London Underground cooling

In summer, temperatures on parts of the London Underground can become very uncomfortable due to its deep and poorly ventilated tube tunnels: temperatures as high as 47 °C (116 °F) were reported in the 2006 European heat wave.[1] Posters may be observed on the Underground network advising that passengers carry a bottle of water to help keep cool.[2]

Source of the heat
Heat source %
Braking losses38%
Mechanical losses22%
Drive losses16%
Train auxiliaries13%
Tunnel systems4%
Station systems and passengers4%
Train passengers3%
Source: Rail Engineering

The heat in the tunnels is largely generated by the trains, with a small amount coming from station equipment and passengers. Around 79% is absorbed by the tunnels' walls, 10% is removed by ventilation, and the other 11% remains in the tunnels.[3]

Temperatures on the Underground have slowly increased as the clay around the tunnels has warmed up; in the early days of the Underground it was advertised as a place to keep cool on hot days. However, over time the temperature has slowly risen as the heat sink formed by the clay has reached its thermal capacity. When the tunnels were built the clay temperature was around 14 °C; this has now risen to 19–26 °C and air temperatures in the tunnels now reach as high as 30 °C.[3][4][5]

Cooling methods

Tunnels

Heat is extracted from the tunnels using ventilation shafts, with air forced out of the vents by the piston effect (trains pushing air forwards as they pass through the tunnels) or fans.

Stations
Air cooling on trial at Victoria station (Alternative picture)

Heat pumps were trialled in 1938 and have been proposed again recently to overcome this problem. Following a successful demonstration in 2001 funds were given to the School of Engineering at the London South Bank University to develop a prototype; work began in April 2002. A prize of £100,000 was offered by the Mayor of London during the hot summer of 2003 for a solution to the problem, but the competition ended in 2005 without a winner.[6]

A year-long trial of a groundwater cooling system began in June 2006 at London Victoria station. If successful, the trial will be extended to 30 other deep-level stations.[7] For this trial Metronet installed London South Bank University's system comprising three fan coil units which use water that has seeped into the tunnels and is pumped from the tunnels to absorb the heat, after which it is discharged in the sewer system. The scheme was one of the winners in the Carbon Trust's 2007 Innovation Awards.[8]

In July 2022, an experimental installation of panels cooled by water was installed on a disused platform at Holborn tube station. If successful, this system could be rolled out to cool the platforms of operational deep-level lines.[9][10]

Tube trains

Newspapers are often discarded onto the existing air vents behind seats, which increases the problem.[11][12]

Conventional air conditioning was initially ruled out on the deep lines because of the lack of space for equipment on trains and the problems of dispersing the waste heat these would generate. Different systems were proposed to cool Underground trains, including the use of large blocks of ice inside the train. The blocks would have been in refrigeration units, preventing them from melting completely.[13]

Air-conditioning will be introduced on the deep lines as part of the New Tube for London, which is planned to replace the existing fleet of the Piccadilly, Bakerloo, Central and Waterloo & City lines.[14]

Subsurface trains

In 2010, new S-stock trains were delivered to replace the A, C and D stock trains on the subsurface Lines (Metropolitan, Circle, Hammersmith & City, and District). These have standard air-conditioning, as the subsurface tunnels are large enough to displace the exhausted hot air.[15]

More efficient braking

Conventional brakes on trains rely on friction to slow the train down, transforming kinetic energy into heat. More modern trains feature regenerative braking systems that can feed the energy from braking back into the power supply, minimising heat generation. This has the additional advantage of reducing the amount of brake dust produced by the trains.

References
  1. "Baking hot at Baker Street". BBC News. 18 July 2006. Retrieved 11 May 2010.
  2. "Carry a bottle of water TfL poster".
  3. Cooling the tube Rail Engineering, November/December 2007
  4. Temperton, James (28 June 2018). "Why is London's Central line so hot? Science has the answer". Wired UK. Retrieved 1 July 2022.
  5. Stephen, Paul (3 February 2016). "Cooling the Tube". railmagazine.com. Retrieved 1 July 2022.
  6. "Why does the Tube get so hot". The Londoner. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007.
  7. "Water pump plan to cool the Tube". BBC News. 8 June 2006. Retrieved 11 May 2010.
  8. "Carbon Trust announces finalists for 2007 Innovation Awards".
  9. "London Tube cooling system trial for deepest lines begins". BBC News. 22 July 2022. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
  10. "TfL Is Experimenting With These Cooling Panels To Make Tube Temperatures Less Ridiculous". Londonist. 22 July 2022. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
  11. Iain Dale Published June 2012, accessed September 2012 Archived 18 August 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  12. Don’t put your papers on Tube train air vents | Flesh is Grass
  13. Smith, Lewis (5 June 2007). "How do you keep a Tube train full of commuters cool? Just add ice". The Times. London. Retrieved 11 May 2010.
  14. "Improving the Tube – What we're doing – Improving the trains". Transport for London. Retrieved 15 August 2021.
  15. "Subsurface network (SSL) upgrade". alwaystouchout.com. Archived from the original on 29 October 2006. Retrieved 20 October 2006.
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