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Post by programmes1 on Apr 25, 2014 8:07:07 GMT
I have heard a whisper that the staff from Cobourg Street have or will soon be moved on and staff from Highgate will take over until the last section is upgraded. Can anyone confirm or shed any light.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2014 19:30:22 GMT
Cobourg St will cease to be active once the last section of the Northern line signalling is commissioned in May. The staff will move on after a suitable period to ensure there is no need to revert the system
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Post by londonstuff on Apr 25, 2014 21:33:55 GMT
Cobourg St will cease to be active once the last section of the Northern line signalling is commissioned in May. The staff will move on after a suitable period to ensure there is no need to revert the system What's likely to happen with Cobourg Street? Presumably all the old assets will be removed in time so no chance of using it as a backup. Will LU sell or use it for something else? |
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Post by crusty54 on Apr 26, 2014 1:36:41 GMT
The site is also a substation and tunnel vent fan so selling the site would be difficult.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2014 11:19:56 GMT
They could keep Earls Court going with some of the spares especially that Tubelines are responsible for both rooms
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Post by railtechnician on Apr 26, 2014 15:06:33 GMT
They could keep Earls Court going with some of the spares especially that Tubelines are responsible for both rooms Yep, I've heard that Earl's Court will have to be maintained into the 2020s ! Cobourg is a little less obsolete than Earls Court but not by very much. |
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Post by programmes1 on Apr 26, 2014 15:29:08 GMT
Cobourg St will cease to be active once the last section of the Northern line signalling is commissioned in May. The staff will move on after a suitable period to ensure there is no need to revert the system So no one from Highgate is going to operate the desk until it closes? |
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Post by programmes1 on Apr 26, 2014 15:30:39 GMT
Cobourg St will cease to be active once the last section of the Northern line signalling is commissioned in May. The staff will move on after a suitable period to ensure there is no need to revert the system What's likely to happen with Cobourg Street? Presumably all the old assets will be removed in time so no chance of using it as a backup. Will LU sell or use it for something else? As far as I know that can not revert back once it's gone over and given the okay for the old asset's to be removed. |
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Post by programmes1 on Apr 26, 2014 15:31:53 GMT
They could keep Earls Court going with some of the spares especially that Tubelines are responsible for both rooms You think they would have been doing that since the Victoria line went and now the Northern there must be quite a few bits they could use. |
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Post by domh245 on Apr 26, 2014 19:30:07 GMT
Did the old Victoria line system have common components with the current district / Piccadilly system? The Jubilee probably could have released some stuff when it was resignalled. Would any of these be useful for the bakerloo, as it seems that line is in for the long haul with its current setup.
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North End
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Post by North End on Apr 26, 2014 19:40:32 GMT
Cobourg St will cease to be active once the last section of the Northern line signalling is commissioned in May. The staff will move on after a suitable period to ensure there is no need to revert the system So no one from Highgate is going to operate the desk until it closes? I'm not entirely sure, however my understanding from the grapevine is the remaining SO4s have now moved on to whatever new roles or locations await them (in some cases retirement), and for the remaining time the remaining sole signal desk is being staffed by (suitably qualified) staff from other grades. As for Cobourg Street's future, the building will remain for the time being more or less untouched. The building houses office space, including a substantial amount of space dedicated to the signal engineering department, and this will remain indefinitely. I have seen documentation suggesting at least one signal desk will be preserved, whether this will be in-situ or elsewhere remains to be seen. In the longer term I believe the site lies inside the area designated for HS2, however there will always be some kind of LUL facility there as the building also contains a substation and fanshaft serving the Victoria Line. There is no possibility of reversion to the original signalling, as maintenance schedules have lapsed, and Train Operators would no longer have up-to-date line knowledge on the signal layouts, indeed there are newly qualified drivers who will have never worked under the old signalling for the earlier parts of the line which went over to TBTC. Whilst the moves are essentially the same, you can't just put someone in a train and tell them to follow the signals! For as long as the old signalling remains in situ it's not impossible, but you couldn't just switch over in a matter of hours, it would be a lengthy piece of work to revert (i.e. days or more). It's hard to envisiage any situation where this would be a realistic option. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2014 10:28:39 GMT
So no one from Highgate is going to operate the desk until it closes? I'm not entirely sure, however my understanding from the grapevine is the remaining SO4s have now moved on to whatever new roles or locations await them (in some cases retirement), and for the remaining time the remaining sole signal desk is being staffed by (suitably qualified) staff from other grades. As for Cobourg Street's future, the building will remain for the time being more or less untouched. The building houses office space, including a substantial amount of space dedicated to the signal engineering department, and this will remain indefinitely. I have seen documentation suggesting at least one signal desk will be preserved, whether this will be in-situ or elsewhere remains to be seen. In the longer term I believe the site lies inside the area designated for HS2, however there will always be some kind of LUL facility there as the building also contains a substation and fanshaft serving the Victoria Line. There is no possibility of reversion to the original signalling, as maintenance schedules have lapsed, and Train Operators would no longer have up-to-date line knowledge on the signal layouts, indeed there are newly qualified drivers who will have never worked under the old signalling for the earlier parts of the line which went over to TBTC. Whilst the moves are essentially the same, you can't just put someone in a train and tell them to follow the signals! For as long as the old signalling remains in situ it's not impossible, but you couldn't just switch over in a matter of hours, it would be a lengthy piece of work to revert (i.e. days or more). It's hard to envisiage any situation where this would be a realistic option. Agree with all that.; as you say there's no chance of NMA1-5 being reverted back from TBTC. As regard reversion I only meant reversion of NMA6. There's a formal two week overlap period after which a decision is made not to revert (ever). Once that decision is done then the staffing will ramp down. The overlap is more of a comfort blanket than a practical proposition. All or part of a signalling desk and I think part of the line overview is going to be removed by the LT Museum. I'm not sure where it is going to be displayed. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2014 15:07:29 GMT
Did the old Victoria line system have common components with the current district / Piccadilly system? The Jubilee probably could have released some stuff when it was resignalled. Would any of these be useful for the bakerloo, as it seems that line is in for the long haul with its current setup. Alot of it would of been the same in the control room items including diagram indications, buttons, old programme machine stuff, line isolators Even though the safety signalling was different the non safety equipment should of been simular |
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Tom
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Post by Tom on Apr 28, 2014 6:40:06 GMT
From what I can work out the two rooms were similar, though I'm not sure if the route buttons at Cobourg Street were replaced in the late 1990s when Earl's Court got new buttons.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 28, 2014 10:00:57 GMT
Didn't Earl's Court originally have their route buttons in a drawer? And later put on the upright section of the desk?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 28, 2014 10:28:55 GMT
correct as they thought the programme machines would never go wrong
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North End
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Post by North End on Apr 30, 2014 2:35:06 GMT
I'm not entirely sure, however my understanding from the grapevine is the remaining SO4s have now moved on to whatever new roles or locations await them (in some cases retirement), and for the remaining time the remaining sole signal desk is being staffed by (suitably qualified) staff from other grades. As for Cobourg Street's future, the building will remain for the time being more or less untouched. The building houses office space, including a substantial amount of space dedicated to the signal engineering department, and this will remain indefinitely. I have seen documentation suggesting at least one signal desk will be preserved, whether this will be in-situ or elsewhere remains to be seen. In the longer term I believe the site lies inside the area designated for HS2, however there will always be some kind of LUL facility there as the building also contains a substation and fanshaft serving the Victoria Line. There is no possibility of reversion to the original signalling, as maintenance schedules have lapsed, and Train Operators would no longer have up-to-date line knowledge on the signal layouts, indeed there are newly qualified drivers who will have never worked under the old signalling for the earlier parts of the line which went over to TBTC. Whilst the moves are essentially the same, you can't just put someone in a train and tell them to follow the signals! For as long as the old signalling remains in situ it's not impossible, but you couldn't just switch over in a matter of hours, it would be a lengthy piece of work to revert (i.e. days or more). It's hard to envisiage any situation where this would be a realistic option. Agree with all that.; as you say there's no chance of NMA1-5 being reverted back from TBTC. As regard reversion I only meant reversion of NMA6. There's a formal two week overlap period after which a decision is made not to revert (ever). Once that decision is done then the staffing will ramp down. The overlap is more of a comfort blanket than a practical proposition. All or part of a signalling desk and I think part of the line overview is going to be removed by the LT Museum. I'm not sure where it is going to be displayed. In answer to the original question, I spoke to someone 'in the know', and yes it is correct that the remaining desk at Cobourg Street (desk 2A) is now staffed by qualified staff from Highgate. There is a story attached to why the decision has been taken at this stage, however I don't think it's appropriate to post on an open forum! |
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Post by railtechnician on Apr 30, 2014 8:11:17 GMT
correct as they thought the programme machines would never go wrong Yep the route buttons were in drawer units along with the telephones at signals panels. The drawer units were relocated to beneath the diagram, I don't know exactly when but I presume when the push button panels were added above the signal operator desks. I relocated the 15 telephones at signals panels back to the desks as two groups of panels each on an infill desk section circa 2000 or thereabouts and gutted out much of the original drawer unit cabling tidying the diagram cable forms to some extent and enabling removal of the drawer units although I don't recall if that was done. I did hear that subsequent to my retirement the telephones at signals panels had been relocated back to beneath the diagram to free up the signal desk areas for other equipment although I know no more about that. I presume that telephones at signals are now defunct and that the equipment and cabling has been recovered but somehow I doubt it. I spent more than a month gutting old comms equipment and cabling from the controllers desks and the associated equipment in the 'Turnham Green' card room downstairs when the new diagram panels were being made and the room was being upgraded to extend its use, the last project I undertook before retiring. Some of the equipment I recovered had been out of use but left in situ for more than a decade. Another of my jobs there was replacing the telephone panels on desks 3A and 3B although that was in the 1990s before I joined Picc Line Engineering. I recall when the room was being upgraded as a Tube Lines project, having a chat with the planners about the new systems they were intending to install on the controllers desks and wondered why the estimate to build a replacement room was quoted as being in the region of £300 million as that was a key factor in extending the life of Earl's Court. The control and regulating facilities could have been ported elsewhere, indeed I thought anywhere, for much less by marshalling them into a secure transmission system over fibre optic link to connect Warwick Road relay rooms to anywhere. The technology was available at the time and the project planners had apparently considered the idea in general terms. I expect the intention to use a completely new signalling system was the main reason for not wishing to spend more than a limited budget on the existing system while it remained in service but apparently the existing facilities will have to be maintained for several years yet in a complex that should have been condemned long ago! |
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Post by bruce on Apr 30, 2014 18:40:11 GMT
Both Earls Court and Cobourg Street had the route buttons in draws. The idea behind this was that the program machines would do the routing of trains and the regulator would only intervene for service disruptions. The cables to the push button draws was single strand multi-core telephone cable which was not designed to be flexible. Eventually with the opening and closing of these draws the singls core started to fracture. At both control rooms the route buttons were moved and placed vertically above the program machine and train describer buttons. (There were no Train describer buttons on the Victoria Line desks.)
One problem with the route buttons was the connection to the lamp in the button. Two very flexible wires was used for the connection but over a period of time with the button being pushed and sometimes pulled these wires broke and the lamp in the button no longer illuminated. Spares for these buttons was getting difficult to source so a different design of button was trialed and approved. The route buttons were all replaced at Earls Court sometime during 2007/08 and also at Cobourg Street where only the Northern Line route buttons were replaced. Metronetrail refused to pay Tubelines for replacement buttons as the Victoria Line desks were only going to be in commission for a few more years and they could use the old buttons off the Northern Line desks as a source of spares. Metronetrail did pay for the track and program machine diagram lamps to be replaced with led's.
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Tom
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Post by Tom on May 7, 2014 20:57:30 GMT
I'm sure I've seen a photo of Earl's Court in the early days where the route buttons were originally in drawers underneath the diagram. In those days the regulator's desk was just that (an office desk) and they had the programme machine controls in a desk unit which was basically a box on a fly lead.
Were the Earl's Court buttons then relocated to drawers in a purpose built desk (as per Cobourg Street) or did they then go straight onto the top of the desks?
It's interesting to hear the buttons at Earl's Court had to be replaced again; looks like the 1990s Swisstac buttons had quite a short life compared to the original Alma Reed Switches!
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