Reading Station improvements

[whole diary]

[stuving]

I see that the West Country HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) are using a new route (new at least to me!) to avoid Reading during the 16th/17th September blockade.  They will, in the up direction, be calling Swindon and then routeing Didcot West Curve, Oxford, Islip, High Wycombe, South Ruislip, Greenford, OOC^▸ (Old Oak Common (depot)) and Paddington non-stop from Swindon.  I have done all parts of this route but not in one direct HST.

That applies to South Wales too - one train each way each route per hour.

[ChrisB]

I understood there's a stop in Oxford to pick up a Chiltern pilot

[Adelante_CCT]

More info on this thread

[IndustryInsider]

I understood there's a stop in Oxford to pick up a Chiltern pilot

Yes, there will have to be.  Train Manager's will sign the route, but drivers won't.

[Bmblbzzz]

I understood there's a stop in Oxford to pick up a Chiltern pilot

Yes, there will have to be.  Train Manager's will sign the route, but drivers won't.

What does pilot mean in this case? Like a harbour pilot on a ship, who acts as a guide but someone else still is at the wheel and the captain remains in command (I'm not quite sure how this translates to a train but presumably they would give advance warning to the driver of stations, signals, speed limits, and so on); or someone who will actually drive the train for that section then hand over when they get back to the route the driver knows (presumably OOC^▸ (Old Oak Common (depot))) (in which case why isn't this pilot called a driver)?

[paul7575]

What does pilot mean in this case? Like a harbour pilot on a ship, who acts as a guide but someone else still is at the wheel and the captain remains in command (I'm not quite sure how this translates to a train but presumably they would give advance warning to the driver of stations, signals, speed limits, and so on); or someone who will actually drive the train for that section then hand over when they get back to the route the driver knows (presumably OOC^▸ (Old Oak Common (depot))) (in which case why isn't this pilot called a driver)?

I thought the usual term used was 'conductor driver'.   Maybe there are historic differences in terminology...

Paul

[IndustryInsider]

You are 'conducted over the route by a conductor driver' (official terminology) or 'need to be piloted' or something similar (employee slang).

Procedure is pretty much as Bmnlbzzz described, and usually involves freight company drivers.

[Surrey 455]

You are 'conducted over the route by a conductor driver' (official terminology) or 'need to be piloted' or something similar (employee slang).

Procedure is pretty much as Bmnlbzzz described, and usually involves freight company drivers.

Does the conductor driver leave the controls occasionally to check tickets? 

[Electric train]

You are 'conducted over the route by a conductor driver' (official terminology) or 'need to be piloted' or something similar (employee slang).

Procedure is pretty much as Bmnlbzzz described, and usually involves freight company drivers.

The history of this gets confused in places, this is my little understanding of it

When the signalling is out of use for any reason could be Absolute Block, Token Block or track circuited MAS trains need to operate over a single line trains could be "Piloted" through the section(s) that was a man posted at a signal or signal box who after seeking authority from the signaller would conduct the train though the section, that is he would ride in the cab with the driver and get off at the end of the effected area, he would then conduct a train back, slow process as there was only one Pilotman. Most of this is dealt with by talking a train through by the use of cab secure radio

Another Pilot was an locomotive coupled to the head of a train where the driver of the had not signed a route, typically this was where a "foreign" engine was working another companies metals so was piloted through the route.  Today its more practical to place a driver conductor as a pilot in the train to conduct the driver of the train over an unsigned route.

[rower40]

The history of this gets confused in places, this is my little understanding of it

When the signalling is out of use for any reason could be Absolute Block, Token Block or track circuited MAS trains need to operate over a single line trains could be "Piloted" through the section(s) that was a man posted at a signal or signal box who after seeking authority from the signaller would conduct the train though the section, that is he would ride in the cab with the driver and get off at the end of the effected area, he would then conduct a train back, slow process as there was only one Pilotman. Most of this is dealt with by talking a train through by the use of cab secure radio

Another Pilot was an locomotive coupled to the head of a train where the driver of the had not signed a route, typically this was where a "foreign" engine was working another companies metals so was piloted through the route.  Today its more practical to place a driver conductor as a pilot in the train to conduct the driver of the train over an unsigned route.

A classic case of the same word being used for various different things:
"Pilot" engine: engine attached to the front of a train, to provide additional power.  The engine already attached to the train is named the "train engine".
"Pilot"man working: This may be co-incidence, but I understood that, in this case only, "PILOT" is an acronym for "Person In Lieu Of Token".  The man in question wears an armband with "PILOT" written on it, and he liaises with the signaller as to whether to give permission for the train to proceed, and which signals the driver may ignore.

[Red Squirrel]

...I understood that, in this case only, "PILOT" is an acronym for "Person In Lieu Of Token".

A backronym, or I'm a Dutch squirrel's uncle. There is a clear sense of a pilot as a guide, and that surely is what this is.

Back in the unenlightened days when this method of working was devised, people hadn't been invented - there were only 'men' (e.g. fireman, signalman etc). So it would have to have been 'Man In Lieu Of Token', or MILOT. This is rather confirmed by the fact that all the armbands I've ever seen say 'PILOT MAN' (with or without the space). And MILOTMAN is tautological as well as a bit silly-sounding.

So: No.

[Red Squirrel]

Found this rather super film about wrong line working. No prizes for working out where Averton Hammer and Boiland are, but see if you can work it out before you get to the end of the film!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJP3l9tSuwo

[rower40]

...I understood that, in this case only, "PILOT" is an acronym for "Person In Lieu Of Token".

A backronym, or I'm a Dutch squirrel's uncle. There is a clear sense of a pilot as a guide, and that surely is what this is.

Back in the unenlightened days when this method of working was devised, people hadn't been invented - there were only 'men' (e.g. fireman, signalman etc). So it would have to have been 'Man In Lieu Of Token', or MILOT. This is rather confirmed by the fact that all the armbands I've ever seen say 'PILOT MAN' (with or without the space). And MILOTMAN is tautological as well as a bit silly-sounding.

So: No.

Fairy Nuff.  I'm still going to use the backronym as an aide-memoire for how Pilotman-working is used.

[Chris from Nailsea]

With thanks to several members of the Coffee Shop forum for their subsequent posts, I've now moved their more light-hearted discussion to a new topic, at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=18703.0 

[eightf48544]

%0 years ago I piloted a train where the driver hadn't signed the route.

One winter's Sunday night at Sutton with the line to Victoria via Hackbridge shut with all trains going via West Croydon to Selhurst. As ASM^▸ (Assistant Station Master) I was doing bus replacement late shift.

About 21:00 confronted by Station Inspector to say the driver of an up Bognor fast ( 8 COR/Nelson, they were routed via Sutton in those days). doesn't know road and there was no pilotman/conductor available. I offered to take him knowing all the signals, I can still remember them. We trotted round south London at 40 mph and I was dropped at Selhurst on the Up Main platform. Via a piece of track no longer in place. We had all greens except for West Croydon B's distant which they never pulled because it was a long pull round a corner and usually all trains stopped in any case.