Again I appreciate that but there are plenty of "intense" and "tough" jobs on the railway which are remunerated accordingly. Something is clearly going endemically wrong if the failure rate is so high; I don't believe for example NR signallers have a high fail rate.
And people can be trained up "from scratch" or with relatively limited knowledge to specialist role with a proper training package and excellent mentors. But with industrial relations not being fantastic, perhaps this has all fallen down. It looks like this is the textbook way on NOT how to manage a transition.
I completely agree the whole process is messed up. The recruitment process is not matching round pegs to round holes, and is more geared towards getting applications from people with limited prior experience.
It possibly doesn’t help that LU has an ever-declining number of traditional signal cabins. This was one way of getting good people - as youngish signallers *tend* to make good controllers (though it’s not a guaranteed pass, but better odds). Some train operators can also make good controllers, but more effort is required to pick the right individuals.
For many other grades the pay differential is sufficiently small that potential candidates can afford to be picky - which is essentially what is happening, and as I posted elsewhere they’re more than within their rights to be so, as if they don’t get where they want then they are quite entitled to decide they don’t want to take on the role.
I think LU is trying to apply it’s usual “number in a box” method of recruitment, and this simply doesn’t work with such a specialised role. Essentially they need the right people more than the right people need the role, and this requires LU to reach out to people, not expect people to be grateful, which is LU’s traditional attitude!
It is more intense than most NR signalling / control roles though. The busiest places on LU will have the controller overseeing potentially over 90 trains, running at headways down to 2 minutes or less, multiple incidents going on at once, multiple crew depots, and on top of that responsible for people stuck in a lift at X, and of course accountable for traction current.
The rooms where you have controllers alternating with control and signal functions work better, as during disruption the people on the signal desks take on a significant element of the controllers tasks. This also seems to foster a more harmonious working atmosphere. The flip side of the coin is that this is very expensive the more signal desks there are: I seem to remember Highgate (4 signal desks at the time) was deemed to be about the limit of where such a setup is deemed financially viable. Perhaps this might have to be revisited, since Highgate worked pretty well from day one - but this isn’t a short term fix for Hammersmith as it would take many years to train up sufficient people, they’d have needed to be on that for years in advance, as happened with Highgate.
The seeds for this go back a few years - there was a “temporary absence of control room staff” one evening a few years ago, when they were still at Baker Street. This points to things not being entirely rosy even then. Unfortunately such issues take a very long time to fix, even with management moved around.