which is the coldest diesel cab to drive in??
 

There was a comment recently about the cab in the 66's being too cold, too hot and too noisy - when you consider the hours a driver has to endure those conditions why does it seem like they would be better off driving tractors!
Is there an awards night anywhere on the planet for 'The best Diesel Electric loco Driving position / comfort / field of vision Awards??' or BEDEL's followed by the worst Diesel electric loco awards or WODEL's with such categories as worst seating / pain in the arris / coldest feet Awards!! Over to you my good fellows of the railway inclination.

I reckon the coldest must've been anything with connecting doors in the nose. Whoever thought that was a good idea? :confused:

The problem with a 66 or a 67 is there is no happy medium, They are either to hot or to cold you can't get it just right.

Class 37s can be pretty damn cold in the winter with the snow blowing thru doors that don't stay closed,windows that drop without notice and basically all the holes in the body work that let rain and wind howl about the extremities.

Les

Duffs are a bit on the draughty side if I recall. Some of the old boys used to take bin liners with them to put their legs in during the winter. There were tales that some of them used to pinch their old ladies tights and wear those too, but Ive never heard anyone admit to that one though!

Im a coach Driver and Drive an Old Leyland Tiger now when I first Started Driving it it was very cold heaters worked but not hot enogh to keep the cold out and Admitidley I wre ladies tights under my trousers to keep me leggs warm as Long Johns made the legs of the trousers too tight.

Im not ashmed of it but it jsut shows what lenghths Drivers of any Vechicle have to do too keep warm in the cab at winter time.

Gladly affter a great deal of work by my self and a few of the garage staff the coach has a canb heater fitted along with better door and window seals and the convector heaters in the saloon work alot better since we over hauled them.

I think the coldest locos were 47s.
I remember years ago i caught a train in Leeds to St Austell thick with snow and bitterly cold at Leeds a class 47 on the front the poor driver looked frozen to death.
The hottest locos in my eyes were 45s and 46s if you put all the heaters and the cooker plate on they were unbearable.

ccmmick

The coldest has got to be the 03 shunter we were shunting with today at work, 1st the dam thing wouldn't start, and then 2 hours later, when we finally got it going, the cab heater was broke!!! I had a jumper, little coat and big orange high vis coat on, and was still frozen :-(

You would think with all that hot water in the engine cooling system and all that electricity being generated they could have come up with a half decent cab heater.:rolleyes::D

Coldest cab ive been in is class 47........................

The with moden day vechicles is that they rely on the demister to heat the cab too and as most people ought to know that heat travels up not down or both directions thus being the reason the genraly not very good.

The best thing and what all vehcles should have in the cab is a bOX heater you can't beat them if there looked affter and serviced properly they will last for ever and raley break down providing there is water int he radiator.

The coldest Diesel Engines consistently were Class 37's. When the air filters were blocked they drew the air from the cabs. Many a Driver would bring a plastic rubbish sack to work and put his legs in them. Class 47's were also of note for appalling draughts from under the desk.

I bet there are steam drivers and firemen up and down the land spinning in their graves at the "appauling" conditions these diesel locos provide!

I suppose the old fire did keep you warm though. :D

A long gone Stratford driver once commented to a question from someone who thought he must wish for a return of Steam engines. He replied stating you would not ask a Car driver if he wished for a return of the horse & carriage! The truth is most drivers were glad to see the back of Steam. For the few memorable days at work the majority were mundane, dirty, cold and wet. To me the aspect I regret which has disappeared is the camaraderie and togetherness which was associated with large depots and working for British Railways. Until privatisation a driver passed out could be expected to work anyway in the country, In short a driver was a driver! As for draughts they have to be experienced to understand them. When a noted SF LDC rep complained about cab draughts the assistant depot manager said his office was draughty and he suffered it. The LDC rep said he would do more if his chair was whizzing around the office at 70mph. Happy New Year to all!!

The coldest one I've bin on was a class 31 used on the Leeds Electrification Trains in the winter of 1993/4.
The windows and doors fitted where they touched, and the windows slid down in you did not sprag them with some card board. If you were in the back cab, you got gassed, and the hand brake skinned your fingers when applying this brake.
Peaks were nice warm locos even going at a fast speed, with simple seats which were very sleepable.
Class 56's heater was either on or off, it worked well in summer and blew out cold air in the winter.
DMU cabs were ice boxes.
The best cab I've been in was the one we came back from Immingham on one Friday night for a 4 hour shift. Always good to get back home ASP.
One thing with BR was they issued you with a thick black overcoat, which could fend of a howitzer shell, wear that on any loco with the wollen scarfe yer mam knitted for your Christmas Box, and a German Army Coldweather hat it was as warm as toast.

I've recently spent time inside a class 47's cabs and engine and electrical compartments in some of the coldest days we have seen this winter and I can testify to the absolutely dire conditions inside a dead loco, especially when the engine isnt operating and your tools are really cold to touch. I now know first hand why some of these locos were so hard to keep running and why obsolete stock is just scrapped and re-cycled. You cant keep things like that going for ever its sad to say - there arent enough hours in the day or pounds in the pocket unfortunately.

A class 47 loco has paid for itself over and over again and is one of the best mainline locos still going but they are one of the coldest locos still going ;) ;).

ccmmick.

Did you solve the electrical problems on the Mangaps 47 ?

No - not yet but we have narrowed it down to one of two places. We now need to power it up and do the voltage tests to make sure the correct loads are coming through. Never been inside one with the motor running!!
The Stratford group came over recently and were well impressed with the condition of the loco generally so it was obviously well looked after by its previous owner (surprisingly).

One could always wear pantyhose, just don't get caught :D

Without doubt the coldest loco's to work on (especially on Passenger /Parcels trains) were the class 47's ,the heating system on these loco's was pathetic
the designer should have been shot !
Class 31 and 37 loco's were bad but usually not working trains above 60/75 mph.
The best heated loco's without doubt were the class 45/46 Sulzers !

I agree totally 47 were very cold to work on in winter and the 45/46 had the best cab heaters of all loco's

ccmmick.

The first 47's were built in 1962.
The first 31's were built in 1957.
The first 37's were built in 1960.

Back then, heating technology (If you could call it that) was very basic, a heater in a car was an optional extra! Probably costing an extra 35 guineas!:eek:

Regards, 62440.

The class 45s/46s had the same cab heater's as 47s/31s and 37s they just had more of them in the cab if you put them all on plus the cooker the cab got very hot.

ccmmick.

I use to sit/stand on the old slam-door 300 emu's from Upminster to Fenchurch Street for the odd couple of years I spent commuting to London when I first started work and if there was train heating it often didnt work or was unbearably hot. But there is nothing colder/hotter than an underground train if you want extremes of temperature. I used to muse that one day all trains would be air conditioned as standard - other people used to look at me as if I was mad!! Dont times change.

some are cold and some are warm.

Is there a picture of the 47?

What - this one?


http://www.railwayforum.net/gallery/...47_burnham.jpg

No wonder it was so cold in the cab :D

47's for me. The previous post about bin liners for insulation certainly brings back memorys.
They were wonderful loco's though.

very true! but when driving in the winter it is very cold in a steamer as there is no way to close the doors or windows and most of the time the firebox doors are shut so you do actually get very cold.

http://www.railwayforum.net/gallery/...?i=18019&c=501

Cab of 47227, notice the bog standard sticky tape around the desk.

Definately the 47s.

48111

I've worked on virtually all the loco's mentioned above and I can safely say that they can all be equally as cold as one another. I remember climbing into the cab of a DMU with an old Darlington driver and the heat inside the cab was tremendous, so I went to turn one of the heaters off. I didn't get a chance to because he bellowed at me "DON'T TURN THE HEATER OFF COS I MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO TURN IT ON AGAIN!!! IF YOUR TOO HOT, OPEN THE WINDOW!!!!"

The thing I found with loco and DMU heaters was that they were fine as long as they worked and there were no draughts. It was the draughts that made the cabs so cold. On one occasion when I was taking a DMU off Thornaby shed, I went to the stores and got a roll of masking tape and spent the next quarter of an hour sealing as many draughts as I could find. By the time I'd finished, there was more masking tape to see than cab fittings, and I'd used virtually the whole roll, but the cab was warm as toast.

On another occasion, I was on a Class 37, and although the heater next to me was too hot to touch, move more than an inch away from it and it was freezing. I hunted around the cab and found a draught coming into it from somewhere near the second mans footwarmer. There was a hole in the floor there. I didn't have any masking tape so I got a newspaper and crumpled up a sheet from it and stuffed it into the hole. That disappeared, so I stuffed another crumpled up page into it, and another, and another, and another, until the newspaper was gone, and yet there was still a draught. So then I used my weekly notices ( I always knew I'd find a proper use for them one day ;) ), and proceeded to stuff pages from them into the hole. Finally I got to the point when I couldn't stuff anymore paper into the hole, but by this time the draught had stopped, and again, within minutes, the cab was as warm as toast.

153's when they 1st came out, we had to shut the internal cab door on yourself to make a small room & try & keep warm !!!

Welcome to the Forum bont37427. Look forward to your posts.

Best wishes,

John H-T.