Faz Facts Cooling The Tube

Faz Facts: Cooling The Tube

As you all know, the team here at fazthebro.com are a bit crazy about planes, cars, and of course the tube. (Well, maybe just the blue bullet)

Being a hairy sweaty palmed man like myself, the tube can get pretty unbearable in Summer, even on our beloved bullet. How they ventilate the tube is fascinating. For instance, when the Bakerloo line opened in 1906 it was advertised with a maximum temperature of 16 °C!! 

Would be nice to get that in Winter!

Temperatures of 47 °C were reported in the 2006 European heat wave – one I luckily was not here for. However I was here for the heat wave last year – I think it only got up to around 42 then. That was pretty horrible, and I’m allowed to wear shorts and a beater to work. Not impressed? Try this on for size:

A 2000 study reported that air quality was seventy-three times worse than at street level, with a passenger breathing the same mass of particulates during a twenty-minute journey on the Northern line as when smoking a cigarette.

Woah, the Northern line? That’s a pretty new line right? In other words, lets get darts back on the tube! Seems to have no worse effects, and menthols probably make it smell better too.

The Silent Killer.

How does it cool? Basically, at the large stations such as Oxford Circus and Green Park (both bullet lines incidentally) there are huge refrigerators that cool the tunnels just outside the platforms. They can be powered like traditional air con units, or at some stations, deep underground wells to cold water are used. The trains then push the cold air around. This is becoming less effective, as stations are getting larger, and air is being displaced less efficiently.

Also, the brakes on the train create energy that is used to cool the cabins. An idea was floated to put air-con units on each carriage, but it was found that it actually heated the tunnels more than they could cool the cabins.

There is a £100k reward for anyone who can figure out how to cool the deeper lines. So send in your idea if you get one!

Posted on July 5, 2017