Passenger Door Open

............and the resulting heat loss requires using far more energy to re-heat

Environmental MADNESS, and this destroys any pretence to be "green" and environmentally friendly.

Occasionally, l think "the Peter Principle" applies to decision makers, and they get over promoted

Think of the tons of carbon emissions that will now be released from every single LUL train

Next time Environmental Activists hit LU, they might think they have a reason. Why hand them one??

To reduce dwell time? Every second counts.

It always amazes me how National Rail, DLR and other metros around the world can cope with passenger open, yet LU can't.

Maybe it’s to do with the piecemeal way that it was introduced. What was a mistake was using it in the central area. It could have just been used in the open air sections.

This could easily be done, however the difficulty would be that experience shows people don't listen to announcements. Like on Boxing Day when the Northern Line was closed south of Euston, every train was turning up with half the train ostensibly unaware the train was terminating there.

I'd half like to see someone try.

London Overground and TfL Rail both expect passengers to press the door open button, as do (I found out once to my inconvenience) Croydon trams, so there's no consistency within TfL, sometimes even at the same platform. Seems to work okay, even on bits of LO that are just as busy as LU. Thameslink have made a conscious and I'd say quite sensible decision to have passenger operation except in the central area when they actually announce that the doors will open themselves. This to-ing and fro-ing of policy with buttons provided then taken out of use dates back at least to the 1938 stock doesn't it?

Here's a few ideas

If there's excess heat,

1: Have windows that can be opened

2: Don't heat the trains so much

3: Don't make modern trains use much more energy than trains did 60 years ago when people weren't so wise about saving energy

4: Question whether some of the people who make decisions are fit for purpose.

5: Question why when "TfL is chronically strapped for cash", TfL seems to spend money on things such as PEDs which would once have been laughed at and disbelieved as being unnecessary.

6: Question why TfL seems to look for ways of spending money as if it is now fiscally incontinent.

Quite. Probably several points below zero.



Such as the droplights at either end of the carriage on all tube stock?



I seldom have come across trains with heating running, only in very cold snaps on open sections/early in the morning.



Source? I'd have thought that a modern train, with regenerative braking etc, would use less.



If you believe that they're not, a complaint can surely be made through the relevant channels.



When have TfL spent money on PEDs? As I understand it, the installations on the JLE were done during the era of the London Transport Executive, and in any case were more than two decades ago (which, allowing for the relevant project management malarkey, probably means that a decision to include them was taken a good 25 years ago).



Given that TfL is under significant financial pressure, and given that expenditure of different scales will require commensurate levels of approval, I would think that the only way it could be described as fiscally incontinent would be if the whole system and all the people in it had a cavalier attitude and cheques were written without any discussion, cost benefit analysis etc having been done. Now, undoubtably, in an organisation of the size and complexity of TfL, there may be the odd example of waste or raised eyebrows over something, but at worst I'd describe it as "fiscally having a bit of a prostate problem and occasionally inappropriately releasing" as opposed to "fiscally incontinent"

Does it use more energy, though? Surely the electricity is still being produced regardless of whether heat is being wasted or not?
And automatic train operation would surely use a lot of energy too, maximum acceleration and maximum braking?

Power supplies on the met certainly had to be upgraded when the S Stock was introduced,

Please do not take this as any sort of personal criticism but being a cynic and in an age of routine fake news, I rarely accept assertions without at least endeavouring to see whether the facts back them up.


Suffice to say I was genuinely astonished by the assertion that new trains tend to weigh more than older trains and the implication they must be less energy efficient, and considered this revelation justified some factual confirmation.

So after a few hours with a calculator and trawling wiki, TFL, LUL and the Suburban Electric Railway websites for facts, as far as recent v older LUL rolling stock is concerned it seems the opposite is true.

For instance an 8 coach set of modern 2009 stock on the Victoria line weighs in at 197.3 tonnes empty, is 133.3 metres long and can carry 1128 people at crush capacity.

By comparison a far shorter 7 car set of 1938 stock weighing in at 179.46 tonnes was 109.93 metres long – but each 7 car set had 4 x driving cabs which I assume must reduce available passenger floor space and potential crush load capacity. So to even things out, if you add one extra 38 stock trailer car to the equations (the lightest option) it means an 8 coach train of 38 stock would weigh more at 200.44 tonnes and its length would rise to 125.54 metres which is still significantly shorter than an 8 coach set of 2009 stock so presumably cannot possibly carry as many people.

As for needing power supply upgrades – that is of course true. But those upgrades were needed to allow the power supply to accommodate the regenerative braking systems on the 2009 stock which of course recovers some of the energy previously being wasted during braking and presumably was done to help reduce their power consumption compared with earlier trains.

Hey ho. Perhaps new stuff is better after all

economy 7 meters encourage nightime power use, even of things like dishwashers and clothes washing machines


also, battery electric cars and buses are more likely to be charged up over night 

Plus many flats are electric-only, so you have immersion heaters for water, plus in many places storage heaters - at this time of year especially there'll be a fair load from that.