1903 Stock Sleet Locos

Possibly cost,when they were in use as well as the driver & guard a car examiner had to ride with them too.These examiners were seconded to sleet duties from October to April,at higher grade rate of pay plus the junior men behind them had to cover any vacancies due to their absence,also at higher grade.As for building dedicated locos now,the cost of building about a dozen specialised vehicles that would spend half the year idle would be prohibitive.

Of the 1982 fleet, the survivors are 1903 car ESL107 at Acton Museum Depot and the two T stock cars on the Spa Valley Railway. ESL107 has been restored in LT service stock maroon and looks superb up close. it is almost worth a trip to Acton on its own! The T stock cars have no motors but have also been restored and are occasionally used as hauled stock.

There are some great memories of the 1903 locos elsewhere on the forum (either on the Historic or Modelling section from memory) but I'm not clever enough to link to it....

There was a sleet link for car examiners,at least at Hainault there was,which ran from October to April.They were on a three shift roster and were senior car examiners paid leading car examiner's rate.The Depot Foremen used to hate winter time as as well as all the normal covers they had to work out each week there were 9 men taken out of the roster for sleet duties.That was 3 men to each loco x 3 locos.

Humm, I learnt all these as a guard in the 1970s but never really got a chance to work on them. I learnt the ESLs at Ealing Common, then at Ricky had to learn ESL118A/B and the chore of learning on John Hampden, which was kept at Ricky turn about with Sarah Siddons for "de-icing duties" and for pushing stalled DMUs up the bank to Chorleywood in the autumn!

There was a bad bout of snow in December 1973 which brought the Met almost to a close. an ESL was sent north to clear the main, but that stalled somewhere near Preston Road; the Chesham shuttle took a couple of hours to leave Chalfont, and chaos reigned. Happy days.