Keep your cool

[RRidges]

One this I do not get with England is it’s failures to cope with the weather.

Our public transport sector along with aviation and road network collapse in extreme heats yet the rest of the world carries on as is. The same happens when it’s cold or snow.

It’s fair to say we have access to most resources in form of materials and I’d like to think the consultancies are not full of blaggers, yet here we are with bridges buckling under heat and roads/runways melting. ??‍

The buckling bridges are likely ones constructed decades ago, when such temps were not considered likely. Similar probably applies to rails that need to be able to expand or contract and still be viable. Runways should have contingency for extremes, but that's probably quite expensive as additional length is actually required because hot air is less dense than cold air. There have certainly been cases where planes can't fly, but that's normally when temp approaches 120 degrees!

 

[hovis]

They do use our lakes to refill the trucks sometimes .. there is a fire that is constantly going off in the field opposite (old landfill) and it's like every day in summer .. lake is low ATM

But it's a man made lake dunno if that's a difference?

Just heard another friend of a friend's house is gone. Wife's sorting through kids clothes ATM to give them something for their 3 kids to wear

It's more to do with the crap that gets sucked up into the tank. This requires alot of flushing through. Its s a pain in the ass. Believe me if they are taking from a lake its because they have to. We also consider the little fishes too ???

 

[RRidges]

I think the point is that those places get hot temperatures quite frequently, we don't. These are exceptional temperatures for this country so we are not geared for them.

As has been said before we are really geared up for trying to keep warm, not keeping cool.

It'll happen more often in the future though!
My London 'base' is not particularly well insulated. But any changes have to go through a committee, so unlikely to change soon!

 

[Lord Tyrion]

It'll happen more often in the future though!
My London 'base' is not particularly well insulated. But any changes have to go through a committee, so unlikely to change soon!

A few more instances like this and building regs will have to change as will rail and road specs. Any change has massive cost implications though and so it won't happen based on these 2 days alone.

It would be interesting to know if hs2 is allowing for hotter temps in its spec.

 

[RRidges]

A few more instances like this and building regs will have to change as will rail and road specs. Any change has massive cost implications though and so it won't happen based on these 2 days alone.

Agreed. And won't cover existing stock, except in prices.

 

[PJ87]

The buckling bridges are likely ones constructed decades ago, when such temps were not considered likely. Similar probably applies to rails that need to be able to expand or contract and still be viable. Runways should have contingency for extremes, but that's probably quite expensive as additional length is actually required because hot air is less dense than cold air. There have certainly been cases where planes can't fly, but that's normally when temp approaches 120 degrees!

I spent most of the day trying to point out to my boss that trying his plan of the service for today would be more luck if it worked than good planning

At 12 he said we have too many out put 5 away. So I did . One set of points failed

At 3 one came out for interpeak service .. points failed

I said to him you see if you just go into a special from start as we knew it would be awful we could have run 80% of the trains and left the depots alone and avoided risking the points until they cool down tonight.

Just because he did the job 20 years ago (on a smaller line that's easier to do that kind of idea on as only 2 depots not 5) doesn't mean it will work here

Trust your room. Nobody thought it was a good idea but we were overuled "im in charge"

Ok captain you can go down with the ship then my relief is here

Bonkers

It's more to do with the crap that gets sucked up into the tank. This requires alot of flushing through. Its s a pain in the ass. Believe me if they are taking from a lake its because they have to. We also consider the little fishes too ???

Makes perfect sense , I could be wrong I've just seen them fill up from there a few times

Scary stuff either way

 

[Blue in Munich]

Why is it that Brits panic when it gets hotter than normal.
Missouri has been having a heat wave for a while now, but there's no panic!
https://www.myforecast.com/15-day-f...ount=&zip_code=&condition=act&data=1408090397
There have been a couple of bad ones in the past apparently though, but every building, home and car has aircon.
Plenty of Australia gets those sort of temperatures too. 'The Western Desert lives and breathes in 45 degrees' is a line from a pretty iconic song.

And there's your answer; Missouri gets it regularly, so is set up for it, we get it for a few days a year so just sweat through it. Unfortunately our press does like to turn what should be a mild inconvenience into a full-blown crisis.

 

[PJ87]

A few more instances like this and building regs will have to change as will rail and road specs. Any change has massive cost implications though and so it won't happen based on these 2 days alone.

It would be interesting to know if hs2 is allowing for hotter temps in its spec.

Problem is railways don't get built new very often

We could make a fantastic tube if we binned it and started again .. new York has 2 tunnels in places , one can close for maintenance other runs

I mean we closed a section of the line for 6 months it caused choas .. just to lay some new track

 

[RRidges]

I spent most of the day trying to point out to my boss that trying his plan of the service for today would be more luck if it worked than good planning

At 12 he said we have too many out put 5 away. So I did . One set of points failed

At 3 one came out for interpeak service .. points failed

I said to him you see if you just go into a special from start as we knew it would be awful we could have run 80% of the trains and left the depots alone and avoided risking the points until they cool down tonight.

Just because he did the job 20 years ago (on a smaller line that's easier to do that kind of idea on as only 2 depots not 5) doesn't mean it will work here

Trust your room. Nobody thought it was a good idea but we were overuled "im in charge"

Ok captain you can go down with the ship then my relief is here

Bonkers

That's the sort of thing that needs planning and practice. But many orgs don't bother, either because it costs time/money or they are happier with seat-of-pants decision-making, neither of which is good management!

 

[RRidges]

And there's your answer; Missouri gets it regularly, so is set up for it, we get it for a few days a year so just sweat through it. Unfortunately our press does like to turn what should be a mild inconvenience into a full-blown crisis.

UK will likely get it regularly in the future, so needs to plan for it!
I agree with your comment about the UK press btw. Mainstream press here is more middle of the road, if you can call obvious right wing/Republican bias motr!

 

[Imurg]

Hottest day ever on these islands....

And it's raining..

How very British?

 

[PJ87]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1549467054633353217

 

[Oddsocks]

And there's your answer; Missouri gets it regularly, so is set up for it, we get it for a few days a year so just sweat through it. Unfortunately our press does like to turn what should be a mild inconvenience into a full-blown crisis.

English media only knows how to report negative or bad news. It’s why I stopped watching or reading it and changed to porn!

 

[YandaB]

English media only knows how to report negative or bad news. It’s why I stopped watching or reading it and changed to porn!

You always get a happy ending

 

[Oddsocks]

You always get a happy ending

At least I can pre empt the crap I’m watching.

 

[PJ87]

was sent a video taken by a member of the fire service .. the destruction is awful (turns out this is the fire not next to the golf club but same distance away from me just the other side, heartbreaking)

thankfully I havent heard of anyone hurt. just possessions (bad enough ofc but life is most important)

have to admit I gave the girls an extra hug last night before bed. was scary scenes just seeing the smoke so close

 

[Orikoru]

When people say our infrastructure isn't prepared for heat, with regards to things like train tracks, what do they mean? Genuine question - what is different about the train tracks and roads in hot countries?

I must admit when it touched 38-39° yesterday I felt like my head was going to pop, had to put a wet flannel over my head! That worked remarkable well though. I've never drunk as much water as I did yesterday. It was so much that I think I nearly hit the amount that they recommend you drink every day!

 

[Bunkermagnet]

I mean we closed a section of the line for 6 months it caused choas .. just to lay some new track

Like most public service based jobs, things take ,I h longer because of the slow pace of works and the labour being able to hang it out because it’s an easy number.
I know a couple of blokes who work nights on the tubes, claim 8 hours work but do no more than 2 hours.Comparing things to America is wrong, they work full on 24hrs a day to get important works done, we don’t.

 

[PJ87]

Like most public service based jobs, things take ,I h longer because of the slow pace of works and the labour being able to hang it out because it’s an easy number.
I know a couple of blokes who work nights on the tubes, claim 8 hours work but do no more than 2 hours.Comparing things to America is wrong, they work full on 24hrs a day to get important works done, we don’t.

lot of rules have to be obeyed on nights, they have a window of work. say last train is 01:30 and first train is 05:00 they have a call back time of 04:30 if they arent back by then we have to put in protection for them to finish the work safely

so the window of work is what 3 hours? for the actual work but that includes getting the stuff to site and taking it back

thats why we have shut downs where the stuff is trained in on a friday night and away monday morning 2 solid days of work

we used to get more done on a saturday night when trains didnt start until later sunday but night tube took away that night to get most of the work done.

when important work is needed on those shutdown weekend it is 24 hours, we get hourly reports from site by email of whats happening

When people say our infrastructure isn't prepared for heat, with regards to things like train tracks, what do they mean? Genuine question - what is different about the train tracks and roads in hot countries?

I must admit when it touched 38-39° yesterday I felt like my head was going to pop, had to put a wet flannel over my head! That worked remarkable well though. I've never drunk as much water as I did yesterday. It was so much that I think I nearly hit the amount that they recommend you drink every day!

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/sleepers-stressed-rails-why-uk-trains-struggle-heat-2022-07-18/

https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2022-07-19/why-cant-uk-roads-and-rail-cope-with-the-heat

I know our points in open sections soon as we start to hit near the 30 mark we can get random points failures

I sent a technical officer down yesterday to check out a points failure coming out the depot... he reported back

"points are in gauge just swollen because of the heat same as yesterday there is nothing can be done other than wait for them to cool down then swing them again"

 

[clubchamp98]

When people say our infrastructure isn't prepared for heat, with regards to things like train tracks, what do they mean? Genuine question - what is different about the train tracks and roads in hot countries?

I must admit when it touched 38-39° yesterday I felt like my head was going to pop, had to put a wet flannel over my head! That worked remarkable well though. I've never drunk as much water as I did yesterday. It was so much that I think I nearly hit the amount that they recommend you drink every day!

I am no expert but an engineer once told me in work.
it’s more the composition of the steel in rail tracks.
Like the steel used for cooking pots and pans for example.
In very hot climates they use steel that dosnt enlarge so much in hot weather.
The steel used in the UK is less tolerant and will enlarge with the heat.
Because it also has to deal with very cold weather as well.
If each piece of track moves only a couple of mm it can buckle and the train wheels don’t fit it anymore.
We had cranes that ran on tracks like trains EOTs and had this problem in extreme heat.

As for roads I can only guess it’s a similar thing in the composition of the tarmac.
One thing I noticed in Florida is a lot of roads are still concrete don’t know if that’s heat related though.