Turn 'em round

[Deleted]

Are places like Mansion House and Tower hill used to turn round the circles when there's problems one way and not the other to fill gaps in the service? I know trains occasionally leave Whitechapel and go round the south side of the circle at Aldgate East [I've been on one of 'em, but only once] however I've never seen a C stock bunged in one of the dead-ends at Tower Hill and whatnot.

[Colin]

Circle line trains can indeed be reversed at any place [on the Circle line] with reversing facillities. It is rare - mainly because it's only usually done when they can't go any further; for example, a points failure at South Kensington / Aldgate or a defective train ahead.

[Harsig]

hardcastle said:

Are places like Mansion House and Tower hill used to turn round the circles when there's problems one way and not the other to fill gaps in the service? I know trains occasionally leave Whitechapel and go round the south side of the circle at Aldgate East [I've been on one of 'em, but only once] however I've never seen a C stock bunged in one of the dead-ends at Tower Hill and whatnot.

Mansion House & Tower Hill will never be used to reverse Circles simply for the purpose of filling gaps in the service in the other direction. They will however, as Colin says above, be turned there if they cannot proceed further, simply in order to get them out of the way of District services.
The reason for this is that responsibility for the service on the Circle Line rests with the Met Controller who will have no idea what is actually happening on the District side of the Circle. Consequently if a planned reversal of a Circle were to take place at Mansion House or Tower Hill then in theory the District Controller should give his permission first. It is therefore easier to do all reformations and short tripping on the north side of the Circle where the Met Controller has complete control.
In the case where Circle trains already on the District side cannot proceed further it will be the District controller who makes the decision to turn them at Mansion House or Tower Hill.

[DWS]

The District Line Controllers are due to be moved from Earls Court to Baker Street in the next year or so, this will help both the Hammersmith & City/Circle/District Line controllers to work together to improve the services on the three lines.

[c5]

They will sit next door, so it will improve a bit, but they will still be a phone call away

[citysig]

dws said:

The District Line Controllers are due to be moved from Earls Court to Baker Street in the next year or so, this will help both the Hammersmith & City/Circle/District Line controllers to work together to improve the services on the three lines.

Already over a year late, but the move is beginning. In June the people currently occupying the room will be moving offices, and from July, the equipment is due to begin being installed. So you never know, it may be sooner

I sincerely hope it does improve the current working relationship between the lines. It would be very advantageous of the District controllers to familiarise themselves with our room.

c5 said:

They will sit next door, so it will improve a bit, but they will still be a phone call away

The way they have spoken to us in the past would mean they would be closer for something

(That something of course would be that we could personally go round and tell them why the Circle had to go first ;D )

[Deleted]

How will the move take place? Will it just be one big bang move, where all control is transferred over in engineering hours, or will it be phased?

[c5]

soultrain said:

How will the move take place? Will it just be one big bang move, where all control is transferred over in engineering hours, or will it be phased?

I would imagine that once the new room is ready, the move will be during engineering hours. Of course someone will need to remain at Earl's Court until staff are available in the new room, unless depot traction current is disharged, though I think the Picc controllers can do this ??

I think it will be the same as their Emergency Control room and feature the (oh so reliable and not for safety-critical decision) TrackerNet, telephones an traction current Tunnel Telephone and earth-detection equipment.

Only the Line Controllers, Service Managers and Information Operators from the District are going. Don't know about the Piccadilly Controllers. Bearing in mind that the Service Operators (level 4) that are remaining are owned by JNP (Picc)

[DWS]

soultrain said:

How will the move take place? Will it just be one big bang move, where all control is transferred over in engineering hours, or will it be phased?

Its only the District Line Controllers that are moving from Earl's Court to Baker Street.

The signalling that is controlled from Earls Court is remaining at the Earl's Court control room ;D

[Deleted]

dws said:

soultrain said:

How will the move take place? Will it just be one big bang move, where all control is transferred over in engineering hours, or will it be phased?

Its only the District Line Controllers that are moving from Earl's Court to Baker Street.

The signalling that is controlled from Earls Court is remaining at the Earl's Court control room ;D

I'm a bit confused! I would have thought it would have been practical to keep the District Line controller and the District Line signal operators together, in the same room. I appreciate that its never going to be fully possible as the District and the Picc share the same signal desks as well.

[mandgc]

Original Question -

Is it practicable to reverse a Circle train to fill in a gap on the opposite rail ? Surely this would only b---- up both drections ?

[Colin]

soultrain said:

I'm a bit confused! I would have thought it would have been practical to keep the District Line controller and the District Line signal operators together, in the same room. I appreciate that its never going to be fully possible as the District and the Picc share the same signal desks as well.

You've basically answered you're own question there ;D ;D ;D

The signal operators at Earls Court are 'employed' by the Picc - and the signal desks work the Picc and District simultaneously. In essence, it would be extremely difficult to simply move a few signallers at will.

mandgc said:

Original Question -

Is it practicable to reverse a Circle train to fill in a gap on the opposite rail ? Surely this would only b---- up both drections ?

It's possible - but highly unlikely to happen for the reasons stated in replies 1 & 2 above. Passengers are simply told to change at Earls Court or Aldgate East when the circle has gaps.

[citysig]

soultrain said:

I would have thought it would have been practical to keep the District Line controller and the District Line signal operators together, in the same room.

As was found with Baker Street, there are many advantages to having your signalling and Line Control staff kept separate. The biggest is noise level. Staff tend to shout orders at one another if left in the same room. The noise level then increases.

We have no such noise at Baker Street. Every conversation is held politely over the telephone, and noise is kept to a minimum to save needless vibration. This vibration can lead to hairline cracks in our bone china tea cups you know ;D

barney said:

They also had the sense in those days to renumber circles in the event of late running.

Reforming you mean? Still done today on a more or less twice-daily basis. There are occasions where sufficient train ops mean that it cannot be done as simply as would be liked.

Gaps are occasionally filled using trains from other services. But the pros and cons of, for instance, providing a Circle train for 10 people going from Liverpool Street to Tower Hill against losing a Barking train for 200 people, are many.

[Oracle]

I know at age 50, and with two more articles to write in two weeks for my mag (five in an issue..amazing!) I am falling out of my tree but I am sure that I have seen an Outer Circle with destination 'BAKER STREET' in the last few months at Bayswater. I now know that it is possible to do an Outer>Inner at Baker on the trailing #over, but is this ever done in service apart from engineering works? It would seem to take too much time to effect in practice given several days' viewing of the Liverpool Street reversing (very slick!) and the effect on the H&C and Met ML. I would imagine that Baker St. was the reversing point for the late night C-stock runs to Neaden for stabling that ran on the Jubifleet (#over south of Finchley Road) in the dim and distant past..correct?

May I also ask a subsidiary query? When did the bay at Liverpool Street 'go'?

[prjb]

A mainline shunt at Baker Street would not normally be carried out during normal operations for the very reasons you describe. In the event of service disruption then you could do this, it is easier to do an inner to outer shunt as there is a wrong road starter which means you just change ends and go (with punters). I believe that there is still a scheduled 'rusty rail' move there at night (citysig?).
The mainline shunt was indeed how we used to reverse for Neasden stabling, we also just went north off of the inner rail too. If memory serves I think there was a last outer to Kings Cross and then that reversed and went north via Baker St.
As for Liverpool Street, I do not know. Someone here will give you the date/time and last train in and out if you hang on for a bit though! I transferred from the Northern to the C&H in 1990 and it had gone by then.

[c5]

oracle said:

I know at age 50, and with two more articles to write in two weeks for my mag (five in an issue..amazing!) I am falling out of my tree but I am sure that I have seen an Outer Circle with destination 'BAKER STREET' in the last few months at Bayswater. I now know that it is possible to do an Outer>Inner at Baker on the trailing #over, but is this ever done in service apart from engineering works? It would seem to take too much time to effect in practice given several days' viewing of the Liverpool Street reversing (very slick!) and the effect on the H&C and Met ML. I would imagine that Baker St. was the reversing point for the late night C-stock runs to Neaden for stabling that ran on the Jubifleet (#over south of Finchley Road) in the dim and distant past..correct?

I think you're right about the Baker Street reverser if it was on a weekend or bank holiday.

Outer Rail trains are sometimes turned at Baker Street if the service is suspended and with few trains, though this wouldn't be decided until between Paddington and Edgware Road. On one of my last days (the service was up the wall), an Outer Rail detrained at Edgware Road (another Pax behind), ran to Baker and shunted, back to Edgware Road and onto the sidings.


Also if you're really lucky and a certain controller is on you might even get a ride on a C stock westbound into Baker Street platform 2. ;D ;D

[Oracle]

I am sure that the day was a Saturday...

Thanks for the input.

[citysig]

During the recent weekend closures between Baker Street and Liverpool Street, many trains may well have shown "Baker Street" on the front. Normally, the train describer would show "Circle Line" on that particular timetable (it helps avoid customer confusion / reluctance to join the train) but it is indeed capable of displaying "Baker Street."

The shunt moves at Baker Street are more or less as prjb mentioned. There is a booked move each morning, where a train ex-Edgware Road shunts east to west and goes on to form an inner-rail Circle service. The C-stock Neasden stablers that used to run did indeed run as prjb says, and one was the last train ex-Kings Cross.

Both Platform 2 and 6 at Baker Street have wrong-road starters, which, although not generally used very often, can prove to be a real help when nothing is moving. It makes the area quite flexible - especially when you think we can "happily" shunt C-stock from Platform 2 or 3 back into 6 or vice versa. Normally only tried with the Line Controller C5 mentioned ;D

As for Liverpool Street, I believe it was early-1980s. But how much of this forum have you trawled? I'm sure this has come up before and we had a date for it somewhere.

[towerman]

That was probably when the Cicle was suspended Baker St-Liverpol St,some of the T/Ops were putting Baker St/Liverpol St up as the destination,depending which way the train was travelling.

[Deleted]

Some? Quite a few of the Circle Line trains have said "BAKER STREET" or "LIVERPOOL STREET" when the north side of the Circle has been closed.

[prjb]

I think what Towerman is saying is that drivers should display 'Circle' even when the north side of the Circle is shut due to engineering work, in order to avoid confusion for customers. A Baker Street description should be displayed on departure from Gloucester Road Outer-Rail, and a Liverpool Street on departure from Aldgate Inner-Rail. Some of them however have just been displaying the final destination throughout.

[mandgc]

Way back, the Circle line crossover at Baker Street was regularly used on Sundays to enable the Locos. of Aylesbury Line trains to Run Round their trains.
This cut out the need to have a Standby Loco ( at Time and Three Quarters ! )