Here are the range of attempts received for this question by the London Study Group. They vary significantly in length, relevance and completeness and for some are their first attempt at an IRSE question so therefore it is not surprising that most would not achieve a pass- it is early days.
I have added some comments against various bits of the different attempts to indicate the elelemnants I felt were good and those that were not so good. All the efforts are reroduced in same size and font and so these form a useful comparison of presentational styles with bullets, numbeered lists, tables, diagrams etc as well as technical content.
None of the answers actually stated the context in which they were written (always a good idea to state) although some gave some hints within. Although it was really a "mainline" question, most of the group are from the London Underground world in which some form of relaible train protection is provided at every signal and this seems to be an unwritten assumption in many of the answers; indeed some are evidently assuming a form of continuous comprehensive train protection and thus regard a SPAD as a wrong-side failure of the technology. Given the scenarios and indeed the date of the question, this would not have been the expectation of the examiners and it is particularly important to state your railway context and implicit assumptions when tackling a question from a viewpoint which is probably far from that originially anticipated by the person who set it.
Note that there is one answer which is evidently from a rather different social environment than is the norm in the 21st century UK!
Hopefully because all these answers are typed rather than in hand-writing, they will be more accessible for others to read and gain benefit as well.
I have added some comments against various bits of the different attempts to indicate the elelemnants I felt were good and those that were not so good. All the efforts are reroduced in same size and font and so these form a useful comparison of presentational styles with bullets, numbeered lists, tables, diagrams etc as well as technical content.
None of the answers actually stated the context in which they were written (always a good idea to state) although some gave some hints within. Although it was really a "mainline" question, most of the group are from the London Underground world in which some form of relaible train protection is provided at every signal and this seems to be an unwritten assumption in many of the answers; indeed some are evidently assuming a form of continuous comprehensive train protection and thus regard a SPAD as a wrong-side failure of the technology. Given the scenarios and indeed the date of the question, this would not have been the expectation of the examiners and it is particularly important to state your railway context and implicit assumptions when tackling a question from a viewpoint which is probably far from that originially anticipated by the person who set it.
Note that there is one answer which is evidently from a rather different social environment than is the norm in the 21st century UK!
Hopefully because all these answers are typed rather than in hand-writing, they will be more accessible for others to read and gain benefit as well.
PJW