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Passengers give new Tube fans a chilly reception
Dick Murray, Transport Editor24.06.08
Large fans are being installed at 40 Tube stations in an attempt to save passengers from another summer of sweltering heat.
With temperatures nearing 30C already, work has started on placing the industrial cooling devices at key places on the network.
Measures to make the Tube system cooler include:
• Large ceiling-mounted fans on Bakerloo line platforms at Marylebone and Lambeth North.
• A mechanical "chiller" unit at Euston.
• Upgrading ventilation shafts on the Victoria line to double the air flow.
But travellers at Chancery Lane station were unimpressed today with the single fan placed at the bottom of the westbound escalator.
Lexia Murphy, 24, a legal secretary, said: "It's not really that cooling. You feel more of a breeze from a train coming past. They're going to need a lot more than this in rush hour."
Businessman Ihsan Kumar, 41, said: "There's no point in having it here because you're moving when you're on the escalators. They need it on the trains and on the platforms. It's useless."
Other fans will be placed at stations including Bank, Charing Cross and Bond Street as part of a longer-term plan which will see the first airconditioned trains introduced by 2010.
Mayor Boris Johnson said he was "chuffed to bits" that plans are under way for air-conditioned trains on the District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines.
He said: "It always perplexed me that boffins could produce mobile phones the size of a credit card - yet passengers would emerge dripping with sweat from Tube trains that lacked air conditioning."
But he said deep-level Tube trains remain unlikely to be air-conditioned. "Providing air conditioning does remain a major challenge, especially on the deeper Tube lines such as the Northern and Piccadilly where we will continue to strive for a solution to the problem," he said.
Tube bosses ordered the fans amid fears of a repetition of scenes last year when people passed out because of the heat on trains and at platforms.
The number of passengers using the Tube is at an all-time high, making the problem of heat and humidity worse.
Ken Livingstone, when Mayor, warned there could be "serious loss of life" if trains were trapped in deep level tunnels as temperatures soar.
But there are fears that London Underground's £150 million programme to keep the trains cool, including piping ice-cold water drawn from deep under London around the network, have been cut back following the collapse of maintenance firm Metronet.
An LU spokesman refused to be drawn on the extent of possible cutbacks. He said: "We continue to explore and invest in ways to help cool the Tube, which remains an important part of our investment now and in the future."
Reader views (14)
Here's a sample of the latest views published.
These individual fans appear to be pretty useless but are what the public see. The main cooling measures in doubling the vent shaft capacities and adding chiller units to stations are the major push to cooling the tube. So for people to chastise this initiative before they have given it a chance is unfair. The only way you are going to get air con on the deep lines is if commuters are prepared to be more squashed and prepared for higher temperatures on platforms...A/C kick out a lot of heat! alternatively get on your bike!
- Harry, London
And what makes these devices fonctioning?
Electricity I presume. With the petrol that is at so high price today I think we will pay the bill by a higher fee on our oyster card very soon.
Or will the electricity be provided by nuclear power stations?
Good idea so that it will be useful to built one or two more to give electricity to the Tube. As another reader says it in the trains we are incommoded by the heat not in the stations because we spend more time in the overcrowded trains than in the stations.
- Anne-Laure, geneva switzerland
Air conditioning = increase in global warming = increase of the temperature = more air conditioning = more global warming... see where I'm going?!?
It's hot: deal with it! We have been dealing with it for the last 100 years on the Tube.
- Marco, Notting Hill
All this heat must be going to LU's head.
The only benefit from fans is forced convection to the surface of the skin as one passes the front of the fan for an instant, the effect is momentary.
The friction and induction in fan motors produces heat.
The overall net result of placing a fan in an enclosed space is more heat.
LU are therefore adding to the problem and not alleviating it.
What is needed is investment in air conditioning, particularly on the trains as time spent in the station is minimal.
I would like to see that all buses are fitted with air conditioning and to fix those in which the heating can't be turned off.
This reflects badly on our transport system with tourists (many of whom are here in the summer.
- Peter Stollery, London, UK
These fans are going to have very little effect if any at all because of the installation of the plasma advertising screens.
It is clear that whoever thought the advertising screens were a good thing failed to notice that they give off a lot of heat - add that to the normal summer heat underground and you have got disaster
- Rob, London
How much heat wlll these fans produce? As this has always been the key problem in cooling the tube. We all know on an hot day all we get is a hot breeze that has no cooling effect.
The real solution is to build more ventilation shafts like those which were built on the Victoria line.
Given Boris idea about routemaster buses perhaps we should design a new generation of 1938 stock with windows that open!
- Melvyn, Canvey Island, Essex
"The number of passengers using the Tube is at an all-time high". I guess Ken's transport plans, investment and the C charge worked then
- Fresh, London
"It always perplexed me that boffins could produce mobile phones the size of a credit card - yet passengers would emerge dripping with sweat from Tube trains that lacked air conditioning."
Perhaps I can explain it to Boris Johnson. Markets are really good mechanisms for delivering goods and services on which there is a quick or secure commercial return. For everything else, they are pretty useless.
- Alan Griffiths, Forest Gate, LONDON. UK
I recently visited China and I used local underground in Beijing (subway), Shanghai (metro) and Hong Kong (MTR). They must be doing something right there because it was +30c outside but stations, platforms and carriages were comfortable cool. This was also the case during the rush hour traffic. The London Transport could learn a thing or two from air conditions used in there...
- Chick73, London
What dust will these fans distrubute, blow around and into our lungs, I wonder?
- Helen, norwich
What happened in the 1960s and 70s? The tubes were just as crowded and inefficient. I don't recall three quarters of the population carrying water bottles and there were no wholesale faintings. Could it be that we are all just less fit and more overweight?
- Bj, London
Adding more electrical equipment (such as fans) will only make matters worse. The temperature in the tube has been gradually rising for years as there is nowhere for the heat to dissapate to.
Until LU devise an effective way to cool the deep tunnels (just about feasible if they can find a way to pipe coolant in and out effectively), they should work on ways of reducing heat input, and they could start by removing advertising signs that use plasma screens. These are effectively the same as great big radiators in an already overheated room.
- George, London
It's great that fans are being installed at tube stations, so I hope it is not too churlish to wonder why they are only now being installed in Mid-June - when temperatures are already pretty hot? Shouldn't the powers that be have anticipated temperatures rising in Summer, and installed them earlier in the year?
- Richard, London
I hope the measures work better than last year. When these fans were put in place last year they made no real difference at all. The heat on the tube is a major issue and needs addressing urgently.
- Huw Morgan, London
