Why is the Central Line so hot?

You’ve got a voice that was made for commentating test cricket.

Disturbing the Devil in His infernal regions probably explains the screaming whenever you enter the Bank station area

This must be why you're not allowed to take your Cows to market on the Central Line.

Hence the Baker part of the Bakerloo line.

Many years ago, a fried of mine described his experience on the New York subway: you are always afraid the carriages will fall apart before reaching the next station - but they do have air conditioning.

I worked on the “cooling the tube” programme at Oxford Circus. It was an interesting challenge. The system is essentially air handling units suspended above the track on each platform. They are connected to two large chillers located on the roof of a TfL owned building above the station (visible in the shot of Oxford Circus station at the end of the vid). It is very difficult to work efficiently in the small window of work you have in the middle of the night. So the whole process takes a very long time and costs an extremely large amount of money. You also have the added problem of dealing both with the LUL and the TfL who are difficult at the best of times.

"I'm never going to grow up to be some old fart that watches documentaries about trains."

The irony is that rather than hell heating up the tube, the effect is actually the other way. After a hundred years the earth around the Central Line tunnels is now 10-15 degrees hotter than it was when the tunnels were built, something that's actually caused some structural problems as the London Clay dries out and contracts. Nothing serious and easily fixed with a quick squirt of concrete in the right place, but an interesting extra wrinkle in the struggle to keep the tube cool.

I remember being in a carriage that stopped for about a 10 mins between Chancery Lane and Bank back in the mid 90s. It was mid-August, the train was packed. It was one of the worst experiences in my life...

In the summer during hot weather, I used to go into the few smoking carriages, as in the heat I would rather smell cigarette smoke than various odours which permeated the non smoking carriages. I fainted once and went two stops before it was noticed. That's because we were so packed in like sardines, the other tube travellers were literally keeping me standing! Clearly, not much has changed. Thank you for yet another interesting video on your channel 👍

What's cooler than being cool? ST. PAUL'S! 🧊

As an Australian who has spent many a year living in the UK (London and Newcastle) I can promise you that an Australian summer is infinitely preferable to a British summer. The way Britain seems to retain heat and is unable to disperse it results in hell on earth. That said, an Australian winter will put hair on your chest. You've not experienced freezing cold misery until you've spent a winter in Melbourne. The British design traditions we inherited were convinced Australia is always hot when it quite simply isn't.

Never use a carriahge with a driver's cab in it - there is sod all ventilation. Thanks to Jago for explaining why those vents at St Pauls offer a little relief. I wondered why the air was a bit cooler.

Don’t forget that we heat things up automatically just by being there - roughly 100W each person thermal, so any unventilated place soon warms up.

I remember being grateful for the bit of air coming though that slidey window thing up at the front of the old tube cars when I rode them a couple years ago. I definitely felt quite claustrophobic and short of breath on some of those old trains. Luckily as a tourist I was always travelling off peak so the trains were never crammed full. I can't imagine how bad that would be at peak times.

01:05 The heat was caused by the underground railways disturbing the devil? How can that be? A lot of the lines were Charles Yerkes' idea in the first place, so I doubt he'd find them disturbing. Or am I confusing different characters in this series? (And the mid 2020s is looking like the next chance most of us outside the UK will get to visit London, if one is being optimistic.)

The heat comes from disturbing the devil? Well, in rush hour the system is crowded like hell so it might be a valid reason.

I worked in London for years, I miss the tube like I would miss cancer.

Interesting to know 38% of the heat comes from trains braking,to me the tube smells of brake pads and the Central line particularly so

With air conditioning the heat has to go somewhere, so cooler trains means hotter platforms. Perhaps they could market the Central Line as a travelling sauna?