On Jan 5, 12:49*am, Clive wrote:
In message , The Iron Jelloid
writesI'm thinking of what happens if we get another savage cold spell in
Jan/Feb, as we did last year. *The 3rd rail heating system is only just
being developed / tested, will take a while to deploy network wide.

LT used heating the rails back in the 60s, they just passed mains juice
down through one rail and back through the other, leaving the resistance
to do the heating for them.
They also employed snow cars which would run at night in open sections
with a very hard brush (imagine 2" nails as each bristle) and a grease
to sit on the rail making icing near impossible.

This would seem to be a solution. although I liked the idea, up
thread, of self warming rails (and overhead). Would the lack of a
fourth rail be a problem?