Gerrards Cross Wartime control centre

[clh]

My father, always a railway enthusiast, had a brief career with the LNER between leaving school in about 1936/7 and joining the army in 1939. He worked in the central timing office, on timings for specials - football and seaside depending on the season - on the Woodhead route. Until last month I'd supposed he worked at Marylebone (as he himself told me), but when I asked my mother if she knew where in Marylebone his office was she told me that he worked mostly at Gerrards Cross, and also at Liverpool St. The timing office was evacuated to Gerrards Cross, apparently, and from this forum, from a post back in about 2008, I found a reference to a "Hardened Control Centre" there.

My main question is just this - does anyone know if the Hardened Control Centre still exists at Gerrards Cross, or - if it has been demolished - where it stood?

My secondary question is the one I put to Mother - whereabouts at Marylebone would the timing office have been before evacuation? I have little hope that anyone will know any more about this than I do : I'm guessing it will have been in the offices at 222 Marylebone Rd which became the BR head office.

I've no idea why he should have worked at Liverpool St, and am inclined to think my mother has got this wrong (she is never wrong, however). My father's allegiance was not to the LNER as such - he always claimed to have worked for the Great Central(!). Perhaps he went on a course at Liverpool St. Any light shed on this puzzle would be an unexpected bonus.

[52D]

allegiences are strange, When Berwick shed closed in 1924 and the men sent to Tweedmouth across the river they were NBR orphans living in NER territory even though the duties were similar to previous and there was a new company the LNER. Old habits die hard.

[Mickey]

I believe the wartime control for the GN section of the LNER was relocated to a passenger coach in the Down siding standing along side the Down slow line at the north end of Knebworth station opposite Knebworth signalbox 25 miles north of Kings Cross.

"Hopefully it is now MOD de-classified information cos we don't want Jerry getting hold of that info?."

Mickey

[thesignalman]

My main question is just this - does anyone know if the Hardened Control Centre still exists at Gerrards Cross, or - if it has been demolished - where it stood?

I remember it being demolished - that would have been in the late 1970s, I would say. It was in what is now the car park, the former goods yard, at the Wycombe end near where the signal box stood. I remember it had some very nice parquet flooring but not a lot else . . .

John

[clh]

Many thanks to all three who have responded so quickly to my post.
52B's remark about the Berwick men is interesting. A year or so back we tried to find where Marshall's Meadows had been (it features largely in the E and NE Region WTTs) but there seems to be no trace. Dad's GCR fixation was very odd seeing as how the GC had ceased to be when he was about 3 years old.
Mickey's info about the GN control centre is enlightening too. I'd thought the centres would have been larger than one coach, but at least if a coach was used it could easily be moved elsewhere on the system if necessary. That way Gerry might never catch up with it
Special thanks to thesignalman who has come up with the goods. Really sorry to hear the GC centre has gone, but not very surprised.
Chiltern Railways has awarded me a free weekend ticket in a competition; I think they are hoping I'll post some pictures of my trip on Twitter so I thought that rather than just visit London or Birmingham I'd do something a bit more interesting, personal and railway-related. I'd hoped to photo the building, but instead I'll snap the station and car park and see if we can come up with an older picture with the building still there.

[StevieG]

" .... Mickey's info about the GN control centre is enlightening too. I'd thought the centres would have been larger than one coach, but at least if a coach was used it could easily be moved elsewhere on the system if necessary. That way Gerry might never catch up with it .... "

FWIW, clh, I rather think that, if true, the coach arrangement would have been a hastily temporary one.

LNER's 'GN' 'Control' did become more properly established at Knebworth.
For many years, well into the 1970s at least, an abandoned single-storey heavily reinforced concrete 'blockhouse'-like structure remained standing in the NE corner of the Up sidings Yard, but if I recall correctly hearing it mentioned by someone some considerable time ago, it was never used as the Control (although whether equipped as a standby such office in case of imminent threat, I do not know) ; 'Control' was, at some point (don't know when), set up in a two storey flat-roofed (possibly a form of ARP-protected) brick building beside the Down Slow line opposite the south end of the station, south of the aforementioned Down siding and the booking hall, and remained located there for some years; mid-late 1950s I'd guess, as I think that was the period when the Region's Control Offices (in the South at least) were reorganised.
This building survives in non-railway use, though somewhat altered over the years (third storey added?).

[Mickey]

Mickey's info about the GN control centre is enlightening too. I'd thought the centres would have been larger than one coach, but at least if a coach was used it could easily be moved elsewhere on the system if necessary. That way Gerry might never catch up with it

I can't remember now if someone told me about it or I read about it in a railway book that the GN section of the LNER wartime control was relocated to a 'coach' in the Down siding at the north end of Knebworth station but I've known about it for many years now and also hq1hitchin also mentiones it in one of his posts on a Kings Cross thread several years ago about the 'Kings Cross district of the LNER' wartime control being relocated to Knebworth.

Mickey

[occrailwaynut18]

I can add some detail on the question of where the Gerrards Cross wartime control was sited. It was at the very far end of the goods yard and siding from the station, under the lee of the Bull Lane (not the footbridge, the road bridge) bridge. When the Tesco store was being built in 2005-7, (the one whose tunnel famously collapsed onto the lines and shut the Chiltern railways line there for some time) the siding was used for incoming in-fill and at this stage the concrete of the control centre building became visible in the bank. Now it is hardly visible, only the suggestion of a low retaining wall can be seen if you look over the wall from the road at the bridge. The building was brick-built and I remember seeing a fleeting glimpse of it in a video taken from a steram train passing through Gerrards Cross in the ?1950s. I hope that helps to clarify the postion somewhat. I canot add any detail about what it did or what it looked like. It would be good to see a photo of it some time.

[Nimbus]

The Knebworth Up Sidings Yard concrete surface bunker was post-WW II. Early Cold War 1950s. A similar one survives next to Bricket Wood station. This one was exercised, it seems. The WW II protected control next to Cambridge station was also retained for possible early 1950s Cold War use. This is the basement of the former Midland Railway warehouse - later a backpacker hostel. With the advent of Hydrogen bombs, these static Controls were abandoned in favour of regional Emergency Control Trains - 2 per region. These seem to have been abandoned at some point in the 1970s. What the plans - if any - were in the 1980s, I have yet to fathom. Everybody else was building or converting bunkers like mad - or M.A.D.- British Telecom, Water Authorities, County Councils, District Councils, with Electricity Boards and the CEGB using their 1950s-built bunkers. Odd that the railway does not appear to have had a 'hardened' National Control in the 1980s . . ?

[52D sub shed]

This link may be of use/interest, I will continue to search for the Burntisland emergency control bunker
http://www.abfly.org.uk/2018/06/history ... ol-centre/

[WTTReprinter]

At about this time, I believe a lot of the LNER timetabling was carried out from Liverpool Street and the Central Timing & Diagramming office at Shenfield. There was also a Printing Works at Stratford that produced much of the LNER's notices.

I have a collection of WTTs & other odds and ends and a lot of LNER (and early BR) items were shown as issued by the Operating Superintendant, Liverpool St or the CTD, Shenfield.

So a GC timetable clerk would very likely spend time at Liverpool Street. Don't forget, Mother is always right!

[Hatfield Shed]

... What the plans - if any - were in the 1980s, I have yet to fathom. Everybody else was building or converting bunkers like mad... Odd that the railway does not appear to have had a 'hardened' National Control in the 1980s . . ?

Perhaps some realistic perception had dawned that with all destinations you might want to move between now smoking wastelands, what need for survival of experience in fixed route transport infrastructure operations?