2005 Layout - Part 1

[PJW]

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I've found your state about the "STANDAGE". http://www.irseexam.co.uk/showthread.php...36#pid2136
Understand now. Thanks.

Actually, I did not find "standage " in dictionary, so confused about its real meaning for a long time.

[quote='greensky52' pid='2200' dateline='1285728981']
Thanks PJW. Grateful to see your reply and suggestions.

Standage is rather a specialised term rather than standard English.
Thanks for putting in the link now that you have found a cross reference to standage; really it only means "a sufficiently long stretch of railway line that a train can temporarily wait without causing problems by blocking other critical parts of the layout".

It is certainly not ideal that people like yourself and indeed Alex feel that they need to learn NR signallling in orderto be able to do the exam; you are both "Metro / Rapid Transit" people and very far from the UK.

What it needs is that once you have passed the exam, then you two should then try to come up with what would be the equivalent for undertaking the exam using the practices and technology with which you are familiar, presumably using the Metro question paper.

We could then have some worked examples and supplement this by accumulating some training material to help others from similar backgrounds to yourselves. If there are features re the question paper itself that would need to change to accomodate, then again we could attempt to influence.

It will take committment from others outside the UK to get such changes; I think you'll find that the IRSE would be willing to make changes but we in the UK cannot be the impetus for these as we don't know enough about your environment. The only reason why it is possible for you to learn enough about the UK practice that you can sensibly attempt the exam is because people have taken the time to assemble suitable material.

The Module 2 Study Pack has certainly been designed to be able to have different Appendices for giving specific details of other environments- so perhaps your task next year is to write one. Alex did a massive amount of proof reading / commenting on the main text of the document when it was written several years ago and perhaps we should revise that as well. It is just a question of having the time and I certainly can't do both that and be as active on this Forum.

We desperately need more Metro material with wider availability; even in the UK we find that the metro people feel it is easier to learn NR than following their own practices and whereas the wider learning is undoubtedly useful in itself, I do not think this is good in principle. This year there has been an active Metro Study Group in London so I hope that this may be the beginning of such a change; we shall have to wait and see.