Waterloo General Offices

[Tio Terry]

Seems there's an urgent need to vacate Waterloo General Offices by the end of next week. About 700 staff to be found somewhere to sit in other offices in and around London. Something to do with inadequate fire system compartmentalisation. Expected to take over 3 months to rectify so will make the run up to Christmas works being undertaken by the various IP groups rather interesting to manage with staff thrown to the four winds!

 

[yorksrob]

Banbury North signal box is now vacant. Perhaps they could fir some in there

 

[godfreycomplex]

Dios mio!

I suppose we could fit a couple of desks in the locking room at Haslemere box if they're desperate; if anything it's probably less damp and has fewer rats.

 

[Tio Terry]

Transpires it's London Fire Brigade who have insisted on evacuation of WGO. However have NR got themselves in to this position?

 

[SpacePhoenix]

Was just flicking through the SWT's jobs page, a few of the jobs based out of Waterloo mention the roles moving to Basingstoke, I wonder if that could be linked.

Are the staff in the general offices NR only or will there be some SWTs staff there as well?

 

[Monty]

Was just flicking through the SWT's jobs page, a few of the jobs based out of Waterloo mention the roles moving to Basingstoke, I wonder if that could be linked.

Are the staff in the general offices NR only or will there be some SWTs staff there as well?

SWT have their own offices located above the suburban platforms, the plan to move to Basingstoke has been in the works for a while now. I do not think it's related to what's going on with the general offices at Waterloo.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Just so I am clear - am I right in thinking the General Offices is the original station building and not the "raft" area?

 

[edwin_m]

Are some of the International platforms still out of use? They could park up a couple of 373s or dare I suggest 442s there...

 

[godfreycomplex]

They are out of use and the tracks are currently not in situ in order to remodel the International station's throat. They will be re-opening to full passenger traffic in the summer of 2017

Just so I am clear - am I right in thinking the General Offices is the original station building and not the "raft" area?

Yes. The entrance to the General Offices is on the new elevated concourse between Waterloo East and the Windsor side escalators (I hasten to add this is not sensitive information because the entrance is in a public area and it's got "Waterloo General Offices" written in big letters on the door!)

 

[Paul180]

Are some of the International platforms still out of use? They could park up a couple of 373s or dare I suggest 442s there...

 

[theironroad]

Seems there's an urgent need to vacate Waterloo General Offices by the end of next week. About 700 staff to be found somewhere to sit in other offices in and around London. Something to do with inadequate fire system compartmentalisation. Expected to take over 3 months to rectify so will make the run up to Christmas works being undertaken by the various IP groups rather interesting to manage with staff thrown to the four winds!

As NR own the ROC at Basingstoke and it is currently mostly empty apart from some training departments, it would save them paying out high london rents even for a few months. Not ideal for staff, but would probably still be cheaper to compensate staff than rent commercially in London.

 

[Deepgreen]

Transpires it's London Fire Brigade who have insisted on evacuation of WGO. However have NR got themselves in to this position?

Nothing surprises me about NR any more, however, how have the LFEPA also allowed this to continue for, presumably years? Have they not carried out regular inspections, or has NR carried out unilateral major changes to the entire office block rendering the whole site unable to be occupied?

 

[hwl]

Nothing surprises me about NR any more, however, how have the LFEPA also allowed this to continue for, presumably years? Have they not carried out regular inspections, or has NR carried out unilateral major changes to the entire office block rendering the whole site unable to be occupied?

My guess would be a new inspector who stepped back and had good think about things (having been inspected a fair few times and knowing the regs well).

 

[SpacePhoenix]

As NR own the ROC at Basingstoke and it is currently mostly empty apart from some training departments, it would save them paying out high london rents even for a few months. Not ideal for staff, but would probably still be cheaper to compensate staff than rent commercially in London.

Could many of the staff/much work be permanently relocated to the empty parts of the ROC?

 

[Bald Rick]

Could many of the staff/much work be permanently relocated to the empty parts of the ROC?

Very few of the several hundred staff affected actually work in the Wessex Route team, but some of those that do are likely to go to Basingstoke. Besides the ROC hasn't got that much spare space!

Fortunately with Crossrail and Thameslink beginning to wind down, there is some spare space in NR offices in London.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

Could many of the staff/much work be permanently relocated to the empty parts of the ROC?

The plan is to relocate some roles to the ROC anyway. NR want the control desks of the TOCs to be in easy reach of the signallers erc

 

[carriageline]

The plan is to relocate some roles to the ROC anyway. NR want the control desks of the TOCs to be in easy reach of the signallers erc

Which doesn't really work anyway! Hence why our place has the controllers upstairs! Once they are on another floor they might as well be 500 miles away


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[godfreycomplex]

A ROC that will be nameless has instructions that control give all instructions by phone anyway because A: avoids distracting the signallers and B: all instructions from Control are recorded. Although there is only a wall separating signallers and control; the signallers might as well be in Timbuktu