Earlier in the year a survey of station staff was carried out about working in cold temperatures, over 700 people responded.

I’m sure we’ve all welcomed the news that London Underground is taking the issue of Thermal clothing seriously...but, can we rely on them to take it seriously enough?

I mean, they’ve already stated that they will collect their own ‘scientific data’ which only means taking the atmospheric temperature at stations without including the wind chill. This, in my opinion, is not very scientific, in fact, it’s not even realistic

I don’t wish to come across as suspicious, (I am), but why are they building a business case for spending the money? Surely the results of the survey have already done that.

With that in mind, I decided to conduct my own research into how the wind chill affects us. I won’t bore you by replicating the scientific explanation here, suffice to say that I’ve been quite staggered to learn about the impact the wind chill has on us and how quickly hypothermia can set in.

Now, I’m not suggesting that we are all suffering from hypothermia, although, I do find that some of the signs and symptoms of the condition are rather familiar to me.

See what you think. Check out the signs and symptoms of hypothermia by clicking on the link to the NHS website below.

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Hypothermia/Pages/Symptoms.aspx

It’s rather uncanny how, unknowingly, I included questions that relate to the symptoms of hypothermia in my survey, isn’t it? If some, (or all), of us have been suffering from this, no matter how mild or infrequent, it renders the issuing of decent Merino wool Thermal clothing as an absolute must for this winter.

Based on the above, I emailed a couple of professional scientific weather people. They've given me some sound advice and, with my newly learned knowledge, I have purchased a Thermo-Anemometer. I'm really not prepared to wait for LUL to come back with a ‘no business need for Thermals’ result.

So, I now have the equipment to go around the stations taking the atmospheric temperature, wind speed and the all-important wind chill factor. I plan to visit every station identified in the survey, 190 of them.

I won’t be doing it yet, it’s really not cold enough...but I’m keeping a watchful eye on the weather forecasts and staying in touch with my weather people.

I'm not a scientist, but my wonderful instrument is a rather sleek, precision made scientific tool....oh yes, I'm bragging!

Julie Miller
RMT Health & Safety Rep.