Manual Driving on Sundays?

The train would have been in ATO - the manual operation of the 1967 stock is restricted to a very slow speed. The driver can use the CTBC to alter the effect of the ATO, if need be. The hard braking is normal with the Vic ATO, normally helped by an emergency brake application by the Train Op. This is because the monitors were moved at one point, and the train would tend to pass them ever so slightly.

The Central uses manual driving on a Sunday, but only on open sections. Beneath ground is ATO all the time.

Must be awful being a T/op on the Vic, no open sections, plus ATO. Makes the ticket barriers exciting. And to think at one time, they got an enhanced rate of pay, well deserved as well! ;D

I think that is a good decision. Many metro crashes in the last few years have been caused by drivers unfamiliar with manual driving on what are usually ATO driven lines. Thus it is best to either limit manual driving to very slow speeds on these systems (e.g Victoria Line), or to allow drivers sufficient familiarity with manual driving (e.g at all off-peak times in Paris).

Yes, the inability to drive a 1967 on the Vic manually at anything other than very slow speed has caused numerous lengthy delays, especially when passing through a failure section. It would also have relieved the occasional tedium !

Still not being able to do it on the 2009's sounds like an opportunity lost !

The Vic is very tight times wise though, any manual driving would need to have been able to keep up with the t/table.

My friend on the Central can drive manually throughout and improve upon ATO's maintenance of the t/table ;D ;D

What some ops do is to move the TBC, pretending to drive... it looks odd to the trained eye, but to the unknown, is quite normal.

Just to be clear - I said there are no plans to alow manual driving for maintaining driving skills. Full Protected Manual and Restricted Manual modes will be available at all times, it's just the drivers (under current plans) will not have driving days the like of which we see on the Central.

Yes, very much so. Which is why I worded my post that way.

It is ultimately a line decision rather than an upgrade one, so we supply the facility and they do with it what they will.

It is purely a line decision, they will have the option. It would be difficult to maintain timetabled running in PM unless your drivers are very, very good at following the profile.

IMHO I do not think that the majority of drivers could maintain a Vic line level of service in PM. Lets face it, if they could then we wouldn't be bothering to implement an ATO system at great expense in the first place. You also have to remember that the Vic line drivers are not migrating from a manually driven railway as their Central line colleagues were.
We are fully aware of the risk of 'underload' on the drivers and have considered this in the overrall design. Most drivers will tell you that there is an element of auto-pilot involved even in manual driving, you can experience this yourself when on a long motorway journey. It's not that you are oblivious to external stimuli, more that you 'tune out' from peripheral information.

From my limited experience at flying with an auto pilot, it does seem that you can indeed 'tune out'. My late father-in-law was an ex-RAF pilot who flew flying boats from 1944 I think to 1951 on and off, and that required constant operation of heavy controls plus navigating by the stars using a sextant! There was an auto pilot system of sorts but the crew preferred manual flying because they had to coe with overwater flights over featureless ocean and it had been known for pilots to literally fly into the sea when they became fazed by the lack of stimulation. I have also done numerous cross-channel flights and when a light plane is trimmed perfectly it will literally fly straight and level with no steering input, just rudder control and over water it is indeed possible to lose your brain as it were staring at the waves from 4000'! I would have thought, most respectfully, that manual driving might prove beneficial in numerous ways for the poor t/ops, but auto mode will always be quicker in normal service as the 'thinking' processes are more efficient.

Reminds me of when the NASA scientists told the first tranche of US spacemen that the Mercury capsule would be completely automatic or controlled from the ground and that all they needed to do was sit and be blasted into space and back again. These top pilots rebelled. They argued, correctly, that they were Astronauts, and the public expected them to fly the spacecraft and get it back down again. Also what if anything went wrong? The 'man' was in charge of the technology, not the other way round.

Finalyl, I asked a DLR 'assistant' or whatever they are now, formerly 'train captain' why she drove manually into Stratford rather than leave it in auto as per the rest of the journey. She replied that there was a need for a very tight turnaround and she wanted to keep her hand in! To me seeing a person at the helm for once was inspiring. Man i/c of machine!

Lost time running is a major issue for all the lines and for the drivers that can drive and want to finish on time but get stuck behind the deliberately slow b_______! I reckon the ELBLine will be auto all the time, but I hear rumours that running to/from depot will be in auto with the new signalling and not coded manual as at present. (and to/from sdgs?) No regular driving from the driver is not good, just at a time when he is wound up and panicing with a defect and then has to drive manually without safeguards and without being used to it is dodgy. We musn't lose the fundamental skills of the driver cos there will always come a time when the railway needs them.