Why do Victoria line trains not have air conditioning?

[387star]

The trains used on the vic line are 2009 build right?

Why then is there no air con? That coupled with dire air quality makes this line hellish in the summer and when busy
Many surely faint

 

[rebmcr]

There's barely any room for it, and nowhere in the deep tunnels to vent the extracted heat.

The Deep Tube Upgrade stock (neé New Tube for London) is purported to have an air cooling system, but no details of how it might work have been made public.

 

[Aivilo]

The trains are the pistons that circulate the air.

Driving cabs have it though

 

[Hadders]

There is nowhere for the hot air removed from the trains to be extracted to. Also, nowhere to fit the air con equipment on the trains.

The Victoria Line isn't that bad in summer. Nowhere near as bad as the Central Line.

Many feinting is a bit of an overstatement, to be quite honest. We managed perfectly well in the days before air conditioning....

 

[Ianno87]

There is nowhere for the hot air removed from the trains to be extracted to. Also, nowhere to fit the air con equipment on the trains.

The Victoria Line isn't that bad in summer. Nowhere near as bad as the Central Line.

Many feinting is a bit of an overstatement, to be quite honest. We managed perfectly well in the days before air conditioning....

The 'official' hottest part of the deep tube used to be the Bakerloo between Baker Street and Paddington, I recall.

Re: fainting. The best idea is to follow TfL's own advice. Carry a bottle of water on a hot day, don't board a train if you feel unwell (and get off at the next station if you do).

Also, make sure to eat and stay hydrated throughout the day, including breakfast.

 

[transmanche]

We managed perfectly well in the days before air conditioning....

Temperatures on the Underground are warmer than they were many years ago. What was true in the 1920s is not true now...

 

[Hadders]

Temperatures on the Underground are warmer than they were many years ago. What was true in the 1920s is not true now...

True but generally speaking we managed without air con in shops, offices, transport. It is desirable but not essential.

 

[gazthomas]

Temperatures on the Underground are warmer than they were many years ago. What was true in the 1920s is not true now...

I wound love to see a modern reinterpretation of this, albeit from the opposite perspective!

 

[leytongabriel]

There is nowhere for the hot air removed from the trains to be extracted to. Also, nowhere to fit the air con equipment on the trains.

The Victoria Line isn't that bad in summer. Nowhere near as bad as the Central Line.

Many feinting is a bit of an overstatement, to be quite honest. We managed perfectly well in the days before air conditioning....

Not sure I agree with the comparison. The Central line gets very hot as it is often packed but the Victoria line is stifling even when lightly loaded. When the Vic line new trains first came in it was worse and you'd see people at Walthamstow Central taking the second train out if it was old stock to have a more comfortable journey! The 'overheating' or lack of adequate air circulation was supposedly fixed which meant it was a bit better but it's still pretty unacceptable.

 

[bramling]

Not sure I agree with the comparison. The Central line gets very hot as it is often packed but the Victoria line is stifling even when lightly loaded. When the Vic line new trains first came in it was worse and you'd see people at Walthamstow Central taking the second train out if it was old stock to have a more comfortable journey! The 'overheating' or lack of adequate air circulation was supposedly fixed which meant it was a bit better but it's still pretty unacceptable.

It’s hard to make general statements, as all the different lines have their own features. Those sections constructed later, including the Victoria Line, were built with many more vent shafts. Some older sections have had shafts added, for example there are numerous shafts on the Northern around London Bridge to Clapham which was once reputed as one of the hottest sections. Quite a few vent shafts have been upgraded in recent years as well - either uprated capacity or bringing back into use installations which had been allowed to fall into disuse.

Meanwhile friction and rheostatic braking on trains also generates a lot of heat, which is one of the benefits of regenerative braking.

 

[edwin_m]

Regenerative braking would typically save at least 20% of traction energy on a stop-start duty like the Underground, so that's 20% of heat not going into the tunnels. Is this enough to outweigh the extra heat due to the air conditioning equipment* plus things like newer ones probably being heavier, running more frequently and in some places faster. At least if the rate of heat generation decreases the temparature should fall, though as it's taken decades to reach its present value it might take just as long to go down.

I saw something saying that HS2 is looking to recycle the heat from the London tunnels via a heat pump into domestic heating. I think there's a pilot of that somewhere on LU.

*I'm discounting the heat that's extracted by the aircon as to my way of thinking that heat has to end up in the tunnels whether it's pushed out quickly by the air conditioning or escapes more slowly through passive ventilation or when the doors are open.

 

[rebmcr]

Temperatures on the Underground are warmer than they were many years ago. What was true in the 1920s is not true now...

I would love to see a modern reinterpretation of this, albeit from the opposite perspective!

 

[Journeyman]

The 'official' hottest part of the deep tube used to be the Bakerloo between Baker Street and Paddington, I recall.

Re: fainting. The best idea is to follow TfL's own advice. Carry a bottle of water on a hot day, don't board a train if you feel unwell (and get off at the next station if you do).

Also, make sure to eat and stay hydrated throughout the day, including breakfast.

I used to work in the Underground NCC/NOC, where we co-ordinated ambulance requests. Anyone fainting in the morning peak was referred to internally as a "no breakfast", as in "delays on the Picc, there's a no breakfast at Russell Square!"

 

[westv]

True but generally speaking we managed without air con in shops, offices, transport. It is desirable but not essential.

We may have managed but we hated it when it was hot.

 

[Nym]

Not sure I agree with the comparison. The Central line gets very hot as it is often packed but the Victoria line is stifling even when lightly loaded. When the Vic line new trains first came in it was worse and you'd see people at Walthamstow Central taking the second train out if it was old stock to have a more comfortable journey! The 'overheating' or lack of adequate air circulation was supposedly fixed which meant it was a bit better but it's still pretty unacceptable.

Given the woeful introduction of the ventilation system on 2009TS it's hard to defend.

But I struggle to understand why a train which has no regenerative braking (although when parallel running regen was disabled on 2009TS which may have something to do with the heat as the brake resistors are immediately under the doorways and run noticeably hot in stations, where brake blocks would cool generally more in the tunnels... (Reho braking on 67TS worked down to 22mph, on 09TS it works down to 5mph (ish)).

A regen enabled 09TS is cooler any day of the week than a 67TS, especially in the leading two cars where the cab cooling directly resulted in the heating of the saloon area, much less so with the air con working on the underframe on 2009TS (and 1972TS).

 

[bionic]

My understanding is that LU officially cited lack of space for the lack on AC on the 09 stock. They also said it was the only LU stock without heating. I bet some of the first ones off Northumberland Park are cold on winter mornings. Can't take long to warm up though.

 

[Dstock7080]

My understanding is that LU officially cited lack of space for the lack on AC on the 09 stock.

Also that the refrigerants used in the existing AC systems did not comply with the strict regulations following the King’s Cross fire.

 

[Aictos]

The Victoria Line isn't that bad in summer. Nowhere near as bad as the Central Line.

Not used the Central Line that much but is it any worse then the Northern line? That in the summer is like a oven!

 

[whhistle]

True but generally speaking we managed without air con in shops, offices, transport. It is desirable but not essential.

We managed without computers.
Now they're essential.

 

[philthetube]

We managed without trains???????????????????????????

 

[Bald Rick]

Regenerative braking would typically save at least 20% of traction energy on a stop-start duty like the Underground, so that's 20% of heat not going into the tunnels. Is this enough to outweigh the extra heat due to the air conditioning equipment* plus things like newer ones probably being heavier, running more frequently and in some places faster. At least if the rate of heat generation decreases the temparature should fall, though as it's taken decades to reach its present value it might take just as long to go down.

Important point; there’s 1.8MW of train going through each part of the tunnels every 100 seconds. Even with regen that’s a lot of heat being generated.

The main issue for aircon on the deep tube is getting rid of the waste heat from the train - if it goes into the tunnel it doesn’t solve the problem.

Crossrail has a rather ingenious way of solving this underground; the waste heat is stored on the train, and then pushed out quickly into special vents constructed beneath the platforms at each station, and then extracted and vented to the surface. (Very simple version!)

 

[AndrewE]

This is worth reading
https://www.cibsejournal.com/technical/londons-tunnel-vision/

Tunnel vision: the challenge of cooling the London Underground

 

[edwin_m]

The main issue for aircon on the deep tube is getting rid of the waste heat from the train - if it goes into the tunnel it doesn’t solve the problem.

But even without aircon the heat has to find its way out somehow, and in an all-tunnel route like the Victoria it can't go anywhere other than into the tunnel! The extra heat when fitting aircon is only that generated by the aircon equipment itself, not the heat that the aircon transfers from inside to outside. The possibility to control where and when the heat is emitted does create scope for a Crossrail-type solution of dumping more of it it where it can more easily be dealt with.

 

[jon0844]

This is worth reading
https://www.cibsejournal.com/technical/londons-tunnel-vision/

Can we not look to the Houses of Parliament to see how to expel huge amounts of hot air?

 

[bionic]

But even without aircon the heat has to find its way out somehow, and in an all-tunnel route like the Victoria it can't go anywhere other than into the tunnel! The extra heat when fitting aircon is only that generated by the aircon equipment itself, not the heat that the aircon transfers from inside to outside. The possibility to control where and when the heat is emitted does create scope for a Crossrail-type solution of dumping more of it it where it can more easily be dealt with.

The Vic line has a lot of ventilation shafts. Mostly just in residential streets. I've always quite fancied walking the line at street level and finding them all. I posted a few photos a while back on this thread: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/ventilation-shafts.176515/

 

[Bald Rick]

But even without aircon the heat has to find its way out somehow, and in an all-tunnel route like the Victoria it can't go anywhere other than into the tunnel! The extra heat when fitting aircon is only that generated by the aircon equipment itself, not the heat that the aircon transfers from inside to outside. The possibility to control where and when the heat is emitted does create scope for a Crossrail-type solution of dumping more of it it where it can more easily be dealt with.

I’d didn’t explain myself very well, what I meant is that the heat taken from inside the train would only end up in the tunnel, as you say.

The 345s have sufficient space under the train to deal with this, and the stations have been designed from day 1 with this in mind, but that isn’t the case on the Vic line.

 

[Busaholic]

I’d didn’t explain myself very well, what I meant is that the heat taken from inside the train would only end up in the tunnel, as you say.

The 345s have sufficient space under the train to deal with this, and the stations have been designed from day 1 with this in mind, but that isn’t the case on the Vic line.

I think we are apt to forget now how incredibly quickly by present day standards the Victoria Line was constructed, with every stage coming in on time iirc.

 

[Bald Rick]

I think we are apt to forget now how incredibly quickly by present day standards the Victoria Line was constructed, with every stage coming in on time iirc.

10 years from start to finish (a mile of experimental tunnels dug in 1961, Victoria - Brixton opened in 1971).

 

[Busaholic]

10 years from start to finish (a mile of experimental tunnels dug in 1961, Victoria - Brixton opened in 1971).

With a hiatus of over a year between the experimental tunnel and the go-ahead for the line being built from Walthamstow to Victoria ; the extension to Brixton was only approved much later, and the 'extra' station at Pimlico later still. Given the level of cross-platform interchange that LT achieved with other Underground lines at a lot of stations I think it was a considerable achievement to do it in the time scale, but it was expected and no plaudits were handed out. Now you get the grandstanding and completion dates handed out well in advance as though they were gospel. Brexit Britain!!

 

[sprunt]

Why experimental tunnel? Was there a new tunnelling technique being used?