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I don’t see how that’s any different to the underground

by chgs 1y ago

walthamstow 1y ago
It's the complete opposite. Tokyo stations have open gates that swing shut on fail. London stations have closed gates that swing open on success.
- astrange 1y ago
  Also, Tokyo trains have air conditioning, whereas the Underground is so hot and stuffy I'm pretty sure I got brain damage from it. Also^2, Japanese train stations have ads for B2B services, whereas almost every ad in London stations is for a musical. I'm not sure what this means. (Also fondly remember the surprisingly numerous signs at Kings Cross about how you shouldn't assault any train employees, and how teenagers weren't allowed to buy matcha drinks because they have too much caffeine.)
  - chgs 1y ago
    London surface trains have aircon, as do many underground lines.
  - kolinko 1y ago
    as for the uk train stations, the temperatures are in part due to their age - London Underground was built in 1870s, and since that time rocks accumulated so much heat that it is extremely difficult to maintain human-friendly temperatures. Japan subway is 70 years younger, so it’s easier for them to maintain temps. (And my hometown Warsaw subway is even younger - 50 years, and we don’t have AC whilst temperatures are at a perfect level). What London underground might need is not AC, but a process to cool down rocks - importing coolness during winters. To maintain equilibrum you’d need to pump out around 1TWh heat every year. To bring it down to normal levels in say 20-30 years you’d need to pump out 2-5TWh a year.
    - BlueTemplar 1y ago
      It's still a ventilation issue rather than directly an age issue : it's the equilibrium that matters at these timescales.
    - mixmastamyk 1y ago
      What does that mean, “rocks accumulate heat”? Should be an even cool temp down there, as long as tunnels aren’t too deep. A few vents to allow hot air to rise should work, no?
      - isatty 1y ago
        More input than output in assuming and vents were probably not built back in the day.
      - walthamstow 1y ago
        The ambient temperature of the clay earth around the tunnels has been rising since the tube was built https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_cooling#Source_of_the_heat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_cooling#Sou...
  - brigandish 1y ago
    Japan's trains have aircon but often it's not cold enough, and at the parts of the year when the climate moves from hot to cold or cold to hot you might find yourself on a train with heating still on because the calendar date is still "winter" even though it's a hot and sunny day, while you sweat profusely and feel irritated about the seemingly widespread inherent inflexibility of the Japanese. Osaka's Hankyu trains are full of ads for musicals (it owns the Takarazuka Revue), I think that all this shows is that London has a far more vibrant cultural scene, which is apparent at all levels of society. I'd rather see ads for musicals than the ads for male hair removal clinics.
    - astrange 1y ago
      Well, London obviously does have one of (the most?) vibrant cultural scenes in the world. (Last time I was there I saw a singer from Mali, which I thought was interesting mostly because all of her backing visuals were StableDiffusion AI art and I don't know if anyone else noticed.) But it's also the capital of a country that should have an industrial economy and increasing doesn't have one anymore, because they've decided it's all sort of beneath them.
- chgs 1y ago
  At busy times underground gates don’t close, until someone scans the wrong card (which leads to them walking into the barrier and then the person behind walking in, then the barrier opening from the person behinds card and general chaos) And faster throughput would just increase that.
  - walthamstow 1y ago
    I cycle most of the time to be fair but that doesn't tally at all with my recent experiences of peak Oxford Circus
0xCMP 1y ago
In japan it's optimized for speed thanks to the IC working so fast so you are only slowed down if something fails. It rarely fails (if you're not a tourist...) so you see people walking through them pretty quickly and I have seen people run into each other because they assumed the next person was gonna go through.

I don’t see how that’s any different to the underground

by chgs 1y ago

I don’t see how that’s any different to the underground

It's the complete opposite. Tokyo stations have open gates that swing shut on fail. London stations have closed gates that swing open on success.

astrange 1y ago
Also, Tokyo trains have air conditioning, whereas the Underground is so hot and stuffy I'm pretty sure I got brain damage from it. Also^2, Japanese train stations have ads for B2B services, whereas almost every ad in London stations is for a musical. I'm not sure what this means. (Also fondly remember the surprisingly numerous signs at Kings Cross about how you shouldn't assault any train employees, and how teenagers weren't allowed to buy matcha drinks because they have too much caffeine.)
- chgs 1y ago
  London surface trains have aircon, as do many underground lines.
- kolinko 1y ago
  as for the uk train stations, the temperatures are in part due to their age - London Underground was built in 1870s, and since that time rocks accumulated so much heat that it is extremely difficult to maintain human-friendly temperatures. Japan subway is 70 years younger, so it’s easier for them to maintain temps. (And my hometown Warsaw subway is even younger - 50 years, and we don’t have AC whilst temperatures are at a perfect level). What London underground might need is not AC, but a process to cool down rocks - importing coolness during winters. To maintain equilibrum you’d need to pump out around 1TWh heat every year. To bring it down to normal levels in say 20-30 years you’d need to pump out 2-5TWh a year.
  - BlueTemplar 1y ago
    It's still a ventilation issue rather than directly an age issue : it's the equilibrium that matters at these timescales.
  - mixmastamyk 1y ago
    What does that mean, “rocks accumulate heat”? Should be an even cool temp down there, as long as tunnels aren’t too deep. A few vents to allow hot air to rise should work, no?
    - isatty 1y ago
      More input than output in assuming and vents were probably not built back in the day.
    - walthamstow 1y ago
      The ambient temperature of the clay earth around the tunnels has been rising since the tube was built https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_cooling#Source_of_the_heat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_cooling#Sou...
- brigandish 1y ago
  Japan's trains have aircon but often it's not cold enough, and at the parts of the year when the climate moves from hot to cold or cold to hot you might find yourself on a train with heating still on because the calendar date is still "winter" even though it's a hot and sunny day, while you sweat profusely and feel irritated about the seemingly widespread inherent inflexibility of the Japanese. Osaka's Hankyu trains are full of ads for musicals (it owns the Takarazuka Revue), I think that all this shows is that London has a far more vibrant cultural scene, which is apparent at all levels of society. I'd rather see ads for musicals than the ads for male hair removal clinics.
  - astrange 1y ago
    Well, London obviously does have one of (the most?) vibrant cultural scenes in the world. (Last time I was there I saw a singer from Mali, which I thought was interesting mostly because all of her backing visuals were StableDiffusion AI art and I don't know if anyone else noticed.) But it's also the capital of a country that should have an industrial economy and increasing doesn't have one anymore, because they've decided it's all sort of beneath them.
chgs 1y ago
At busy times underground gates don’t close, until someone scans the wrong card (which leads to them walking into the barrier and then the person behind walking in, then the barrier opening from the person behinds card and general chaos) And faster throughput would just increase that.
- walthamstow 1y ago
  I cycle most of the time to be fair but that doesn't tally at all with my recent experiences of peak Oxford Circus

0xCMP 1y ago

In japan it's optimized for speed thanks to the IC working so fast so you are only slowed down if something fails. It rarely fails (if you're not a tourist...) so you see people walking through them pretty quickly and I have seen people run into each other because they assumed the next person was gonna go through.