Re: V/Line's Clayton's Seat

[Rod Young <berlina@bigpond.com>]

Jennifer Richmond wrote:

>
>
> ASW is Alternative SafeWorking and is used in Western Victoria. AFAIK, it
> is just an electronic version of train order.
>
> Locomotives have a special unit for recieving these orders, sent
> electronically from Centrol, the driver has to acknowalege it and it then
> becomes locked in the system and it is impossible for the train controller
> to issue another order until the driver has disposed of the message.
>
> I have heard of several near misses where drivers have misenterpreted the
> message on the display. On the Mildura line, 2 trains travveling in
> opposite directions came to a stop about 100m from eachother, it was just
> lucky it was on the plains where visibility was good, not in a forrest or
> in the mountains.

Jennifer,              this incident was not quite as you described. The ASW
sytem was being heavily tested, so that any faults could be sorted out
{sometimes you just have to try it to find out what those pesky humans might
do;-] }. The equipment was blameless, in fact a near miss occurred because a
Train Conroller was able to manually
remove a train from the system, improperly. One of the trains involved was a Y
class area pilot with mobile equipment fitted.
The whole ASW system was suspended for many months, and heavily modified to
remove the possibility of Human interference!

> Another incident was where a BG train left North Geelong yard for Cowangie
> on the dual gauge single line to Gherringhap. He thought he had an
> authority but it was just

> the test message on his screen.

Sorry have not heard this one at all, and I suspect that this would not have
happened. My reasons are as follows..test messages are sent by train
controlerrs at the start of a Loco's shift [if rostered into ASW territory]
or by the driver about to enter an ASW territory, perhaps returning ex-rest
Dimboola.
A test message is in fact a Text Test, ie. every space on the LCD screen is
filled by listing the alphabet and numbers to ensure the screen is fully
operational, and no letters or numbers will be left out of the message, which
might alter the meaning of the message.
this fills thescreen up, it looks very busy and could not be mistaken for a
real message. The Driver and Controller are in voice contact during this
proceedure, and the Driver must send the message back to Control. He does not
need do anything else as the real order will come as soon as he presses
return. The ASW device has a second screen, and if the text message did not
return for some reason, the order will still be able to install on the second
screen.
Cheers. I may be a little rusty on this as Wodonga does not use this system,
and so neither do I anymore!
                                       Rod

> It was pure luck