Train Driver Assessment Rules: Three Attempts, Five Years, No Scores
The UK train driver assessment rules since December 2024: three failed attempts, waits of one and five years, five-year results, and the two pass standards.
Most of what is written about the UK train driver assessment is about the tests: the dots, the dials, the grey square. Far less is written about the rules that decide how many chances you get, how long you wait between them and what a pass is worth. Those rules changed in December 2024, and they matter more than any single test, because a failed attempt now costs you at least a year.
The tests did not change in 2024. The rules did.
RSSB published Issue 4 of its standard, RIS-3751-TOM, on 7 December 2024. Its candidate FAQ is plain about the tests: "No changes have been made to the selection criteria or assessments set out in Appendix A of RIS-3751-TOM issue four." The battery is the one that came into force on 30 September 2013: the Group Bourdon and TEA-Occ for attention, WAFV for vigilance, TRP1 and TRP2 for memory and reasoning, ATAVT for perception, 2HAND for hand coordination, and the Situational Judgement Exercise and Multi-Modal Interview for communication and behaviour.
What Issue 4 changed is everything around the tests: the number of attempts, the waits between them, how long a result lasts, and guidance on how the assessments are delivered, including for neurodivergent candidates. If a guide or a forum post tells you the tests themselves were replaced in 2024, RSSB says otherwise. RSSB has also commissioned a new validation study of the selection process running to 2028, so a later change is possible, but none has been announced.
Three attempts, and how the waits work
RSSB calls it the three attempt rule. It applies to anyone who starts the standardised psychometric assessment on or after 7 December 2024:
If you sat any part of the process before 7 December 2024, the old two attempts rule still applies to you, whether or not you passed that part. RSSB’s own examples make the point: a candidate who failed the whole process in 2023 has one attempt left, and a candidate who sat part of it in 2023 and passed still has two attempts in total, not three. Issue 2 of the standard, from 2013, allowed a single re-sit after six months, which is why older guides talk about a six-month wait.
Two details catch people out. First, the attempts are counted against the process, not against one company: fail to the national standard with one operator and you wait before applying to any other. Second, some companies count their own online tests at the application stage as attempts; The OPC’s candidate guide says so and advises checking each company’s policy.
The national database follows you
Your results belong to the company you applied to, not to you or the assessment centre. They are kept on the RACF database, named after the Rail Assessment Centre Forum, which every registered assessment centre can see, and RSSB says the database is checked as part of every application. That is how a company knows how many attempts you have used and which tests you have already passed.
It is also why RSSB recommends running one application at a time: "the results from one application will affect all other applications." Applying to five companies at once does not give you five chances.
National or enhanced: the pass mark nobody publishes
RIS-3751-TOM sets no pass marks. RSSB recommends a minimum for each test, the national standard, and leaves each train company to decide which marks it uses. Some ask for more, an enhanced standard, and there is no single enhanced standard: each company sets its own. You pass or fail each test separately, and you must pass every core test.
This creates the one shortcut the rules do allow. If you miss a company’s enhanced standard but meet the national one, you can apply to a company that uses the national standard without waiting. The OPC published a list in September 2020 of companies that agreed to say which standard they used; our train driver practice pagecarries it under each company’s current name. It is six years old, so confirm with the company before you rely on it. Some adverts say it outright: Northern’s trainee driver adverts ask for a pass "to an enhanced level".
What the rules mean for how you prepare
Under the old rules a weak first attempt cost six months. Now it costs at least a year, and two weak attempts cost five. The arithmetic points one way: the cheapest place to make mistakes is before your first sitting.
RSSB says the company you applied to will send approved practice materials at least a week before your assessment day. Use them as soon as they arrive, on paper, because the Stage 1 tests are paper. Then learn the formats, which candidates have described in detail:
- Group Bourdon. Five two-minute sections of dot groups. Accuracy first, then a pace you can hold for all five.
- TRP1. You read a procedure, study it with notes, then lose both before the questions. Practise reading for numbers, colours and conditions.
- TRP2. Candidates report 43 dial questions in 8 minutes. The rule is taught on the day; the speed of applying it is what you can build.
- WAFV. Thirty minutes of a flashing square, with no break. Sit a full run at least once before the day.
Our train driver practice tests cover the six tests that can be sat on a screen, with the Group Bourdon free. Because no mark is published, they place each result in a band built from what candidates report passing with, or from our own estimate for the three tests where nobody reports a mark. If you are wondering whether a shortcut exists, our page on cheating the train driver tests explains why the national record rules it out. And RSSB’s candidate FAQ and The OPC’s assessment centre guide are the two official documents worth reading in full before your day.