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Post by hellocontrol on Sept 19, 2013 15:27:33 GMT
Now that Osbourne House controls the Vic following the upgrade what about Finsbury Park IMR what happens there, is it controlled by someone else?
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Post by railtechnician on Sept 19, 2013 20:55:47 GMT
Now that Osbourne House controls the Vic following the upgrade what about Finsbury Park IMR what happens there, is it controlled by someone else? Weren't Osborne House and Cobourg St sharing control of the line until all was transferred from Cobourg St? I assume that Finsbury Park is now controlled by Osborne House as the programme was supposed to be completed by now. Why would you think it any different now than before, the Vic has always controlled the site since it was built?
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Post by hellocontrol on Sept 20, 2013 8:00:47 GMT
Now that Osbourne House controls the Vic following the upgrade what about Finsbury Park IMR what happens there, is it controlled by someone else? Weren't Osborne House and Cobourg St sharing control of the line until all was transferred from Cobourg St? I assume that Finsbury Park is now controlled by Osborne House as the programme was supposed to be completed by now. Why would you think it any different now than before, the Vic has always controlled the site since it was built? I don't know if it is different but Osbourne House now controls the whole of the Vic and has done for a while now but at Finsbury Park the IMR is very much still working on the Picc side the cross overs between the two lines still there for engineers trains. It is the interface between the Vic and the Picc how does that work. Thinking about it Baker Street Bakerloo and Jubilee must be along the same lines.
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Post by railtechnician on Sept 20, 2013 19:05:46 GMT
Weren't Osborne House and Cobourg St sharing control of the line until all was transferred from Cobourg St? I assume that Finsbury Park is now controlled by Osborne House as the programme was supposed to be completed by now. Why would you think it any different now than before, the Vic has always controlled the site since it was built? I don't know if it is different but Osbourne House now controls the whole of the Vic and has done for a while now but at Finsbury Park the IMR is very much still working on the Picc side the cross overs between the two lines still there for engineers trains. It is the interface between the Vic and the Picc how does that work. Thinking about it Baker Street Bakerloo and Jubilee must be along the same lines. As I said Finsbury Park is a wholly Victoria line controlled site, it controls the crossovers to and from the Picc, Picc signalling through FPK is otherwise all auto sticks. Baker Street Bakerloo/Jubilee was not the same at all, the single 'V' style frame in the IMR was controlled from both Bakerloo and Jubilee line signal control rooms (it's the only site I can recall with a 'V' style frame controlled from two signal control rooms). I assume the Bakerloo is still at Baker Street and the Jubilee is now wholly controlled from Neasden (only the JLE was controlled from there while the rest was controlled from Baker Street)
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Post by Nortube on Sept 20, 2013 22:27:54 GMT
There must be a few places where there is a 'conflict of interest' where two separate lines share a common signalled feature, if that's the correct way of putting it.
Euston / Kings Cross is an example. Years ago, at some point when Interlocking Machine Rooms began to be introduced, Kings Cross Piccadilly line had (still has) IMR 'L' and Kings Cross Northern line had signal box 'L'.
Cabin code 'L' was allocated to: all the controlled signals on the Picc line at KX (including the speed signalling ones) The three signals in KX loop The shunt from the NB northern line (L23) to the KX loop KX Northern line NB starter
Euston was cabin code J for the siding and crossover
I assume the working was: Picc line IMR controlled everything L on the Picc line and the exit from KX loop to the Picc line (L22a) Northern line signal box L controlling the L signals on the Northern line and the exit from the KX loop to the Northern line (L19) Slot lever(s) between the IMR and signal box provided the interlocking to allow movement to / from the loop.
At some point (possibly when KX Picc was resignalled), KX Northern lost its signal cabin (it may have already gone by then) and all Northern line signals, including the entrance / exit to the loop at the Northern line end became J. I assume they then came under the control of the Euston IMR. I think that the current working arrangements mean that the Picc Signalman has to give permission for Northern line trains to enter the loop via the slot lever before shunt signal J8 (Euston loop to KX loop) can be cleared. This has given problems in the past when the KX Picc desk has been unmanned and Northern line trains have been unable to reverse in KX loop.
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Post by railtechnician on Sept 21, 2013 16:48:56 GMT
There must be a few places where there is a 'conflict of interest' where two separate lines share a common signalled feature, if that's the correct way of putting it. Euston / Kings Cross is an example. Years ago, at some point when Interlocking Machine Rooms began to be introduced, Kings Cross Piccadilly line had (still has) IMR 'L' and Kings Cross Northern line had signal box 'L'. Cabin code 'L' was allocated to: all the controlled signals on the Picc line at KX (including the speed signalling ones) The three signals in KX loop The shunt from the NB northern line (L23) to the KX loop KX Northern line NB starter Euston was cabin code J for the siding and crossover I assume the working was: Picc line IMR controlled everything L on the Picc line and the exit from KX loop to the Picc line (L22a) Northern line signal box L controlling the L signals on the Northern line and the exit from the KX loop to the Northern line (L19) Slot lever(s) between the IMR and signal box provided the interlocking to allow movement to / from the loop. At some point (possibly when KX Picc was resignalled), KX Northern lost its signal cabin (it may have already gone by then) and all Northern line signals, including the entrance / exit to the loop at the Northern line end became J. I assume they then came under the control of the Euston IMR. I think that the current working arrangements mean that the Picc Signalman has to give permission for Northern line trains to enter the loop via the slot lever before shunt signal J8 (Euston loop to KX loop) can be cleared. This has given problems in the past when the KX Picc desk has been unmanned and Northern line trains have been unable to reverse in KX loop. You are correct about the working arrangements for the KX loop, however, I fail to see why an unmanned KX Picc desk should be an issue. Surely the driver waiting at J8 would be on the phone to Cobourg St signal operator who would ring Earls Ct KX desk and if the phone were not answered I would expect the Northern signal operator to escalate the matter to the Northern Service Controller who would then call his Picc counterpart to expedite matters. Having been a control room TO at Earls Court I am well aware of some of the situations resulting from unmanned desks, back in the day it was not unusual for a single signal operator to be working two desks or first thing in the morning four desks. I could never understand why that was allowed to happen with 41 signal operators on the roster and only five desks to work but it was custom and practice over many years just as it was custom and practice for controllers to cover two lines at times. Such practices went on in all the control rooms that I worked in over the years. I always thought that devolution to lines was a mixed blessing, although it had advantages the big disadvantage seemed to be the rivalry that grew between one line organisation and another and sometimes a lack of co-operation. Ealing Broadway District/Central crossover was a prime example of the intransigence of the Central line over who controlled the moves and so when we had to send trains over to the Central we had to throw everything on the ground because the non-safety controls from Wood Lane simply didn't work and had probably never worked since the Central Line 1990s resignalling. At the time Wood Lane was regarded as 'Fort Knox' and we (Picc Line Engineering) were not allowed in to investigate and troubleshoot the non-safety signalling for the moves while the Central Line attitude was that there was no problem! I suspect that in the final analysis that is why the Ealing Broadway crossover was removed, quite simply it required a minimum of two Picc line signal TOs to manually work the frame in Ealing Broadway IMR and to set up the correct conditions in Ealing Broadway SER every time a train had to cross over to the Central (most moves seemed to be predominantly District to Central) and when PLE got short handed we basically had more important essential safety maintenance work to do and so requests to see trains over the route were denied. Its a long time ago now, at least 13 years or so, but IIRC the Earls Ct signalman would request a slot from Wood Lane for the route but the Wood Lane signal operator would insist that the Earls Ct signal operator had to offer a slot! It all used to work when the Central line was based at Baker Street. Only the Central line circuitry was altered when Central line kit at Ealing Broadway was changed over from the IMR to the SER during the resignalling. The route thus fell out of use and as we know the crossover was lifted relatively recently.
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Post by railtechnician on Sept 21, 2013 16:53:29 GMT
There must be a few places where there is a 'conflict of interest' where two separate lines share a common signalled feature, if that's the correct way of putting it. Interworking occurs all over the railway, its not just signalling but comms too. These days the Circle line sees itself as a 'line' but there is no physical Circle line, I don't know what happens these days with Connect but under the original train radio system Circle trains were District and then Met as they worked the 'circle', similarly Picc trains became Met at Alperton en route to Rayners Lane and were Met until they returned eastbound. The train radio base station at Rayners Lane was shared between Met and Picc control rooms, this being transparent to the user apart from the fact that s/he would know s/he was communicating with a different controller. The radio was simply switched over from one channel to another as the train passed over a channel change beacon in the four foot. The longline PA system was another service that had to be carefully set up because what is eastbound on the Met is also outer rail while on the District it is inner rail. As originally installed the arrangement was all over the place such that when the Info Assistant in the Met control room made announcements regarding Circle trains he might set up outer rail all sites and in fact be broadcasting to the inner rail instead at many of those sites while on the Met main northbound and southbound were also mixed upat several sites. One of my tasks in the late 1980s was to sort out the PA mess on the Met, the whole Met from Baker Street to Amersham, Chesham, Watford, Uxbridge, Aldgate and also connect and commission the East London line so I had always chuckled at the idea of there being separate Met, Hammersmith & City, Circle and East London lines as whatever the parts were named it was all one railway one way or another! From a signalling and comms viewpoint the Met & Jub were closely tied together prior to JLE project and indeed the signalling remained so afterward although the Met upgraded its TAS phone systems splitting them from the common Met/Jub equipment between Baker Street and Wembley Park which had been allowed to fall into a poor state of repair when JLE ran out of money for its intended upgrade of comms systems on the original Jub. All over the combine there were many examples of interworking of lines one way and another and that remains the case in many ways but I suspect the 'combine' is more fragmented now in technical terms than at any time since 1933!
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Post by GentlemanJim on Sept 21, 2013 17:47:53 GMT
IIRC and it has been 7 years since I sat at a signalling desk at Wood Lane, it was the District that had to request a slot from the Central at Ealing Bdy.
The VDU display had a panel showing the current aspect of the signals there was also a box that was not lit unless a request from Earls Court had been received. If the box marked CEN-DIS was lit the signalman would then manually set the route, once selected and proven ATP codes would show as present thus allowing a train from EAB over the crossover, I'm sure there were signs at EAB District saying something like 'Check for CODES' on the Central side there was a tripcock tester for CEN-DIS tranfers and probably a trainstop.
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Post by railtechnician on Sept 22, 2013 7:53:09 GMT
IIRC and it has been 7 years since I sat at a signalling desk at Wood Lane, it was the District that had to request a slot from the Central at Ealing Bdy. The VDU display had a panel showing the current aspect of the signals there was also a box that was not lit unless a request from Earls Court had been received. If the box marked CEN-DIS was lit the signalman would then manually set the route, once selected and proven ATP codes would show as present thus allowing a train from EAB over the crossover, I'm sure there were signs at EAB District saying something like 'Check for CODES' on the Central side there was a tripcock tester for CEN-DIS tranfers and probably a trainstop. Your recollection agrees with mine regarding the District signal operator having to request the slot to send trains across to the Central. I certainly recall one Wood Lane signal operator insisting that the Earls Ct signal operator had to offer a slot when we rang to find out why a train that was waiting to go over was held awaiting the slot. There were indeed illuminated signs at the EBY starters on all three District platforms although I never saw them lit in all the years I did signal maintenance at EBY. Of course they may have been lit when we worked the route manually but I was in the IMR pulling levers and couldn't see the signs from there, I expect they would have extinguished as soon as a train taking the route passed the starter replacing blockjoint. Ealing Broadway was always known to me by the abbreviation EBY indeed it was the site code for District longline PA. I recall asking a former comms colleague, who left LU to join CLPT installation, why EAB was used as the signalling site code. His response was that he had never heard of 'EBY' and that 'EAB' seemed a natural abbreviation when he was tasked with supplying site abbreviations! The Central line resignalling was such a departure from all I had known and learned since joining LT in the late 1970s, IMHO it was the beginning of the demise of what was once a world leading design, install and maintain organisation. Indeed my opinion was reinforced when I was seconded to CLPT to do the necessary installation and enabling works for the transfer of tunnel telephones from Old Oak Common S/S to Park Royal S/S and realised that times were-a-changing!
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Post by hellocontrol on Jan 17, 2014 9:48:22 GMT
Just an update there was a signal technical society presentation last year which I just came across and it states that the IMR has been replaced.
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Post by railtechnician on Jan 17, 2014 12:36:19 GMT
Just an update there was a signal technical society presentation last year which I just came across and it states that the IMR has been replaced. Well the new Central line SER replaced all the Central line part of the Ealing Broadway IMR and P/Mc room. Are you saying that all the District kit and lever frame has been replaced? If so has Hanger Lane Junction IMR been replaced as well? I ask because Hanger Lane Junction and Ealing Broadway were tied up circuit wise just as Ealing Common and Acton West were tied up to Acton East.
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drico
Station Inspector
Thank you driver, off clips.
Posts: 202
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Post by drico on Jan 17, 2014 14:09:39 GMT
Ealing Broadway District Line and Hanger Lane IMRs are still working .
All points between the Central Line and District lines at Ealing Broadway station was removed years ago, so no need for any signalling wiring between the two lines.
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Post by hellocontrol on Jan 17, 2014 18:56:33 GMT
Just an update there was a signal technical society presentation last year which I just came across and it states that the IMR has been replaced. Well the new Central line SER replaced all the Central line part of the Ealing Broadway IMR and P/Mc room. Are you saying that all the District kit and lever frame has been replaced? If so has Hanger Lane Junction IMR been replaced as well? I ask because Hanger Lane Junction and Ealing Broadway were tied up circuit wise just as Ealing Common and Acton West were tied up to Acton East. RT what you say is correct but the IMR WP still controls the District like Drico has said it was the Central line kit that was removed from the IMR although the Central line release lever is still there but not working.
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Post by hellocontrol on Jan 17, 2014 18:58:08 GMT
Ealing Broadway District Line and Hanger Lane IMRs are still working . All points between the Central Line and District lines at Ealing Broadway station was removed years ago, so no need for any signalling wiring between the two lines. I thought they only removed the connection between both lines either last year or the year before, although I don't think it was used for years.
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Post by railtechnician on Jan 17, 2014 19:31:03 GMT
Well the new Central line SER replaced all the Central line part of the Ealing Broadway IMR and P/Mc room. Are you saying that all the District kit and lever frame has been replaced? If so has Hanger Lane Junction IMR been replaced as well? I ask because Hanger Lane Junction and Ealing Broadway were tied up circuit wise just as Ealing Common and Acton West were tied up to Acton East. RT what you say is correct but the IMR WP still controls the District like Drico has said it was the Central line kit that was removed from the IMR although the Central line release lever is still there but not working. You have to be careful with 'news'. All the Central line kit was taken out of IMR WP before I joined the Picc line maintenance team in 1996! Apart from some high speed scanning functions in the Programme Machine relay room, all Central equipment was decommissioned. There were just one or two modified safety circuits to allow transfer of stock between District/Central. As I have mentioned before those circuits did not work so we had to manually signal trains across. Ealing Broadway was one of my regular routine maintenance sites, I used to clean the frame as well as do the point and signal maintenance there and take calls on the P/Mc's frequently, usually just before booking off time in the morning!
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