What are they pointing at?

[rach 1]

I was watching a train driver the other day and he was doing this kinda strange pointing when started up after exiting a station. It was as if he was just signalling to himself "hey, I'm on my way again" - but it was real regular, like EVERY time. I wonder if it has a meaning, if others do it, or if he was just be really cool (haha) or just a big dork.

[sock_monkey 0]

they all do it.

 

if you pay attention you'll see that they actually signal to each other. drivers, the guys on the platform, guess its part of procedure and you how the love procedure here.

[rach 1]

I was watching and I'm pretty sure there wasn't a guy he was pointing to. It was just outside of the station.

[kintaro 0]

I've seen this too rach. My thoughts were they were just posing and trying to act like they were doing something.... trying to look 'official.' sock_monkey might have seen something we didn't...

[Dims 0]

He is doing a visual check of signals and to get the all clear from other rail workers, like sock monkey said. They do the wanky pointing thing to make sure they remember to check. They are meant to do it as a safety practice, and I guess it make them look like they are on the ball to give all passengers a warm fuzzy feeling. It used to make me laugh and I would point back at them with a "hey, how you going" sort of wink.

[sunrise 0]

I heard that the drivers are trained to do that (you hear them saying stuff too sometimes) to give them something to focus on so they don't fall asleep on the very automated job.

[unit 0]

Yeah the drivers on my line do it all the way through the trip. They point at signs or something every km or so. It is pretty funny but it must keep them awake. Can't say the same for that boom gate operator yesterday...oops was that up or down when a train comes?..I can never remember!

[AK 77 0]

Saw something about this at a talk by someone who had done a PhD on the railway system in Japan (wouldn't be my first choice, i know), but this signalling practice was sometning that UK rail authority was looking at, because it would have prevented at least one of the train crashes in recent years .... except they could never get people to do it over here.

Looks funny, but if it stops driver going through a red light, i'm all for it!

[rach 1]

Interesting, I did not know that. I can't imagine the highly trained & consciensious train drivers in the UK doing that.

[NoFakie 45]

It sounds like what Japanese refer to as a "pokayoke", a fail-safe mechanism where a redundant action is inserted into a job as a check.

 

In factories, quality control can be built in by getting workers to count four screws onto a tray before insertion. It may sound silly, but it ensures more workers insert all four screws every time. The loss in productivity is presumably outweighed by the improvement in product quality.

 

Anything that makes you look remotely silly isn't going to be workable in the UK. Wasn't one of them reading the paper when the train crashed?

[yoroshiku onegai shimasu 2]

They do it where I am as well.

They actually seem really proud and do it very well.

[big-will 7]

I was watching today I'd never really noticed it before. haha. The guys on the platform have their signalling thing to do as well - apparently to no-one but themselves.