Answer the phone Please

because they are glued to the footie on the television set that they are watching

Can signalmen/regulators still do what they could and ring you on a signal telephone? Earls Court/High Street/Gloucester Road/Sth Ken were the places that you mostly got that. They could do it anywhere where you were on the Earls Court diagram though. You'd be sitting at a red signal when all-of-a-sudden you'd hear bells. If you ignored the bells he'd flash the signal at you. In other words 'driver you are wanted'

On the Southern controlled lines past Turnham Green and Putney bridge the Bobby would 'wave' the semaphore arm to you if you were required to get in touch

Ironic I suppose but if you want to talk to him he wont always answer and nothing is ever done about it ( I know Ive tried ;D)

BUT if he wants you and you don't pick the phone up when he rings all hell breaks loose.

And as I said I'm only after info like why I'm being held at EC3 or EN41 for instance.

Its pathetic because if we don't give the info over the P.A. we get a blocking but how the hell are we to tell what what is going on if we don't know because we're never given that info in the first place.

Simple answer to the non-reply a signal phone. Make a bloody pest of yourself by contacting the controller on the radio and reporting that the signal phone is not working. He'll soon get cheesed of with drivers for ever telling him that they can't get an answer on a signal phone and then get these signallers to do the job properly. I strongly suspect that Earl's Court is more prevalent at this practice than Baker Street.

Earl's Court have always been an ignorant lot of pigs as regards anwering the phone. We often used to get held at EC7 and he would not answer the phone there. So I used to cross to EC13 and try that. If he did not answer that either I used to leave 'em BOTH off the hook so that he had a symphony to listen to.

I got told off umpteen times for that but it did not stop me.

Ok, signalman here. Only took me a couple of days to answer but I'm not in any hurry so why should you be? ;D

Despite the age-old myth that we do such things as ignore the phones, clear the signals just as you ring etc. etc. much of it is just a myth.

Firstly. Is the phone working? If I had a pound for everytime I answered a signal phone and heard silence, I wouldn't be sat here now.

Second. What else may we be doing /who else may we be talking to on other telephones? Your call may not be the most important one to us at that time. After all, if you're being held at a red, maybe the disruption leading to this is what is occupying us.

Third. We will always try to answer all phones in the end. Particularly at Baker Street, the ringing noise tends to annoy and can lead one to suffer indigestion from ones biscuits ;D

Fourth. The "call back" facility is available at some locations. All phones which come to us are meant to have it. Very few actually work.

Next (as I'm losing count) quite often the route is ready to clear, and simply waiting for the train ahead to move. This is normally the reason for the signal clearing just as you pick the phone up. The other most obvious reason is that it was your turn next anyway.

Leaving the phone off the hook helps nobody. I know it's been done for years, but there is more chance of the phone becoming defective for the next person who needs it. Not only that, a phone left of the hook is quite often switched off/out by us and therefore becomes effectively non-existent. So when someone does try to call us on it (maybe in emergency) we are not listening as we believe it's still off the hook.

Finally, certain locations will always differ. The chap working one area such as Barking has a lot less railway and trains at any one time to look after than the chap working Aldgate through to Baker Street. Naturally he will normally have more time to answer all calls.

I have said it before and will say it again, we are not on a commission to any other line. We do not get a bonus from any line. There is very good reason why, in recent circulars, a small paragraph told people to wait up to 2 minutes for us to answer.

Jim, we know which room you refer to, and it has been gently brushed upon and I think we both know (and some others here could probably hazard a guess) which page of the reference manual they are on at that time

Yes. In the Baker St SCC area most (if not all) phones have come to phone signs.