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Post by dave1 on Oct 30, 2016 7:31:28 GMT
Can any help with where the boundaries are for the desks at Earls Court, I know what areas they control but someone at say Chiswick Park which desk would they ring or someone at South Kensington on the Piccadilly who would they ring. If anyone has a list would be grateful.
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Post by railtechnician on Nov 1, 2016 0:10:58 GMT
Can any help with where the boundaries are for the desks at Earls Court, I know what areas they control but someone at say Chiswick Park which desk would they ring or someone at South Kensington on the Piccadilly who would they ring. If anyone has a list would be grateful. Will get back to you on this, I was a control room TO there until I retired. Right now it's just after midnight and I need my ZZZZs as I have to drive to Sheffield in a few hours.
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Post by dave1 on Nov 1, 2016 6:58:42 GMT
Can any help with where the boundaries are for the desks at Earls Court, I know what areas they control but someone at say Chiswick Park which desk would they ring or someone at South Kensington on the Piccadilly who would they ring. If anyone has a list would be grateful. Will get back to you on this, I was a control room TO there until I retired. Right now it's just after midnight and I need my ZZZZs as I have to drive to Sheffield in a few hours. RT Okay will wait to hear from you.
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Post by railtechnician on Nov 2, 2016 11:33:10 GMT
The desks were known differently according to who was talking about them i.e. Heathrow desk, Kings Cross desk Acton desk etc. The best way to answer the question is like this:-
Ealing Broadway to Acton Dist & Picc Heathrow to Northfields Picc & Turnham Green to West Kensington Dist Earl's Court to South Kensington and High St Kensington all Embankment - Tower Hill Dist Hyde Pk Corner - Down Street, Holborn & Kings Cross Picc Putney Bridge & Parsons Green Dist Wood Green - Cockfosters Picc (once known as 'Metal Mickey' in the control room, later moved to a room in the office complex)
The original desks were numbered 1A,1B,2A,2B as suites 1,2 and 3A.3B,4A,4B as suites 3,4 with 1A being the 'Heathrow' desk and the others following west to east around the room clockwise. The 1980s Picc east end desk, 'Metal Mickey', was installed as desk 5A.
After all these years I can't exactly remember what parts of the diagram were controlled on each desk other than as I have stated above. Obviously the signal operator desks related only to the controlled areas. The rest of the District was of course controlled by Whitechapel cabin, Upminster cabin with Putney Bridge-Wimbledon and Turnham Green to Richmond controlled by Network Rail.
When Earls Ct opened circa 1961 only the District was regulated from there, the Picc was still regulated from Leicester Square but was transferred to Earls Ct by 1968 (don't know exactly when).
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Post by dave1 on Nov 2, 2016 15:58:24 GMT
The desks were known differently according to who was talking about them i.e. Heathrow desk, Kings Cross desk Acton desk etc. The best way to answer the question is like this:- Ealing Broadway to Acton Dist & Picc Heathrow to Northfields Picc & Turnham Green to West Kensington Dist Earl's Court to South Kensington and High St Kensington all Embankment - Tower Hill Dist Hyde Pk Corner - Down Street, Holborn & Kings Cross Picc Putney Bridge & Parsons Green Dist Wood Green - Cockfosters Picc (once known as 'Metal Mickey' in the control room, later moved to a room in the office complex) The original desks were numbered 1A,1B,2A,2B as suites 1,2 and 3A.3B,4A,4B as suites 3,4 with 1A being the 'Heathrow' desk and the others following west to east around the room clockwise. The 1980s Picc east end desk, 'Metal Mickey', was installed as desk 5A. After all these years I can't exactly remember what parts of the diagram were controlled on each desk other than as I have stated above. Obviously the signal operator desks related only to the controlled areas. The rest of the District was of course controlled by Whitechapel cabin, Upminster cabin with Putney Bridge-Wimbledon and Turnham Green to Richmond controlled by Network Rail. When Earls Ct opened circa 1961 only the District was regulated from there, the Picc was still regulated from Leicester Square but was transferred to Earls Ct by 1968 (don't know exactly when). RT Thanks most interesting especially the desk numbering. Earls Court was like Cobourg Street but I think smaller?
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Post by railtechnician on Nov 3, 2016 1:10:57 GMT
Yes Earls Ct is like Cobourg St but smaller, if you see a picture of the Warwick Road station entrance you can see the control room as the rotunda above!
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Post by dave1 on Nov 3, 2016 9:23:13 GMT
Yes Earls Ct is like Cobourg St but smaller, if you see a picture of the Warwick Road station entrance you can see the control room as the rotunda above! RT Looking at photos of the control rooms on line it shows how they crammed in all those people and it must have been a busy place due to the nature of the work, the working conditions can not be good but as the room is still open. It seems to me that LU don't think of people as such they use the smallest rooms unlike others I have been in non railway rooms and the size is the first thing that stands out. I also would have thought that following the Baker Street room they would have relocated both Cobourg Street and Earls Court to bigger rooms and I think I am right but the Baker Street room opened in the mid 1980s. For years I used to think what is that above the entrance and that also gives away the size.
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Post by railtechnician on Nov 3, 2016 12:52:19 GMT
Yes Earls Ct is like Cobourg St but smaller, if you see a picture of the Warwick Road station entrance you can see the control room as the rotunda above! RT Looking at photos of the control rooms on line it shows how they crammed in all those people and it must have been a busy place due to the nature of the work, the working conditions can not be good but as the room is still open. It seems to me that LU don't think of people as such they use the smallest rooms unlike others I have been in non railway rooms and the size is the first thing that stands out. I also would have thought that following the Baker Street room they would have relocated both Cobourg Street and Earls Court to bigger rooms and I think I am right but the Baker Street room opened in the mid 1980s. For years I used to think what is that above the entrance and that also gives away the size. Not sure what you mean by the Baker Street 'room' ! It was three rooms, Central & Bakerloo line controllers in one room, Jubilee & Met controllers next door and downstairs the Met & Jub SCC. With the late 1980s Bakerloo resignalling the new Bakerloo control room was downstairs opposite the Met & Jub SCC, when the Central was subsequently resignalled the control room was built at 10B Wood Lane. These being the 1980s and 1990s installations but I can recall the 1970s arrangement too when the line controllers were at the end of the ground floor corridor. Apart from the SCC and new Bakerloo control room these were all quite tight spaces from a working viewpoint. When a line went tits up for any reason the Met/Jub controllers would throw everyone else out of the room, something that happened to me a few times while troubleshooting and recommissioning Met and Jub longline PA systems in 1986/7. Had I not moved into the training division in 1982 I would no doubt have been involved in the original control room installations, Baker Street was one of my sites in 1980/1 and I worked from there for more than a year. Cobourg Street was the biggest of the control rooms with IIRC 11 controller desks, I had the job of replacing those GRP desks with steel ones over a number of weeks on Saturday night overtime shifts in the late 1980s. The room was very spacious, with the Victoria and Northern signalling desks have their own distinct spaces in front of the diagram. Earls Court as built circa 1960 was not small at all with two separate line controller desks and four signalling desks with the signal controls set into the desk drawers. However, over the years many modifications were made, the spaces between the controller desks were filled and a new worktop placed across both, the spaces between the signal desks filled in to take additional control panels, more controls were set above the original desks, then desk 5A (as big as a 2 desk original suite) was installed in the 1980s. More and more equipment was crammed in and around the controller desks, I worked on a number of projects there over many years before ending up as a control room TO there. I can recall the days of the glass divider between controllers and regulators (as they were originally known) and then how it was removed. In front of the controller desks below the plinth was the TO desk and next to that an info assistant desk when I was the night TO there. Behind the diagram, once a free walking area to change blown diagram lamps and work on the cables, was choc-a-bloc with additional floor and wall mounted equipment which the room was never designed for. I had the job of moving all the TAS/SPT circuits from the old drawer units which had been relocated to beneath the diagram back to the desks on new desk infill units installed by external contractors and due to the asbestos fabric of the room had to run surface trunking across the floor to the desks. This was seen as a trip hazard and so checkerplate steel ramps were installed to obviate that. It is true to say that in the old days LU was not to hot on comfortable working conditions but to be fair such places as Earls Court were well designed in comparison to what had existed previously at Leicester Square control room. It is all too easy to look at a location and pass comment upon it without knowing and understanding the history and how much it has changed over 50+ years. Even the well designed NCC at 55 Broadway as it was when I worked there quickly became cluttered. I expect the MICC & multi desk BTP IR that I also worked in went the same way but they have to be seen in the light of the original BTP IR there which was two, two position, switchboards back to back crammed in a relatively small room when I first did any BTP comms work. No doubt the current crop of control rooms will also become cluttered as new equipment facilities are demanded and installed and of course humans always have more needs too, messing space, locker rooms etc and sometimes quarts have to be squeezed into pint pots because there isn't the budget for a proper update! Earls Ct is a hazard and the whole of the Warwick Road office complex should have been razed years ago.
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Post by dave1 on Nov 3, 2016 17:27:48 GMT
RT Looking at photos of the control rooms on line it shows how they crammed in all those people and it must have been a busy place due to the nature of the work, the working conditions can not be good but as the room is still open. It seems to me that LU don't think of people as such they use the smallest rooms unlike others I have been in non railway rooms and the size is the first thing that stands out. I also would have thought that following the Baker Street room they would have relocated both Cobourg Street and Earls Court to bigger rooms and I think I am right but the Baker Street room opened in the mid 1980s. For years I used to think what is that above the entrance and that also gives away the size. Not sure what you mean by the Baker Street 'room' ! It was three rooms, Central & Bakerloo line controllers in one room, Jubilee & Met controllers next door and downstairs the Met & Jub SCC. With the late 1980s Bakerloo resignalling the new Bakerloo control room was downstairs opposite the Met & Jub SCC, when the Central was subsequently resignalled the control room was built at 10B Wood Lane. These being the 1980s and 1990s installations but I can recall the 1970s arrangement too when the line controllers were at the end of the ground floor corridor. Apart from the SCC and new Bakerloo control room these were all quite tight spaces from a working viewpoint. When a line went tits up for any reason the Met/Jub controllers would throw everyone else out of the room, something that happened to me a few times while troubleshooting and recommissioning Met and Jub longline PA systems in 1986/7. Had I not moved into the training division in 1982 I would no doubt have been involved in the original control room installations, Baker Street was one of my sites in 1980/1 and I worked from there for more than a year. Cobourg Street was the biggest of the control rooms with IIRC 11 controller desks, I had the job of replacing those GRP desks with steel ones over a number of weeks on Saturday night overtime shifts in the late 1980s. The room was very spacious, with the Victoria and Northern signalling desks have their own distinct spaces in front of the diagram. Earls Court as built circa 1960 was not small at all with two separate line controller desks and four signalling desks with the signal controls set into the desk drawers. However, over the years many modifications were made, the spaces between the controller desks were filled and a new worktop placed across both, the spaces between the signal desks filled in to take additional control panels, more controls were set above the original desks, then desk 5A (as big as a 2 desk original suite) was installed in the 1980s. More and more equipment was crammed in and around the controller desks, I worked on a number of projects there over many years before ending up as a control room TO there. I can recall the days of the glass divider between controllers and regulators (as they were originally known) and then how it was removed. In front of the controller desks below the plinth was the TO desk and next to that an info assistant desk when I was the night TO there. Behind the diagram, once a free walking area to change blown diagram lamps and work on the cables, was choc-a-bloc with additional floor and wall mounted equipment which the room was never designed for. I had the job of moving all the TAS/SPT circuits from the old drawer units which had been relocated to beneath the diagram back to the desks on new desk infill units installed by external contractors and due to the asbestos fabric of the room had to run surface trunking across the floor to the desks. This was seen as a trip hazard and so checkerplate steel ramps were installed to obviate that. It is true to say that in the old days LU was not to hot on comfortable working conditions but to be fair such places as Earls Court were well designed in comparison to what had existed previously at Leicester Square control room. It is all too easy to look at a location and pass comment upon it without knowing and understanding the history and how much it has changed over 50+ years. Even the well designed NCC at 55 Broadway as it was when I worked there quickly became cluttered. I expect the MICC & multi desk BTP IR that I also worked in went the same way but they have to be seen in the light of the original BTP IR there which was two, two position, switchboards back to back crammed in a relatively small room when I first did any BTP comms work. No doubt the current crop of control rooms will also become cluttered as new equipment facilities are demanded and installed and of course humans always have more needs too, messing space, locker rooms etc and sometimes quarts have to be squeezed into pint pots because there isn't the budget for a proper update! Earls Ct is a hazard and the whole of the Warwick Road office complex should have been razed years ago. RT Firstly we all know politics has a hand to play in everything so someone can say they want such and such and very soon afterwards someone else takes over and it all changes. I meant the Met & Jubilee SCC and the Bakerloo SCC having looked at photos of them which are on the web they don't seem to have changed much although I am sure that the have been changes but when you look at Earls Court it looks like you said something added on. Cobourg Street does not appear anything like Earls Court so any alterations have been dealt with correctly, I know looking at the photos that they have had the diagrams upgraded. When I said the Baker St rooms it was because these opened years ago I thought LU might have thought about something similar for both Earls Court & Cobourg St and the style of diagram I am sure helps when it comes to alterations and again there must have been other alterations but looking at photos it seems very much the same. Like you say about Earls Court desk 5 when it first opened then it was changed and then it moved elsewhere although a nice LED diagram showed the area under their control. I did not realise that Cobourg St had 11 desks there must be more that are not in the photos I have seen. When you think how much money has been spent over the years then you can see how much has been wasted. I have never been in any LU control rooms as I missed out on the visits but I have been in a number of NR control rooms as well as some PSBs London bridge being my favourite one and although there had been alterations done it was done correctly and there was plenty of room although I suspect that those that operated it would disagree.
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Post by railtechnician on Nov 4, 2016 2:38:26 GMT
Dave chronology is very important when discussing anything to do with railway signalling and operations. When the Bakerloo/Central and Met/Jub line control rooms were installed in the early 1980s the signal operators on all lines were in signal cabins. The Met/Jub SCC was a few years later, then the Bakerloo line and signal control room (not an SCC but an LCR like Earls Ct and Cobourg St). I am not sure if the Baker St SCC remains as was or is now only a Met SCC, following JLE and Neasden (Not sure if that is an LCR now or a SCC but I believe the intention was for Jub line controllers and signal operators to be relocated there from Baker St), certainly the newly created Jubilee signal maintenance section and various managers were based there just after I retired. I got all the training for Neasden but never got to see it!
The politics that you mention is correct in some respects but the main reason that progress was slow or stagnant was due to politicians rather than LTE/LUL itself. Works that had been planned for the following financial year would be thwarted by government policy lead to reductions in the capital budget. The knock on effect was that monies in hand had to be spent as they had already been given to the various line managers. If such monies were not enough to cover the projected works then the line managers would find other ways to spend the monies. Thus projects were deferred or cancelled and inflation and other factors would ensure that waiting another year or two would see the cost of a given project rise by leaps and bounds and beyond the level of future years subsidies. Thus the cost of relocating Earls Ct went from several £million to £100million+ and last I heard before I retired it was £300million and so it was decided to leave it but spruce it up a little with new diagram panels, new clocks, new carpets and better ventilation but also leaving all the asbestos in situ. Fitting the new diagram panels and clocks was one of the very last things I did at Earls Ct before retiring. However, that was before HT5 opened and of course there had to be modifications to accomodate the extra diagram on the extreme left of the original first diagram panel. That would've meant removing or moving the access door to the rear of the diagram and that would have necessitated other works. I have no idea what they did, it is possible that the door was simply replaced with wall as there were two other accesses to the rear of the diagram, one outside the control room and the other being via the emergency escape door (not nice, I skinned my scalp there more than once as it is dwarf sized!). Yes money is wasted in many ways and one of those ways was employing thousands of staff as did most nationalised companies but it kept people in work and not on the benefit bill. In many ways nationalisation was a good thing wrecked collectively by poor governance and greedy unions. The same battles exist today as demonstrated at Southern Rail and in the NHS, fair pay and working conditions for all and making management work properly without unnecessary government interference or a culture of derriere protection would be good for the economy, good for the workers and good for the passengers and patients but a shock for many managers. Our politicians have spent the last 50 years wrecking Britain and they are still doing it, there is nothing wrong with monitoring the purse strings but our sticky fingered politicians have a penchant for taking charge and screwing everything up as we see year in year out and ever more nowadays.
Don't be confused by 11 desks at Cobourg St, that was just three suites for line controllers and information and nothing to do with signal control. ISTR it was 4 for each controller and 3 for info assistant on the raised plinth, the signal desks were at floor level. When you see the photos again look carefully at the 'desks', each is comprised of separate positions and each position is a desk as part of the suite. AFAIR the Baker St controllers desks comprised 6 or 7 individual desks joined together, 3 for each controller and I can't recall if the info assistant had a position between them. The desks are identical but what is inside them is different, one would be telephones, another CCTV, another train radio etc.
Forget the PSBs, nice and spacious for the few just like power station control rooms, go and look in some NR signal cabins and see how some staff are still working in almost Victorian conditions. It's years since I've been in one and things may be better today with signalling automation closing boxes or at least automating them so that they are no longer manned like the ones hereabouts in Lincs. The last NR box I was in was Stonebridge Park when the North Circular Road was being widened years ago. Middle of winter but the draughty box with gaps in the wooden floorboards was toasty as I recall, the signalman had several heaters on.
As for tight cabins such places as Elephant & Castle Bakerloo, Queensway and Bethnal Green Central and Holborn Picc spring immediately to mind but there were plenty of other ones.
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Post by dave1 on Nov 6, 2016 12:09:35 GMT
Dave chronology is very important when discussing anything to do with railway signalling and operations. When the Bakerloo/Central and Met/Jub line control rooms were installed in the early 1980s the signal operators on all lines were in signal cabins. The Met/Jub SCC was a few years later, then the Bakerloo line and signal control room (not an SCC but an LCR like Earls Ct and Cobourg St). I am not sure if the Baker St SCC remains as was or is now only a Met SCC, following JLE and Neasden (Not sure if that is an LCR now or a SCC but I believe the intention was for Jub line controllers and signal operators to be relocated there from Baker St), certainly the newly created Jubilee signal maintenance section and various managers were based there just after I retired. I got all the training for Neasden but never got to see it! The politics that you mention is correct in some respects but the main reason that progress was slow or stagnant was due to politicians rather than LTE/LUL itself. Works that had been planned for the following financial year would be thwarted by government policy lead to reductions in the capital budget. The knock on effect was that monies in hand had to be spent as they had already been given to the various line managers. If such monies were not enough to cover the projected works then the line managers would find other ways to spend the monies. Thus projects were deferred or cancelled and inflation and other factors would ensure that waiting another year or two would see the cost of a given project rise by leaps and bounds and beyond the level of future years subsidies. Thus the cost of relocating Earls Ct went from several £million to £100million+ and last I heard before I retired it was £300million and so it was decided to leave it but spruce it up a little with new diagram panels, new clocks, new carpets and better ventilation but also leaving all the asbestos in situ. Fitting the new diagram panels and clocks was one of the very last things I did at Earls Ct before retiring. However, that was before HT5 opened and of course there had to be modifications to accomodate the extra diagram on the extreme left of the original first diagram panel. That would've meant removing or moving the access door to the rear of the diagram and that would have necessitated other works. I have no idea what they did, it is possible that the door was simply replaced with wall as there were two other accesses to the rear of the diagram, one outside the control room and the other being via the emergency escape door (not nice, I skinned my scalp there more than once as it is dwarf sized!). Yes money is wasted in many ways and one of those ways was employing thousands of staff as did most nationalised companies but it kept people in work and not on the benefit bill. In many ways nationalisation was a good thing wrecked collectively by poor governance and greedy unions. The same battles exist today as demonstrated at Southern Rail and in the NHS, fair pay and working conditions for all and making management work properly without unnecessary government interference or a culture of derriere protection would be good for the economy, good for the workers and good for the passengers and patients but a shock for many managers. Our politicians have spent the last 50 years wrecking Britain and they are still doing it, there is nothing wrong with monitoring the purse strings but our sticky fingered politicians have a penchant for taking charge and screwing everything up as we see year in year out and ever more nowadays. Don't be confused by 11 desks at Cobourg St, that was just three suites for line controllers and information and nothing to do with signal control. ISTR it was 4 for each controller and 3 for info assistant on the raised plinth, the signal desks were at floor level. When you see the photos again look carefully at the 'desks', each is comprised of separate positions and each position is a desk as part of the suite. AFAIR the Baker St controllers desks comprised 6 or 7 individual desks joined together, 3 for each controller and I can't recall if the info assistant had a position between them. The desks are identical but what is inside them is different, one would be telephones, another CCTV, another train radio etc. Forget the PSBs, nice and spacious for the few just like power station control rooms, go and look in some NR signal cabins and see how some staff are still working in almost Victorian conditions. It's years since I've been in one and things may be better today with signalling automation closing boxes or at least automating them so that they are no longer manned like the ones hereabouts in Lincs. The last NR box I was in was Stonebridge Park when the North Circular Road was being widened years ago. Middle of winter but the draughty box with gaps in the wooden floorboards was toasty as I recall, the signalman had several heaters on. As for tight cabins such places as Elephant & Castle Bakerloo, Queensway and Bethnal Green Central and Holborn Picc spring immediately to mind but there were plenty of other ones. RT Sorry I should have been clearer I think the Met SCC is just that now that the Jubilee has been resignalled and comes under Neasden. When I mentioned politics I was talking about LU management but you are right depending which government is in power can have an impact on what happens. What I was trying to say was after the Met & Jubilee SCC opened it would have made sense to move the lines controlled from Earls Court and Cobourg Street into control rooms similar yes I know that things change and projects are either altered or cancelled but looking at the diagram alone at Baker Street would have been more beneficial to the operators and would have been easier for any alterations to signals/layout including the control desks. If you look at the anorak site there are photos which show the T5 panel so it seems that just installed a new panel after moving the door further along and still maintaining all the issues with Asbestos. Every company has a long term plan but it is all the outside factors that normally take over. LU have had plans for many years about signalling and track upgrades long before the current upgrades but they seem to alter for all the reasons we know about. I remember reading that all the big depots were going to get control towers in the end only Neasden did (I know about Upminster/Northumberland Park/Stonebridge Park) Hainault and Ruislip were supposed to. I expect the increased cost of moving Earls Court was down to all the extras that always get added on with a project then all the meetings to agree or disagree and it just goes on. I expect that on LU most of the tunnel signal boxes were small and not very nice to work but outside ones seemed to be much better although not as good as the modern NR ones.
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Post by railtechnician on Nov 6, 2016 23:20:15 GMT
Dave,
Unfortunately the current Brexit debacle illustrates very much the processes at LUL over the decades, that is after everything is agreed in principle the various LUL minions all want to change the agreement in various ways causing delay and thereby missing the finance because it had to be spent somewhere else in order for the government not to see unspent monies as a reason to cut the following years budget. Inevitably a delayed project would be estimated to cost more due to the additional alterations and perhaps a change of emphasis meaning that finance would not be available in the next financial year due to cost increases and other planned projects coming on stream. Thus the merry-go-round of agreement, arranging the finance, alterations, missed finance etc would turn into an out of control spiral. Such can be seen right across anything that Whitehall has its sticky fingers into not only at LUL but in Health, Education, Defence etc LUL was treated like any other government concern and so it acted accordingly.
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Post by dave1 on Nov 11, 2016 16:24:39 GMT
RT That is a good example it's the world we live in.
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