Great Western Coffee Shop

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-60177979 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-60177979)

Looks rather alarming ! And also far from efficient as most of the heat looks to be wasted in large luminous gas flames that heat the sky.
The light output looks distracting to the train driver at night.
Possibly a fire risk to any train that stops with flames underneath. Risk of igniting waste paper or leaves caught on the underframe ? Damage to rubber hoses or plastic insulated wires ?

We used to use gas heating of points in the UK, and few installations may remain in use. These however used non luminous blue flames, carefully directed to the parts needing heating.
Generally burning propane, but mains gas was used in a few places including Waterloo station.

Electric heating of points is now the norm.

This type of switch heating has been used for decades in cold climates. Inefficiency, rather than safety, is the main reason why it's becoming less common. If it weren't safe it wouldn't be used. This type of switch heating is always monitored locally by a human.

There's an alternative method that also uses propane. Gas is burned in a chamber next to the rails and a high pressure hot air blower feeds  it to the switch through ducts and nozzles. These forced air systems can be controlled remotely or by temperature/precipitation sensors.

There are according to a recent NR internal meeting I recently attended there are less than 5 sites on the National network operating on gas all LPG.

Electric point heating on the UK National network has quite a clever control system, which has been in use for around for 30 years.   There 'hot' and 'cold' rail temperature sensors which work in conjunction with a humidly sensor and some locations a blown snow sensor.  Most installations have remote monitoring which detect if one on the heater strips has failed and report it back to the Route 'flight engineers'

That is very interesting, thank you.  Not asking you to name the 4 ( ?  ;D ) sites - but can you comment on Bradford Junction, where the line towards Swindon has on occasions been put out of use in inclement weather when (it seems) all the other junctions up and down the line remain in service?

Bradford Jcn is not on the list of gas heated points.   There may be operational reasons elsewhere along the line that cause a problem, perhaps a turn back siding that does not have point heating

I can’t help feeling that the BBC probably ran the story on the basis of implying that Network Rail give up when it gets cold.

They probably never considered the possibility we’d moved on from that type of heating many years ago…

Did we EVER use the type of gas points heating pictured in the O/P ?
I certainly recall gas heated points but these used non luminous blue flames, invisible in daylight and barely visible after dark.

Usually propane burning, the metal mesh cages each containing four large propane cylinders were once a familiar sight beside the track. These propane cylinders had many other other uses and theft was a recurring problem.
Also if fire broke out from some unrelated cause there was a risk of explosions.

A few large installations used mains gas, including the approach to Waterloo station.

There was a mix of mains gas and propane.  Paddington was all mains gas, it was not uncommon to see flames licking out of the ballast due to PVC pipes having holes and cracks.  The gas being lit by the sparks from the brake blocks.

The problem with gas heaters is the burners can get blown out by passing trains, PW staff could often be seen patrolling an area with a small propane bottle and gas torch to relight the burners.


On the Southern they also have conrail heaters.  The heating strips being powered by the 750V.   They are place at certain signals and platforms and are between 50m and 100m long