The hardest assessment of the three week course is scheduled for today. Despite doing well on the modular checks so far, I expect I’ll probably muck this one up because, quite frankly, that’s how my luck goes. I woke up this morning feeling hungry, but the thought of actually eating anything is making me feel sick. *sigh!*
Today we had a track walk assessment sprung on us - not much fun for the ten people in the class who, for one reason or another, didn’t have Hi-Vi’s with them. Oops. Thankfully I did, and a couple of them managed to beg/borrow/steal them from others. The rest will have to do their walk next week.
We did a pre-run on the dummy track first, then it was down with a protection master and lookouts to do the real thing on live rails with trains running. Nobody was electrocuted or ended up splatted across the rails, so we passed. We also got to see the Track Recording Vehicle, yay!
I can’t believe we’re two weeks through this already.
We had our first Pass-Or-You’re-Gone assessment today, to do with track. Thankfully everyone in the class passed, with a large proportion of us getting 100% and the people who did lose marks had generally only lost one, usually because of misreading a question. The training continues to be a little dull, and the hot weather (and incorrectly functioning air-conditioning in the classroom!) is not really helping very much.
We finally got round to our first test mid-afternoon today, which should really have happened Friday morning - we’re that far behind. Most of the group are probably thanking their lucky stars that this wasn’t one of the tests where anything less than 70% means you’re booted off the course, and 70%-79% is a one-chance resit. I believe only three people exceeded 80%; there were a handful in the resit range, and several people below it. It was, however, a written test and, as the trainer said, designed to not really give high marks. Several of the questions were also a little misleading or could have been clarified a little better.
We are now moving onto Roles & Responsibilities (last week was Rules & Procedures). It’s quite hard to believe we’ve got just under two weeks left at Ashfield now before we move out to depots.
One week down - and we’re behind. We should have finished ‘week one’ and had an assessment on it, but instead we’ve not even finished the course yet, let alone gone near the assessment. There’s a few reasons for this; possibly the mixed-up beginning, the format of the course and the fact that (typically) it’s (yet another) new(-ish) format, and the fact that the trainer is quite easily.. er.. derailed sometimes. It also doesn’t help that we’re obviously all at different stages, with some people seeming to take quite a while to grasp simple concepts. And the trainer seems to have a knack for picking the person who has the least clue about what’s going on to answer questions, which can mean some frustrated champing at the bit at times.
Still, it has improved a little since first impressions, and although it was a drag getting through it at the time, I do appreciate being able to learn this stuff (and, more, to actually get *paid* to learn this…). So far we’ve gone over signal types, and we’ve moved onto abnormal working such as single line and point-to-point. Most things will be covered in greater depth in the next two weeks of the course… assuming we ever actually finish the first week!
Day two - somewhat better. We moved onto signalling, including overlaps, which wasn’t half as confusing as some people had warned me it was, although it probably helped that I’d had the sense to run through a quick presentation about it on the Intranet, so I already felt fairly confident in understanding it. That said, most of the group seemed to grasp it without too much trouble.
I forgot to mention yesterday that I ran into someone from my original CSA course; she’s currently going for Supervisor, and I believe her last exam was yesterday.
Well, that’s one day over with.
Thank goodness.
The trainer we were supposed to have wasn’t there. They’d got the rooms set up wrong. Two of the people in our group weren’t actually on the list, though one of those was due to being deferred from an earlier date. It didn’t feel like we really got through anything much at all, nor did we seem to learn much about what was coming up, although presumably that’s due to the lack of the designated trainer. I felt as if I came away no wiser about what would be happening than I did when I walked in this morning.
Still, here’s hoping tomorrow’s an improvement.
It’s 6:20 in the morning, I didn’t want to get up for another ten minutes or so, but I’m awake (note that the ‘wide’ which would normally go in front of that is absent). I had terrible trouble trying to get to sleep, not remotely helped by yet more relationship trouble. I packed my bag yesterday and transferred all the relevant stuff to my clean jacket and trousers. Now I just need to actually get ready and get a move on!
I need a new byline for this journal!
A long, dull, tiresome shift today, but at least that’s it now. Two of the gates weren’t working, customers were incredibly stupid. The biscuit-taker: I stuck an “Oyster Only” sticker over the paper ticket slot on one of the entrance gates, because the gate was resetting itself on nine out of ten paper tickets. One woman managed to shove her ticket underneath the sticker and, even though the ticket didn’t actually go through because she (rather belatedly) realised the mistake, it was still enough to reset the damn gate. And then she wouldn’t go through the other gate, either, which was the only other entrance gate, causing a huge blockage.
I had to take one of the two exits gates out of service. Even with the gates in the closed position, the red light on on the Oyster pad, and the red X with the words “No Exit”, everyone STILL tried to use it until I found where the yellow out of service ribbon was. Guh! And *then* everyone had trouble locating the sole functioning gate.. come on, there were only three to choose from! And one of them has a large, permanent No Exit sign on…
About typical, really.
Last peak done. Last set of platform duties (unless something goes seriously screwy tomorrow, anyway). It was odd, actually - today actually felt more like the ‘last’ day than tomorrow does at the moment. I also managed to snaffle a going-away present for myself, in the form of an out-of-date map. Now I just hope I don’t fail the course and have to go back!
