Controllers Leicester Square

I know the Northern General manager and support staff are there, as well as the LU JNP service director. Some staff recieve annual refresher training there too.

Are the power control staff here, or somewhere else in Leicester Square?

What is it you want to know? I worked there as a Traffic Controller many years ago, including a Christmas Day 'night' shift (if that makes sense). Then it was just the Central Line, the last to occupy the control complex, so it was just me and ...... (nobody else).

Happy days!!

Is Transad House now Cranbourn Street? (The current JNP Divisional offices).

Morden Depot - Power Control is elsewhere (Not saying where on here though ;-) )



At a recent retirement do, the lucky controller said that that's all they need; a timetable, log book, pen and phone (and a radio nowadays)....

I certainly agree with tfc, as at Leicester Square (Transad House), that's all you had, including the signal and traction current diagrams, plus lighting and lifts/escalator feeder diagrams.

The control office at Leicester Square was first set up in 1909 for the LER lines but the place was rebuilt to bring all lines together between December 1939 and January 1940. The 'offices' comprised small interconnecting rooms.

The first of the de-centralisation began in 1962 when the Met/B'loo moved to Baker Street and the Head Controllers to 55 Broadway.

The former Met/B'loo office became a temporary Regulating Room for the Morden and Tooting areas for a few years.

The Dist/Picc moved away when Earl's Court Regulating Room opened. The Victoria Line first occupied Cobourg Street in 1968 and the Northern followed from Leicester Square the following year. The Central thus remained the only occupant until it moved to Baker Street in 1979.

The small direct line telehone key labels included, on the Northern Line desk, substation, signal cabin and Running SM keys for the aborted Northern Line extensions which were not, of course, connected up.

An interesting thread! I first visited Transad House in 1980, at that time it was unoccupied and somewhat derelict with pigeons occupying the top floor where part of the roof had collapsed and everything was covered in guano.
At that time the old controllers positions were still extant and that was the purpose of my visit, I was there to cannibalise them for parts for other comms projects. ISTR it was the first floor that housed the clock relay room whence the clock pulses from Leicester Square exchange were distributed to all lines. This was decommissioned by accident when somebody who presumed it redundant got a fitter to saw through the clock rack cable form! It took five minutes to do the damage and more than a week to repair it. A new (not so new more than 20 years on!) clock distribution relay room exists beneath the old Leicester Square telephone exchange on the station, I assume it remains extant.
These days it is known as Cranbourn Chambers and it is where Tube Lines Signals management are based.