Hammersmith Service Control Centre

[aslefshrugged]

Along with shutting down various bits of the Sub Surface network there seems to be a lot wrong at Hammersmith.



Back in December 2019 there was a mention in a RMT bulletin of "appalling conditions"

Despite raising the issues with management by July 2020 RMT were preparing to ballot members and the grievances were listed as:- 

a lack of toilets, no full-size control room kitchen or mess facilities, not enough lockers and a poorly located locker room, inadequate seating and chairs, sub-standard control room lighting, poor cleaning, poor building access routes, poor building management, no on-site parking and members left at risk of and experiencing assaults when walking to the control room.

It certainly sounds as if HSCC is somewhat less than perfect, I wonder if they resurrected the same design team that designed the Jubilee Line Extension stations which we're impressive from the public-side but were bloody awful for those of us who had to work there.

On top of that there were disagreements about retired staff being rehired through an agency on zero hour contracts, that RMT reps weren't recognised by management, the imposition of a new roster, staff shortages plus a reduction in the number of SLC1s and SLC2s (I know nothing about the grades, someone else will have to explain that).

In January 2021 RMT balloted members with unanimous support for strike action but as yet no action seems to have been taken

Last Thursday management asked for an "avoidance of dispute' meeting with union reps claiming that "they have a comprehensive proposal to make which will resolve all matters in the current dispute"

Only took them 16 months...

[DWS]

Would be interesting to know how many RMT members are in the Hammersmith Control Room ?

[Chris M]

Apr 4, 2021 10:53:35 GMT aslefshrugged said:

Last Thursday management asked for an "avoidance of dispute' meeting with union reps claiming that "they have a comprehensive proposal to make which will resolve all matters in the current dispute"

Only took them 16 months...

Playing devil's advocate, with that many issues to resolve, some of which sound like they might need significant, possibly structural, changes to the building, a proposal that does resolve them all would take quite a while to devise even without a pandemic.

[zbang]

OTOH an acknowledgement of the problems takes very little time.

[Chris M]

Apr 4, 2021 17:09:33 GMT zbang said:

OTOH an acknowledgement of the problems takes very little time.

True, but we have no information about whether they have or have not done this.

[rheostar]

As part of the Piccadilly line Service Control team, we visitied the Hammersmith control centre just after it'd been built as originally, the Piccadilly line control room was to have gone into the same building. We thought it was a horrible place. The Piccadilly line dodged a bullet in going to South Ken.

[aslefshrugged]

The first mention in the RMT bulletins was December 2019, local reps would have been making management aware of the issues many months before they passed it up the chain although one of the later complaints was that management were refusing to recognise RMT reps so that might have been part of the problem

From my own personal experience as a H&S rep on the JLE stations I can testify to LUL management's ostrich-like approach to accommodation problems; ignore it in the hope it goes away.

[North End]

Apr 4, 2021 20:49:34 GMT aslefshrugged said:

The first mention in the RMT bulletins was December 2019, local reps would have been making management aware of the issues many months before they passed it up the chain although one of the later complaints was that management were refusing to recognise RMT reps so that might have been part of the problem

From my own personal experience as a H&S rep on the JLE stations I can testify to LUL management's ostrich-like approach to accommodation problems; ignore it in the hope it goes away.

It’s interesting Hammersmith has run into issues, as most of the other PPP-era rooms have tended to be reasonably satisfactory, even popular.

On top of the room issues (I’ve never been there, perhaps luckily enough, so am going to avoid commenting on the room issues as what I’ve heard is largely second hand), there’s also workload issues, specifically for the Met/C&H controllers, though this doesn’t seem to extend to the District. Issues over workload for that role isn’t an entirely new thing, from what I gather it’s been a bit of a long running sore. The fragmented nature of SSR’s signalling, control and operational setup means it’s more intensive than elsewhere, and it seems the fragile nature of the infrastructure means on top of that it goes up the wall that little bit more often than elsewhere.

A potential problem going forward is that if extant staff tend to gravitate away (why wouldn’t you if Hammersmith is locationally inconvenient, the building isn’t great, and the job is a bit less hassle elsewhere?), the Met/C&H is potentially left with all junior / relatively inexperienced staff. Meanwhile, if potential entrants to the role get wind of the possibility they are likely to end up at a poison chalice location, people will decide not to bother, unless they are desperate for a pay rise. None of this bodes well, and things could get quite a bit worse if this issue continues to fester.

[jimbo]

I believe Hammersmith Centre was built by TfL, in anticipation of Bombardier resignalling, to cut costs and speed delivery. There was later talk of including the Picc line, which would have put pressure on space. It has since been adapted for the Thales system. So, in spite of being a new building, it was never designed to meet Thales system requirements. I don't know if some current problems arise from that history.

[rincew1nd]

Apr 4, 2021 22:51:35 GMT North End said:

The fragmented nature of SSR’s signalling, control and operational setup means it’s more intensive than elsewhere, and it seems the fragile nature of the infrastructure means on top of that it goes up the wall that little bit more often than elsewhere.

Surely this is what Hammersmith is meant to solve though? Bringing Controllers and Signallers closer together.

[North End]

Apr 5, 2021 7:39:32 GMT rincew1nd said:

Apr 4, 2021 22:51:35 GMT North End said:

The fragmented nature of SSR’s signalling, control and operational setup means it’s more intensive than elsewhere, and it seems the fragile nature of the infrastructure means on top of that it goes up the wall that little bit more often than elsewhere.

Surely this is what Hammersmith is meant to solve though? Bringing Controllers and Signallers closer together.

Yes and no.

Once Hammersmith is complete, though bear in mind there’s already been some descoping, yes there should be some spread of workload.

That’s certainly happened at Highgate and Neasden. But, these two places are fully staffed with SCL2s, so anyone can do everything. Hammersmith is unlikely ever to get that, as the cost of having everyone as an SCL2 is too great, and in any case there probably isn’t the training capability to achieve it.

You’d expect things to settle down once 4LM is complete, but that’s a *long* way off. Even then there will still be a fair few external interfaces which add elements of complexity - Chiltern, Jubilee from Finchley Road to Wembley, Picc around Acton, NR to Wimbledon and Richmond, etc.

It may be the case that a complete rethink of SSR control is needed. Going for a more formal Met / C&H split has been suggested, but I’m not sure how that would actually work in practice.

[Tom]

Apr 4, 2021 22:51:35 GMT North End said:

A potential problem going forward is that if extant staff tend to gravitate away (why wouldn’t you if Hammersmith is locationally inconvenient, the building isn’t great, and the job is a bit less hassle elsewhere?), the Met/C&H is potentially left with all junior / relatively inexperienced staff.

I heard this was one of the initial issues with Neasden when it opened. Because the Jubilee line had traditionally relied on the Met for its Service Control staff, there was a need to recruit additional staff for Neasden when it opened, and many of them were new entrants to Service Control with very few (if any) experienced staff moving there.

Regarding Hammersmith, on the occasions I've been there I've noticed a few issues with the building. The control room is probably half the size of sports hall at my old school, both in footprint and height. Whereas most other rooms have been at most 1.5 floors high, this is 2 or 2.5x normal ceiling height. There have been issues with the heating, ventilation and air conditioning, there's no natural light, and on my first few visits, the toilets didn't flush.

If you're being moved into what is likely to be the Underground's flagship control centre, you would have been forgiven for expecting the building to be reasonably functional when you arrived.

[North End]

Apr 5, 2021 13:31:21 GMT Tom said:

Apr 4, 2021 22:51:35 GMT North End said:

A potential problem going forward is that if extant staff tend to gravitate away (why wouldn’t you if Hammersmith is locationally inconvenient, the building isn’t great, and the job is a bit less hassle elsewhere?), the Met/C&H is potentially left with all junior / relatively inexperienced staff.

I heard this was one of the initial issues with Neasden when it opened. Because the Jubilee line had traditionally relied on the Met for its Service Control staff, there was a need to recruit additional staff for Neasden when it opened, and many of them were new entrants to Service Control with very few (if any) experienced staff moving there.

Regarding Hammersmith, on the occasions I've been there I've noticed a few issues with the building. The control room is probably half the size of sports hall at my old school, both in footprint and height. Whereas most other rooms have been at most 1.5 floors high, this is 2 or 2.5x normal ceiling height. There have been issues with the heating, ventilation and air conditioning, there's no natural light, and on my first few visits, the toilets didn't flush.

If you're being moved into what is likely to be the Underground's flagship control centre, you would have been forgiven for expecting the building to be reasonably functional when you arrived.

I wonder if something has gone slightly awry with the recruitment. For previous places, they have tended to take all the existing signallers and upskill them to controller level, generally some considerable time before actually being needed. This seems to have worked as there’s then been a full roster of people ready for “go live”, all of whom are experienced to at least some level.

It seems here there’s been some level of expectation that the established coterie of controllers would prove sufficient. When you’re then talking about a small number of people, things then become rather vulnerable to retirements and the like, Covid then being the straw to break the back.

One way or other, realising there’s a problem is the first step towards finding a solution.

[Colin]

Apr 5, 2021 20:09:41 GMT North End said:

I wonder if something has gone slightly awry with the recruitment.

Yep, Covid19

I have been stuck in the selection process for going on two years now! They introduced a part of the selection process where one spends some of their own time in a control centre (anything from one to six months) prior to completing the final selection test & interview, so this already caused a natural delay as only so many can be accommodated at any one time. Once Covid hit the own time element was paused and over a year later it hasn't restarted, so no recruitment (or indeed training) has occurred for the line controller role during the past year.

Apr 5, 2021 20:09:41 GMT North End said:

For previous places, they have tended to take all the existing signallers and upskill them to controller level, generally some considerable time before actually being needed. This seems to have worked as there’s then been a full roster of people ready for “go live”, all of whom are experienced to at least some level.

It seems here there’s been some level of expectation that the established coterie of controllers would prove sufficient.

As you said a couple of posts above, the signallers at Hammersmith are not being trained to controller level and thus remain signallers so there will only ever be a small team of line controllers at Hammersmith.

Apr 5, 2021 20:09:41 GMT North End said:

When you’re then talking about a small number of people, things then become rather vulnerable to retirements and the like, Covid then being the straw to break the back.

And that's exactly what's happened!