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Telephone calls

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Telephone calls 12/01/2021 at 20:54 #136323
Red For Danger
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169 posts
In SimSig land, if there are several telephone calls, the sim-signaller can cherry pick which one he/she wants to answer as each is listed with the trains headcode.

Is this typical to real life and can the real signaller choose which call he wants to answer first....? If not, would it not make it more realistic to just have the call ringing and then only know which train it is when the call is answered....?

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Telephone calls 12/01/2021 at 20:59 #136324
headshot119
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4869 posts
It depends on what phone system is in use.

On GSMR you can cherry pick from the list of incoming calls on the top left portion of the screen. You can place up to two answered calls on hold, and retrieve them at a convenient time. (EDIT it's been pointed out to me by a learned colleague that there are different brands of fixed GSMR terminals and this may not apply to all of them, just the ones I'm familiar with)

Concentrator phones you can see which button is flashing and cherry pick which one you'd like to answer first, some call circuits allow you to park the call in a hold state and go back to it at a convenient time.

The only time you don't really know who's ringing is when it's a BT line, or the internal number line that's ringing.

"Passengers for New Lane, should be seated in the rear coach of the train " - Opinions are my own and not those of my employer
Last edited: 12/01/2021 at 21:06 by headshot119
Reason: Clarity over GSMR

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Telephone calls 12/01/2021 at 21:08 #136325
GeoffM
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6274 posts
There are so many systems around, both historical and current, that it's nigh on impossible to simulate them all accurately individually, especially when the manufacturers are not open about their inner workings. That's why we have a generic telephone/radio interface.
SimSig Boss
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Telephone calls 13/01/2021 at 00:18 #136328
DavidSplett
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142 posts
Red For Danger in post 136323 said:
In SimSig land, if there are several telephone calls, the sim-signaller can cherry pick which one he/she wants to answer as each is listed with the trains headcode.

Is this typical to real life and can the real signaller choose which call he wants to answer first....? If not, would it not make it more realistic to just have the call ringing and then only know which train it is when the call is answered....?
Definitely more authentic to give the signaller the option.

Part of the skill of signalling / control jobs is that during times of high workload the signalman / controller will be having to prioritise tasks, and that can include deciding which calls to prioritise - though in real life of course there’s things like emergency calls which introduce a further dimension to prioritisation choices.

Simsig does a pretty good job in giving a very good taste of all this, to the point where (especially on the larger sims when playing solo) it’s quite prototypical of the workload pressure real signallers / controllers can be under.

Something like Merseyrail can be run as a sim where one can pretend to be the controller not signaller, if leaving the whole thing on ARS and focussing on service management / recovery decisions, and putting trip edits into the ARS so that one can essentially make a decision and then forget about it, just like real controllers do. (As an aside, a potential feature for Sandhills and perhaps some other ARS sims would be an option on startup to drop the level crossing clears and manual routing into depots, so that one can play totally as a controller not signaller?).

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