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Behold, TFL's Tube Trains of the Future!
Other | Friday 10th October 2014 | Osh
The tube trains of the future are here! Sort of. And almost. Transport for London has revealed its plans for futuristic and driverless tube trains. Described by TFL as "a train for 2020s-2060s and beyond", the new, "future proof" trains will boast more space for its commuters and more sophisticated air-cooling to keep temperatures down.
As every one of us knows, the underground is already incredibly congested, but the city's population is predicted to increase from today's 8.4 million up to an estimated 10 million by the year 2030 and the new designs could be entirely necessary to ease the stress of commuters in what would otherwise be cramped, oxygenless journeys.
TFL has announced there will be 250 of the new models, which will initially be debuted on the Picadilly, Bakerloo, Central, and Waterloo & City lines. The intention, however, is that eventually all London lines will adopt the single design for its trains. Initially the trains will still have a driver aboard, with TFL insisting there won't be a full shift into automatic trains without first getting approval from customers, staff, stakeholders and the Trade Unions.
In addition to the air-cooling interiors, other features of the new future-trains include walk-through carriages, faster and more frequent service, more capacity, and easier, stepless access at the platform level.
In the interests of being constructive, we would also like to suggest the following; some kind of anti pervert detector/alarm to discourage the underground's infamous gropers, some sort of personal space enforcement technology (the tech must exist somewhere), and adequate reading material for all passengers (may we suggest a rather popular free newspaper called Guestlist?).
The new trains won't appear until the 2020's. But TFL sound excited. Are you?
