"Goalie of the Century" wrote in message
...
There's a BBC report at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/leicestershire/6466501.stm
that the test track at Asfordby will be used to test the next generation
of tube trains which will be fitted with air conditioning.

Surely using energy to pump heat out of the trains into the tunnels will
just increase the temperature there. Has a solution to the problem of
cooling the system as a whole been found? I have heard groundwater
mentioned as a possible heat sink but building and running a full system
would be horribly expensive.

You're quite correct about the difficulties of airconditioning the 'tube'
trains - unfortunately since TfL collectively decided that they would use
'tube' for their whole system, there seems to be a lack of a short word to
define the sub surface railway, which these trains are for. By announcing
'air conditioned tube trains' now they are just leaving themselves open to
much criticism when the next generation of real tube trains is bought, for
the Victoria line I believe...

Must be a slow news day in BBC Leicester though, this was first announced 5
weeks ago:

http://www.metronetrail.com/default....=1170757840171

Paul