New IRSE Blank formats for Control Tables

[PJW]

As you recognise, we are not responsible for this CT layout but we will ensure that the examiners are aware of your comments.

I think you make a valid comment re the inconsistency re train detection. However use of just "track" (in the days when axle counters were very rare) is certainly what was used. In the days before computers and ready use of photocopiers etc everything had to be written / stencilled out each and every time so brevity was everything.

Remember that IRSE is international, so the fact that don't follow current NR conventions is only to be expected. Even on NR there are a huge range of (historic) presentations utilised; I guess that I must have utilised myself something like 50. Other railways may not use CTs at all.

There has been a demand for some years that IRSE come up with a standard format for people to use; they have done that. OK it may not be quite the one you'd have chosen, but take it as what it is; you have the choice either to use it or (and this has now been confirmed) draw up your own blank prior to the exam, take in to the exam all the photocopies you may need of it, get them all initialled by the invigilator and then use them. Your choice.

As far as improving the CT blank, then I think that may need to wait for next year- if candidates vote by using their own or alternatively find it very much a squash then no doubt the examiners will recognise the problems posed. Similarly we can open up a discussion at the Exam Review in January.

Attached are draft versions of the CT that the examiners have produced supplied to me by Mr A.

Hi,

Thanks for posting the draft control tables. I realise that these are not the responsibility of anybody here but I'd like to make a couple of comments nonetheless:

* The use of 'track' to denote a track circuit strikes me as a bit unofficial. I know signal engineers frequently refer to track circuits as just 'tracks' but this terminology wouldn't usually find its way onto a control table would it?

* "Tracks Occ for t" also seems like an unnecessary abbreviation. You could argue that candidates should be expected to know what it means but since there is plenty of space in the box, I think writing it out in full would be more sensible.

* I think "Indication" should be "Route Indication", unless the intention is that this box be used for other types of indication, such as "CD", "RA" or even "OFF". All the standard NR control tables state "Route Indication" anyway.

* Typo: in the first approach locking column, the word 'Route' is split over two lines.

* The 'first/second condition' concept for approach locking release is a sensible one, but this is not the way it is presented on the standard NR RRI control tables. On the SSI ones, it is presented similar to this but the fact that track circuit conditions are expected is made explicit.

* Is it clear enough that "Entrance/Route" means the candidate has to make a choice between specifying the entrance signal or the route name? OK, the latter piece of information will contain the former but in that case why include "entrance"? That word doesn't appear anywhere on 'real' control tables.

* The points table refers to "Train Detection". I think this is a good term to use but the terminology should be consistent across the two tables. (Choose "track circuits" or "train detection" but don't mix.)

* On a more general note, why not use a control table that looks like a control table? As it stands, the points table contains a very generous amount of space to write in the necessary information, whereas the route/aspect table's column fomat is potentially very cramped. Most people will surely learn control tables using something that looks more like the standard format than the format given here.

Alan