bramling
Veteran Member
Yes, and they’re quite effective, as long as the train is moving. They also have adjustable ball vents above each seat. I’ve always found this combination preferable to air conditioning.
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Southeastern to run "significantly reduced" service due to heat
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Yes, and they’re quite effective, as long as the train is moving. They also have adjustable ball vents above each seat. I’ve always found this combination preferable to air conditioning.
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R
RailUK Forums
Yes, they do.
Problem is when they stop.
Far from all the vents work on the 465s, and not even all of those have them.
The same was said about other lines and TOCs that saw air con stock over the past 10-20 years.
It's not just for once in a blue moon, though it certainly helps, but useful throughout summer.
On the subject of somehow running the same services at slower speeds with no loss of capacity, why do metro stock now sit at stations upon arrival for 10 seconds before doors open? Never happened until recently. Doesnt happen on the tube and some other TOCs. Adds a minute or two on journeys. The ever increasing padding doesn't help either.
Spend billions on London Bridge work then negate time advantages.
The same was said about other lines and TOCs that saw air con stock over the past 10-20 years.
It's not just for once in a blue moon, though it certainly helps, but useful throughout summer.
On the subject of somehow running the same services at slower speeds with no loss of capacity, why do metro stock now sit at stations upon arrival for 10 seconds before doors open? Never happened until recently. Doesnt happen on the tube and some other TOCs. Adds a minute or two on journeys. The ever increasing padding doesn't help either.
Spend billions on London Bridge work then negate time advantages.
Bromley boy
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I agree the decision to order the 376s without air con was dubious. The justification at the time was that air con couldn’t cope with frequent stops - comprehensively disproved by 378s, which are essentially the same train!
It’s rare for temperatures to exceed 30 degrees in the U.K., let alone 37 degrees plus, as is expected tomorrow.
Probably because the driver is (quite correctly) checking that they’ve stopped at the correct stop car mark, and that the train has been fully accommodated in the platform before releasing the doors.
If a driver’s downloads reveal that they stop and bosh the doors open immediately they *will* be hauled into the office for an awkward chat.
Driving defensively is this manner doesn’t affect time keeping. The standard is to arrive a minute early, release the doors and close them around 30 seconds before departure time.
The padding can be annoying, but makes the timetable more robust and reliable.
It’s better to arrive a few minutes late in this world than to arrive decades early in the next
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Class 170101
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Add 20C to the air temperatures for track temperatures say NR.
Esker-pades
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In practice, I agree.
But, in theory, it would be possible to run the same number of services at a lower speed.
bb21
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Not on a congested network for all intents and purposes, no, otherwise you will be hours late by the time each train took its turn and you hit, say, the evening peak, making the practice utterly pointless.
Bromley boy
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Nope.
Slower moving services will occupy signal sections for longer, take longer to clear junctions etc.
The network is pushed to the max at normal line speed, as it is, especially in the south east.
bramling
Veteran Member
No it wouldn't, as it's quite likely there wouldn't be enough trains and/or drivers (depending on how much longer each trip takes) - especially on the longer distance operations where the reduction in speed will really affect the end-to-end running times. Then you have the issue that sectional running times will be longer, which adversely affects the system's ability to push trains through.
Not even in theory; let's keep it simple and not mention SRTs etc. If the train takes longer to get from A to B then clearly it cannot make as many journeys in any given time. You can't even run as many bus services if they run at slower speeds and they don't have all the issues rail has with pathing.
Let's not forget this is the city where 3 people died on the same day after thinking it was a good idea to jump in the Thames. A live juice rail and moving trains aren't gonna deter anyone!
That's Southeastern driving policy. It was introduced just after the West Wickham incident where a young woman was dragged and seriously injured. The delay is the driver following the policy and taking time to check the train is fully in the platform and doors are being released on the correct side. On offside platforms it takes longer as the driver has to walk across the cab and open the doors from the offside panel. The fact is, it has been a success, with regard to reducing the number of wrongside door releases anyway.
Interestingly, the RAIB report into the dog being dragged at Elstree states that the drivers train safety check AFTER closing the doors and before taking power should be a minimum of 13.5 seconds for an 8 coach train (point 53 in the report - can't link to it). Can you imagine if every driver took that time?Unsurprisingly the TOCs have not adopted this as driving policy. I'm surprised the union haven't made more of it though.
bb21
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I deleted a number of off-topic posts discussing service alterations on other TOCs. Please do note there is a specific core topic in this thread so please do try and stay on topic. There is already a thread on general heat related issues linked below so please use that one for general service disruption messages. Thank you all.
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/heat-related-issues.186863/
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/heat-related-issues.186863/
Jozhua
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Hi, the general heat related issues thread has been closed, been looking at some rail petitions today and noticed this tragically undersigned one:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/268198
Might be worth signing to put more pressure on operators to ensure that their services are operating at safe temperatures and evacuate quicker if not so...
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/268198
Might be worth signing to put more pressure on operators to ensure that their services are operating at safe temperatures and evacuate quicker if not so...
Bromley boy
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Bit of an odd idea for a petition.
What happens if the maximum temperature is exceeded? Shut the service down?
Ask the weathermen and weatherwomen very nicely to make the weather cooler. That's how it works, isn't it? The BBC Weather are in charge of the weather and temperature around the country?....Bit of an odd idea for a petition.
What happens if the maximum temperature is exceeded? Shut the service down?
-Peter
It isn't. Temperatures reach 30C somewhere in the UK for at least one day virtually every year. It is hard to find a year where it hasn't reached 30C somewhere on at least one day. 2007 is the only example I can think of, and the highest recorded temperature was 29.7C, which is effectively the same as far as comfort is concerned. 37C, is exceptional, I'm not sure of the return period (a warming climate complicates working this out), but I expect it is of the order of decades. Discomfort on trains without air conditioning will occur at temperatures well below 30C, the more crowded the service, the lower the ambient temperature has to be to make travelling by train uncomfortably hot and sticky.
Bromley boy
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There are 365 days per year, and it reaches 30+ on a few days per year at most (I’d wager the number is usually in single figures).
That seems pretty rare to me! Would you describe it differently?
We now know that the day in question was the hottest since records began, although agreed global warming means that we can expect exceptional temperatures like this to occur more often (although still rarely!) in the future.
True, although all new stock is being equipped with air conditioning (as has most new stock ordered over the last 25 years or so*). Given the wholesale fleet renewal currently taking place, I suspect the proportion of non air conditioned rolling stock will be vanishingly small in short order.
*SE’s micro-fleet of 376s are the only non air conditioned stock ordered post privatisation, if I remember rightly.
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3141
Established Member
Or stop using the Underground himself if he can't put up with high temperatures on a few days each year. Imagine the cost of putting effective air conditioning into the limited space available in tube trains, and then extracting the heat from the tunnels. Plus the energy required to make it all work.
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