Cooling down the London underground

As we shiver our way through winter, the prospect of barbecues and balmy summer evenings is deeply enticing. Yet despite our hankering for heat it won’t be long before front-page tales of winter woe are displaced by stories of sweltering commuter hell aboard London’s maligned underground system

For the capital’s commuters and tourists the Tube in summer can be a seriously unpleasant experience — and many believe that it’s only a matter of time before soaring summer heat, stalled trains and crowded carriages combine to cause disaster.

Indeed, the Tube has come close in the past: in the summer of 2001 around 600 passengers were treated for heat problems when three trains became stuck for 90 minutes on the Victoria line near Highbury & Islington station.

Three years ago the gravity of the situation prompted London’s mayor, Ken Livingstone, to offer a much-publicised reward for an enterprising solution. Today, following a rash of largely ridiculous suggestions — ranging from strapping giant bags of frozen peas to the top of trains to encouraging commuters to travel naked — Livingstone’s £100,000 remains unclaimed. But the baton has now been taken up by the Tube’s bosses, and a serious engineering initiative is underway that should, it is claimed, start turning down the heat as early as this spring.