What happened to the de-icers?

They were replaced by de-icers fitted to service stock. One has been preserved by the LTM and is at Acton.

The Northern and Bakerloo were the last to use them. Latterly there were two on the Northern (Esl104 and ESL106). One worked the Barnet branch, the other the Edgware branch. They were changed over periodically for maintenance. The normal route for changeover was GG - Mornington Crescent - East Finchley - Highgate. During the non-winter months, both were at GG.

The Bakerloo had ESL117 for Stonebridge - Kilburn High Road.

ESL104 and 106 were scrapped at Golders Green on 13.04.84 by Booths of Rotherham, while ESL117 (which had an argument with the stops!) was finally scrapped at Ruislip by Vic Berry of Leicester on 24.12.92

The Met used two 1932 T stock cars for the job!

I'm not sure which equipment may have been used, but I'd bet that the 1903 cars used Electromagnetic equipment which may have been replaced by that for redundent standard stock cars at some point? Just a guess!

I trained on ESL118A&B at ricky in October 1973, along with John Hampden! JH was there as standby to push stalled DMUs up the bank to Chorleywood.

ESL118 was last heard of on the Spa Valley.

regarding equipment, the sleet locos were a bit of a nightmare from what I can recall working on one as an apprentice in the early 70's, Hainault, I think. Complete lack of up-to-date electrical schematics meant that trouble-shooting was "interesting" to say the least. I remember having to crawl into various contortionist positions, meter in hand, trying to work out what was actually connected to what, and then re-create the schematic, and then try to puzzle out what was up. Cramped, dirty, but a good way to learn

And a new universal forum term is born... ;D ;D ;D

De-icers at Golders green were the coldest trains, including battery locos and they were bad, I have ever worked on. They did have a heater. It was just that you couldn't feel it. There was no heat at all and they were draughty. To make matters really interesting they were easily gapped so you had to clamber about, outside in the snow and/or ice, first with an ice scraper to clear the rails and then with a set of heavy, stiff and awkward leads to get them going again. The guard had to balance the cups on the outer ends of the leads on the two current rails and then hold the leads up so that the cups didn't fall off whilst standing a few yards in front of the loco. Most guards felt it was good if the leads didn't get too wet in the snow... All of that and knowing that the driver was going to move off, straight at him. Also knowing that the locos didn't start smoothly. They JUMPED forward.

My guard and I had to do an Edgware and back one night. Nothing unusual. But, when we got to Edgware we found they wanted us to do all of the sidings, right up to the stabled trains. I lost track of the number of times we got gapped that night. I had a new guard the next week.

I took 106 out one night with a brand new guard. A fresh new recruit. When we arrived In GG NB I was told by the SM, Maurice Friend, that we should screw it down there for the night and would run up to Edgware when the current came on in the morning. I was not impressed as that meant that the heater would be off all night, no traction current. The guard wanted to know if he should put the hand brake on. I was not bothered as the track is level there and in any case you could park a sleet loco on a 1 in 100 and it wouldn't roll. But, as he was all keen, I said yes. For those of you who don't know, the hand brake was applied by a large, about 18” diameter, cast iron wheel that was mounted on a very sturdy waist high pedestal in the middle of the loco. I wandered off to the messroom. A few minutes later my cohort came in and told me that it was off. I said it didn't matter and began explaining. He wanted to show me so off we went. When he had said off he had meant it. The wheel had come off in his hand. He was lucky not to have any broken toes.

We took the wheel and left it just outside on the steps down to the office. Then we went and asked poor Maurice if we should take the hand brake off before going into service. He said yes of course we should, so we showed him just what a good crew we were.