In article , Phil Richards
writes

On the subject of the tube, the "In this hot weather" posters mention
that "long term solutions are being looked in to. I know the engineers
all seem to respond with the usual "Oh no, we can't possible do that"
statement as soon as the subject of air conditioning on the tube is
uttered, but perhaps LUL can up date us on what these "long term
solutions" exactly are.

The tube has 2 issues when it come to air con.

1. The stations

2. The trains

Many of the stations are deep underground and you have to disperse the
heat and moisture somewhere. That could mean running literally miles of
pipes from the a/c units to street level or the nearest vent. Large
volumes of air being forced through the tunnels by the trains makes this
even more difficult as the air shifts around a lot. My solution would be
to put a large number of moderate size ac units above head height on the
platforms and have them running 24/7 in this hot weather. Whilst it
would not totally cool the platforms it would help. However there are a
number of drawbacks to this including increasing the fire spread due to
the air currents and the space these units would take up (not every
station would be suitable I expect). You then have to get rid of the
heat and moisture taken from the air and that means pipe work or drains
or vents and probably all 3!

On trains you have to site the units somewhere. On stock on the Picc and
Northern etc it may be difficult to fins the space - possibly easier on
the Met style stock where there is more space. However, as with the
stations what do you do with the heat and moisture to disperse it? On
open sections of track it wouldn't be a problem, in tunnels it would!

Tracking to busses, putting ac on a bus is relatively simple as they are
in the open for heat dispersion. Busses in both Hong Kong and Singapore
have ac units on the rear or the roof.
--
Andrew
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