Tube cooling plans announced

London Underground must have been cursing the timing of yesterday's plans to install a giant chiller in Oxford Circus, when we've had an incredibly cold Bank Holiday weekend with claims that Britain was colder than the Artic Circle.


The chiller unit at Oxford Circus – a major hub which serves 63 million passengers on the Central, Bakerloo and Victoria lines every year – will blow cold air into the ticket hall. Similar chillers are also planned for Euston and Waterloo stations.

London Underground has also been working with Tube Lines and Metronet to upgrade the existing station ventilation fan network. 50 fans, which had been allowed to fall into disrepair, are now back into operation – doubling the capacity of the fan network and apparently giving us cooling benefits at a number of stations across the network.

Additionally temporary portable industrial fans will be trialled at Seven Sisters and Chancery Lane stations this year to increase air circulation and if successful will be rolled out to a number of stations in 2008.

But this still means we're being given the classic "hot weather advice" from TfL "Carry a bottle of water with you and, if you are feeling unwell, contact a member of station staff who will be able to help. Water will be available to passengers if it is needed."

Last summer temperatures on the Tube were as high as 47C (116F) and a bottle of water doesn't feel like the ideal way to tackle that sort of heat.

Check out Undergroundcooling.net a newish site which aims to "bring coolth and relief to overheated travellers and workers worldwide, on the Subway, The Metro or the Tube. We hope to 'hear' from people from around the world with ideas to make life easier for those of us who have to venture into the bowels of the earth to earn our daily crust."

Coolth is not a typo but appararently the opposite of warmth.

The site looks like a place to get heated without getting er... heated. "Political Panjandrums and even those who have never suffered the merciless heat and crowding of a subway in summer are also invited to have a say. Silly and 'off the wall' ideas are welcome."