Brrrr

The point I was making was are the cab heaters actually any good? In a small space with four doors, there are bound to be plenty of cold winds entering in places you don't want

D stocks are usually quite easy to warm up, but C stocks can be very cold as their fan heaters seem to be less effective (and very noisy!)

Not if you're in a 67/72!!!!!

This, I think, is a very good subject.

On the whole the heaters are pathetic and the cabs are poorly sealed and drafty. There seems to be no engineering will to sort these issues !

On the Vic Line, the '67s were freezing in the morning, there was no guarantee the cab heaters would have been left on overnight ...sometimes a kindly night operator would go round and turn them all on, but not always. Sometimes they'd be on, but the front M door or interior J door left open and all the heat gone. They were only fitted with "passive" heaters (as opposed to blower heaters) so they'd only start warming up by Victoria, just in time to change ends at Brixton. There are NO saloon heaters. The Vic line being all tunnel soon warms up and heat is ducted into cars from the tunnels and stations. The real cold is only felt form start for the first couple of hours. On a cold night running a hot train to the open at Northumberland Park depot can have some real alarming bangs and groans as the metal work contracts rapidly !!! Especially if the wash is running and steam streams from the car body sides as the water evaporates.

However did they get away with running this stock on the Central; Hainault - Woodford in the past

Having moved from the heat of the Vic to the District I am now permanently cold ! The passive heaters are totally ineffective ! I can only tell if they are on by touching the covers, 1cm away and no heat is felt. The fan heaters are rather good - I gather redundant fan heaters from 1983 stock are being fitted to C77 cars which were worse then C69s. However some fan heaters don't work properly. In some cases they need to be aimed directly at a draft to attempt to overcome it. The M door seems a particularly poor fit - often on the defect card. The blind box surround seems to have gained scrunched newspaper insulation on numerous units ...including some refurbished cars

D stock saloons are pretty good in terms of heat .... if the thermostat is working. A lot weren't and to prevent them getting too hot in the summer the fuse was pulled (rather than repair the thermostat !!!) - so no heat in the colder eve or early morn. Come this winter even in Jan we were having to complain that some cars still had no heater fuse in !!!!

Many drivers wear gloves and woolly hats whist driving this time of year.

The saloon heaters on the refurbished trains seems even better ...not sure where the thermostat is now located, it used to be above a priority seat ....by a window ....so reading affected by drafts !!! Yeah, ok, i know the window was fitted later

Buses, however are even worse ! Cab heaters not working in many ....as for saloon heaters....forget it !

Can't you bring your own little heater?

We used to have loads of ECW bodied ones in Basingstoke and it's a disgrace they weren't taken off the road sooner. They were amazingly cold, in some cases more so than outside (literally) due to the draughts, and the fact they leaked as well. The top of the dash would be swimming in water if it rained. There was a very weak heating unit, on the front of the bus with the dest. but this only came on when the bus was moving and wasn't much good. One winter a Basingstoke driver resorted to trying to warm his hands with a cigarette lighter as it was so cold in his VR. Another said that when passengers got on the coins they gave him felt hot in his hands!! They were awful in winter, but just the job in summer.

Thing is when the D stock was first introduced the blow heaters always seem to have a problem with their inverters which of course meant no hot air so we had to rely on the background heaters so Drivers were removing them from service on quite a regular basis, so they fixed all the inverters ( lovely and reliable ) now after all these years they decide to remove the rubber seal around the N & O doors ( sidedoors ) and we are now faced with drivers that are getting bad backs and necks because of the extra draught being caused.

The rubber seal was a real good idea because it stopped noise as well as a draught but as usual people abused this and punctured the seal so hence it was removed.

Personally I wrap up wearing 2 fleeces and turn all the heaters off because it makes me tired real quick.

And moan we did! Those VRs had metal cab floors and used to absorb all the heat from the brake drums, for some reason this didn't do much for winter.