Re: TRAIN DRIVER

["Tezza" <tezza@atinet.com.au>]

MarkBau1 wrote in message
<1998061305365700.BAA00814@ladder03.news.aol.com>...
>Its strange that Australian railways have such poor training programs. To
>qualify as a VR driver I took 5 years. When I moved to the US and got hired
by
>SP/DRGW I was qualified as an Engineer in 12 months as were my fellow new
hires
>who were off the street. These "off the street" hires were in control of
15,000
>ton coal trains on 1 in 30 grades after only 12 months and were far better
>train handlers than most of the drivers I ever fired for on VR. It comes
down
>to quality of training.



Under FC's new setup it will still take 2 years to become a Driver, but at
least they've finally gotten rid of the Acting Driver at long last.

>In Victoria we had to know crap like ports and passages of the triple
valve/A7
>brake valve/distributing valve but were taught almost nothing about train
>handling. In the US our course was much more focused on track/train
dynamics,
>train handling with extensive use of hi-tech simulators.


CityRail seems to have gotten rid of most of the pointless air crap, and
focus mostly on faults and failures, but almost nothing about driving.

>I know I'll get flamed for this, (what's new) but I bet (with the right
course)
>that a very well trained spark driver could be turned out after 6 months
off
>the street.



I think that's about how long the test tubes took in 1990. I don't know that
I'd want to be on my own after such a short period though.