2016 Q2- Selection of colours, steady / flashing for aspects

[PJW]

2016 Q2
Another good attempt at first glance; however I have put a lot of red writing on it and it did not score as highly as I initially anticipated.
 
Almost everything you wrote was good and accurate; not all of it completely what was required.  Not so much irrelevant, but just too focussed on WHAT is done and not enough DISCUSSION of WHY.

1. Only really considered one element; a very good one but I think it actually needed several different  elements.  Also you didn’t actually go on to discuss every colour in the spectrum which was such a good start to your answer.  Most notable absence was blue; whereas a poor colour when created by incandescent lights (my personal experience is that in Christmas tree lights one could hardly tell if the dark blue lamps were lit or not), in LED terms they are BRIGHT (indeed white LEDs are really mainly blue light source); think of their use on emergency vehicles such as police/ambulance/fire engines [you gave NOTHING as requested from “your personal experience and perceptions”].  Could we make more use, certainly for reasonably close range viewing?  NR do use for TPWS active / suppressed indications on RETB stop boards, and in Hong Kong used to create a “blue wave” for a communicating train to signify that drive could ignore aspect and drive according to in-cab display.  Perhaps we could use at level crossings to give a positive indication that “another train coming” etc.   Hence despite how good what you did include, because didn’t cover full range then I think I’d give [5/9]
   
2. No real CRITICISM was given by you; this was explicitly called for.  Therefore I don’t think can give you more than [4/8].  What you did was fine; it is what you didn’t do that means you through away marks having “maxed out” on those available for the pure description
   
3. Vulnerabilities- Your first was a bit tangential- it was really saying that coloured lights are the things that actually stop trains.  Very true, but I think examiners were actually looking more for how the MESSAGE that we are intending to give a driver can be misinterpreted, rather than whether it is actually acted upon.  So I think that discussion of the Colwich accident when the driver took the flashing yellow to mean something more than was actually intended by the signal engineer would be a great example to quote.  Then there are all the other confusions created by the various “bodges” such as approach release, delayed yellows – perhaps we should display red and yellow simultaneously to give a clearer message), transitions 3 to 4 aspects and vice versa, use of banners (are they to be a “speed-up” since signal ahead has recently cleared, a “you are getting close to signal with poor sighting” marker, or a “apply brakes as encountering a signal at double yellow” indication?” and how does intermixing 2 and 3-aspect banners give more problems).
   Your second was really nothing to do with the system of colour light signalling at all; indeed as written could equally apply to ETCS L2; hence wouldn’t be giving you any marks for that at all.  I’d be harsh and give [2/8].
   

 
Adding those up makes 11/25 so numerically doesn’t even quite achieve a Near Miss; however intuitively that feels wrong when judged overall. 

• I might then get more sympathetic with you  if I then looked at a lot of other people’s attempts that were worse; just a Near Miss for you may then seem rather mean in comparison. 
  
• I’d be discussing with a fellow examiner to get their take on the situation; I could certainly be persuaded to re-look in order to see if I could squeeze another 0.5 in each of the three sections and therefore up the score to just achieve a Pass.  I seem to remember at the exam review that this question was generally done badly and in that context a relook at your first page would almost certainly convince me that I needed to allocate more marks than I had.
  

The message as ever is MAKE SURE YOU ARE ASWERING THE FULL QUESTION ASKED.