Situational judgement tests for train drivers

You get a short work problem: a signal, a fault, a passenger, a colleague. You pick what you would do, or you rank the options. There is usually a safer answer sitting under the dramatic one. That is a situational judgement test, or SJT.

This is often the first filter, before you ever sit a vigilance screen. They are not testing whether you like trains. They want to know if your first instinct looks like someone who would stop, tell someone, and not make the incident worse.

What “good” looks like here

Protect. Inform. Don't pass a danger signal because it would be inconvenient. Don't hide a mistake. Don't pick the option that sounds heroic if it skips the boring step that actually keeps people alive.

• If you aren't authorised, you don't go.
• If something is wrong with the train or the road, you stop and tell the right person.
• If you made an error, you say so. Covering it is worse than the error.
• Passengers matter. So does not creating a second incident while you help them.

How to practise without memorising a script

You can't learn every scene. You can learn a default: slow down the story, find the risk, pick the option that reduces it. If two answers both look safe, pick the one that also tells someone. Silence is a common trap.

Timed operational questions help, because the pressure is part of the test. Thinking it through with no clock isn't. On the day the wording won't match a practice set. The default should still hold: slow down, find the risk, pick the option that reduces it. RailFocus has 14 free scenes you can sit in the browser, or print. Independent practice, not the official paper.