2008 Q2: DESIGNING FOR MAINTAINERS SAFETY

[cmcvea]

Let me know your thoughts on this, still not sure if generic or specific answers required!

[PJW]

Let me know your thoughts on this, still not sure if generic or specific answers required!

Probably both!

I think this answer was about right in many ways (but you initially confused me which year the paper was taken from, but at least that is not a mistake likely to occur in the real exam!).

However I think that I'd have attempted to have demonstrated better to the examiner that I was addressing all of:
a) the product selection,
b) the application design,
c) the installation and
d) the location.

I think your answer did address all to a greater or lesser degree, but it wuld be hard for you to keep track in the exam that you had and indeed makes the examiner work harder to check that you did.
Simply providing 4 thin columns to one side of your text and putting a tick in one or more of them for each of your bullet points would have made it so much more obvious with little time penalty for writing. You had lot of useful things in your bullet lists but did seem to jump around a bit- the tick columns would help give the answer further structure.

I don't see anything wrong with putting the generic factors common to many types of equipment together- in fact I think this was a good approach. I think though that I would have quoted some specific examples of particular items of equipment in the other sections- e.g. the fact that the Surelock point machine is modular and sub assemblies are light enough to carry to site and can be speedily exchanged as compared with the somewhat difficult activity of exchanging a drive belt on a 63 machine. Don't forget that one of the underlying hidden questions which the examiners are using the questions set in the exam to answer is; does this person seem to be an experienced person who is sufficiently familiar with the industry that they can use their specific knowledge and can actually use this to generalise from the particular? Your answer is the opportunity for you to paint a picture that shows this; treat it in the same way as you would when compiling some evidence to address the CACs when attempting to obtain an IRSE licence.

I think answer was perhaps more focussed on location than some of the others; in particular I think I'd have added more on product selection and the relevant features that could feature in pieces of equipment.
e.g. Obviously a choice of an LED head, particularly for GPLs, can be very beneficial in reducing number of times staff need to go on track
Similarly if remote monitoring is arranged for point operation, the chances of staff needing to attend at short notice to resolve a failure that is currently delaying trains and forcing them to work under pressure would hopefully be reduced and instead attention arrranged in a timely manner to attend to deterioration detected by the diagnostic function.
Certain track circuits can be quite time consuming to set up and may require staff at feed and relay ends simultaneously and / or much walking between; something like an 867 feedset with 939 relay just works. Similarly I believe that the new digital TI21s are self adjusting and thus saves time (and the associated on track exposure) from the traditional adjust it and then check what the shunt is trial and error approach.

Overall though I thought it was a good answer- of suitable length, with relevant information and addressing the question. Haven't studied it in detail enough to estimate numeric score but feel that it would be a solid Credit and perhaps if it had demonstrated a good level of coverage across the whole range then perhaps could have been Distinction.

[signalling survey]

Let me know your thoughts on this, still not sure if generic or specific answers required!

Probably both!

I think this answer was about right in many ways (but you initially confused me which year the paper was taken from, but at least that is not a mistake likely to occur in the real exam!).

However I think that I'd have attempted to have demonstrated better to the examiner that I was addressing all of:
a) the product selection,
b) the application design,
c) the installation and
d) the location.

I think your answer did address all to a greater or lesser degree, but it wuld be hard for you to keep track in the exam that you had and indeed makes the examiner work harder to check that you did.
Simply providing 4 thin columns to one side of your text and putting a tick in one or more of them for each of your bullet points would have made it so much more obvious with little time penalty for writing. You had lot of useful things in your bullet lists but did seem to jump around a bit- the tick columns would help give the answer further structure.

I don't see anything wrong with putting the generic factors common to many types of equipment together- in fact I think this was a good approach. I think though that I would have quoted some specific examples of particular items of equipment in the other sections- e.g. the fact that the Surelock point machine is modular and sub assemblies are light enough to carry to site and can be speedily exchanged as compared with the somewhat difficult activity of exchanging a drive belt on a 63 machine. Don't forget that one of the underlying hidden questions which the examiners are using the questions set in the exam to answer is; does this person seem to be an experienced person who is sufficiently familiar with the industry that they can use their specific knowledge and can actually use this to generalise from the particular? Your answer is the opportunity for you to paint a picture that shows this; treat it in the same way as you would when compiling some evidence to address the CACs when attempting to obtain an IRSE licence.

I think answer was perhaps more focussed on location than some of the others; in particular I think I'd have added more on product selection and the relevant features that could feature in pieces of equipment.
e.g. Obviously a choice of an LED head, particularly for GPLs, can be very beneficial in reducing number of times staff need to go on track
Similarly if remote monitoring is arranged for point operation, the chances of staff needing to attend at short notice to resolve a failure that is currently delaying trains and forcing them to work under pressure would hopefully be reduced and instead attention arrranged in a timely manner to attend to deterioration detected by the diagnostic function.
Certain track circuits can be quite time consuming to set up and may require staff at feed and relay ends simultaneously and / or much walking between; something like an 867 feedset with 939 relay just works. Similarly I believe that the new digital TI21s are self adjusting and thus saves time (and the associated on track exposure) from the traditional adjust it and then check what the shunt is trial and error approach.

Overall though I thought it was a good answer- of suitable length, with relevant information and addressing the question. Haven't studied it in detail enough to estimate numeric score but feel that it would be a solid Credit and perhaps if it had demonstrated a good level of coverage across the whole range then perhaps could have been Distinction.

thanks for the feedback, again it is much appreciated.