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Ventilating well enough to cope with electric motors sounds much less demanding than coping with having both combusion engines and humans in the tunnels. Not t
by Arnt 5y ago
Ventilating well enough to cope with electric motors sounds much less demanding than coping with having both combusion engines and humans in the tunnels.
Not to mention letting the humans escape alive in case a vehicle crashes and burns.
- moralestapia 5y agoYup. "Must be safe for humans" always shifts the costs an order of magnitude.
- arinlen 5y ago> Ventilating well enough to cope with electric motors sounds much less demanding than coping with having both combusion engines and humans in the tunnel. You will always have humans in the tunnel. How do you plan to perform inspections, maintenance, and even emergency support when a cart breaks down and blocks your tunnel?
- hwillis 5y agoThe acceptable conditions for "workers in the tunnel performing regular maintenance" and "a continuous stream of random people" are pretty different. Probably >10x less requirement for fresh air when >100x fewer people are breathing it. Ambient humidity might be lower, and even if it isn't the temperature only has to be workable rather than comfortable or at ambient. Worst case, you could shut everything down and let it cool off before sending people in. Certain emergencies would also be much easier to handle without people, like nitrogen purging a fire. Realistically I don't think you'd want to shut down the whole tunnel and wait for hours when you need to fix a problem, but it might work if there aren't many problems. It might work for routine maintenance if it's utilized like most packing facilities- deliveries go out in waves, with packing etc in between.
- robonerd 5y ago> How do you plan to perform inspections, maintenance, and even emergency support when a cart breaks down and blocks your tunnel? With pigs of course. Not the ones that go oink though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigging
- bobthepanda 5y agoThe London Underground actually has a heat problem despite using electric propulsion. Most of the heat in that situation comes from braking.
- senortumnus 5y agoInteresting - I have noticed a distinct warmth in a deep station or two (ones with a huge escalator) while traveling there but assumed it was ground heat or something. TIL!
- panick21_ 5y agoWouldn't individual pods break by using the electric motor to charging the battery? I assume the London Underground can't use that method.
- Arnt 5y agoIt can and does, but that doesn't recover 100% of the brake energy. The Underground will still heat its surroundings, just by less than it did until recently.