEWS Issue 137 September 2008 25