Service Operator Assessment

[concerneddriver]

Hi,

I have an assessment for service operator soon.  Does anyone know what I should expect?  I thought they would give me some kind of example so I could prepare but I just got an appointment.

Can anyone help? 
Thank you!

[hellocontrol]

When you say service operator do you mean service controller?

[drico]

A service operator is the new term for Signalman/woman.

[hellocontrol]

Dec 19, 2014 23:31:26 GMT drico said:

A service operator is the new term for Signalman/woman.

The ones that work signal cabins? When did the change come in?

[concerneddriver]

Sometimes they work in cabins but more often now they work in the controlroom.  They have been call service operators for about 2 years I think.

This job is for signal cabins. 

[hellocontrol]

Dec 20, 2014 10:40:13 GMT concerneddriver said:

Sometimes they work in cabins but more often now they work in the controlroom.  They have been call service operators for about 2 years I think.

This job is for signal cabins. 

I thought the ones in control rooms were known as service controllers? It was what the cabin ones were know as the last I was aware they were called signal operators but like you have said they were renamed.

[GentlemanJim]

Dec 20, 2014 14:05:36 GMT hellocontrol said:

Dec 20, 2014 10:40:13 GMT concerneddriver said:

Sometimes they work in cabins but more often now they work in the controlroom.  They have been call service operators for about 2 years I think.

This job is for signal cabins. 

I thought the ones in control rooms were known as service controllers? It was what the cabin ones were know as the last I was aware they were called signal operators but like you have said they were renamed.

Either way it will probably be, interview, assessment, job.

When I applied for Wood Lane I had to do a role play scenario with 9 others, what they were looking for was leadership and team playing, if you passed that then there was an exam which lasted 45 minutes with that they were looking for quality answers not quantity then I had the interview. The next stage was R&R and if you get through that you'll be assigned to a Control Room and that's where you either make it or not. In days past if you failed the Control Room but still managed to prove yourself there'd be a BMT job somewhere.

As a Signalman I rang the person named, went for an interview and then started R&R, easy that one.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

[railtechnician]

I have never understood why LT/LU had to regrade everyone every few years apart from the obvious regrading to change the wages structure, regrading to obviate seniority and the relationships between grades. In the past it was a way of 'playing' the game' with the unions in times of wage negotiations where neither side was going to lose face and in the years since the late 1980s it has often been more to do with altering the amount of responsibility allotted to each grade which has also involved the introduction of completely new ranks and the complete removal of old ranks.
However, why change the name of a grade at all? When I first worked in control rooms there were no signalmen or woman in them, only regulators, the signalmen were in the cabins apart from places like Farringdon which had both Aldgate and Farringdon regulators and signalmen. The change to signal operator was obviously to do with making it a unisex job but I can see no real reason to call a signal operator a service controller (in which case why is a line controller needed?) or a service operator (surely that's the motorman, oops train driver, ATO or whatever any new title may be!).
As in many things LT/LU it is, it seems, about applying fog where there really ought to be applied clarity.

[concerneddriver]

Thank you for the info a good wishes GJ :-)

I know what you mean railtechnician. LU changes grades constantly.

There are service controllers, service operators, a train stock technician and line information specialists in the control room. I think the changes are related to ATO. They will eventually get rid of all signal operators, in the mean time they have divided the role into Service Operator 3 and 4. SO3 are the old signal operators (signal cabins) and SO4 are in the control room, they regulate the service and have taken other responsibilities with ATO.

[hellocontrol]

Dec 21, 2014 10:01:00 GMT concerneddriver said:

Thank you for the info a good wishes GJ :-)

I know what you mean railtechnician. LU changes grades constantly.

There are service controllers, service operators, a train stock technician and line information specialists in the control room. I think the changes are related to ATO. They will eventually get rid of all signal operators, in the mean time they have divided the role into Service Operator 3 and 4. SO3 are the old signal operators (signal cabins) and SO4 are in the control room, they regulate the service and have taken other responsibilities with ATO.

Do you know where there are any positions in the cabins? I know there will be training when the new systems comes in and there must be some retirements. I thought that there were some from Cobourg St who were displaced in cabins, did this not happen?

[concerneddriver]

I think most positions in the cabins are on the Met. They used a few people doing secondments for a year in Cobourg St while the permanent staff were retrained for the new system, not sure if some of them were displaced.

[railtechnician]

Dec 21, 2014 10:01:00 GMT concerneddriver said:

Thank you for the info a good wishes GJ :-)

I know what you mean railtechnician. LU changes grades constantly.

There are service controllers, service operators, a train stock technician and line information specialists in the control room. I think the changes are related to ATO. They will eventually get rid of all signal operators, in the mean time they have divided the role into Service Operator 3 and 4. SO3 are the old signal operators (signal cabins) and SO4 are in the control room, they regulate the service and have taken other responsibilities with ATO.

In the earliest days of centralised PA & CCTV control rooms first gained line information assistants, I first met them circa 1980 when I was installing stage 1 longline PA & CCTV on the Met, Bakerloo, Central lines and believe that they were little more than admin staff at that time. Later circa 1986 they had been around a while and were attempting to claim a new grade as assistant line controllers even though they were not 'railwaymen' in real terms. They got their wish in the late 1980s, when I was installing tunnel telephone and stick telephone kit in the new Command & Control Bakerloo control room, line controllers, line information assistants and signal operators could all wear each others hats, a demotion for old time line controllers and lower wages which is why most of those left the grade before the new room opened, and also took on the responsibilities of engineering works controller which, IMHO, was a very bad move with potential for disaster. ISTR there were a few safety incidents resulting in near miss events but AFAIR the Bakerloo still kept EWC responsibilities right up until I retired in 2005.

As a control room Technical Officer at Earls Court from the late 1990s I saw the changes since I had worked there installing telephone equipment in the late 1970s. East End Computer desk 5 seemed to have created a different type of regulator/signal operator and it soon became apparent that some signal operators were being cross trained as line controllers and could wear either hat after desk 5 was relocated to the room on the floor below.

At Earls Court I knew the Train Stock Technician, my engineering counterpart, simply as the Train Technician, the same grade as in the rolling stock depots, indeed the same rank simply outstationed to the control room at that time. I was never sure though if the depot train technician was the same grade as the train technicians who used to be based in call depots all over the combine as Car Examiners or a higher grade as in the depots they did train mods and rewiring work on service stock. By then the vast majority of train technicians seemed to be in the train depots. I expect H&S was the cause of that, back in the day the car examiner would localise and resolve defects on board trains in service but under the safer regime I guess pulling seats apart and disturbing passengers to get at valves etc was frowned upon and it became practice to take defective trains out of service to be faulted at the depot. It seems so long ago that I used to witness Car Examiners at work on board moving trains sorting out door problems etc between stations.

When the 'multiple hats' concept reached the control rooms my recollection is that senior line controllers became DLCMs and line controller responsibilities for those entering or still in the LC grade were thus diminished somewhat along with the maximum earning capacity as the pay scale was culled.