I've been riding NJ Transit's Riverline since just a bit less than a year after it opened in 2004 when I moved to Burlington NJ. A few times the interior temperature was not right for me, but twice now I've been on when BOTH the heat and air conditioning were on at the same time. Once was in summer, most recently was last week when outside temperature was below freezing.
In both cases the operator said they don't control the heat and air conditioning. I sent a note to NJT's contact page asking for an explanation why, but of course everyone knows you guys are the real experts.
What other cases do you know where the crew doesn't control passenger comfort? What possible conditions would turn on both heat and air conditioning? Why is it advantageous to have it preset at the shop or carbarn? Why, since we've had thermostats for thousands of years, does anybody ever need to fiddle with the preset on and off temperatures?
I already know about PCC streetcars, which used louvers below the floor to direct waste heat from the brakes either to the car interior or outside. Those louvers needed somebody with a big lever to go under the car to move them, so that's impractical to have the operator do, but what's so special about the Riverline that made them decide to keep the operator from controlling the on-off switch?
Patrick Boylan
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First, many older HVAC systems in buildings run heat and air at the same time. Well actually, the air has to be on all of the time, just for the circulation of fresh air. So the question is, to you heat or cool the air. Many buildings have no fine control of the air condidioning. It runs full blast or it is off. If it is too cool, they add heat to it. In the winter time the A/C might not be on, but cold air will be drawn in and then heated.
In public places they are set by the engineering department. They do not allow crews or others to diddle with it. LION opens window of him (never mind it is 10 degrees outside) because him thinks room is to hot. (Heat is of course turned off). If more than 67 is temperatue, LION is uncomfortable. Monks in Church thinks it is cold in church, LION thinks it is too hot and crawls under the pews and goes to sleep.
On cars of subway trains there are decals on the ceiling in several places, and inspectors come in with laser detectors, they point them at these marks and record the temperture there. Nothing special about this decal. It is just a decal in the identical places in each cars placed there so that all of their statistics will be reading the same thing. Now thier data will mean something to someone (unlike these global warming folks who measure car exhausts and then say the planet is warming)
ROAR
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Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
Thank you Loin, but that's not the case on NJT's Riverline. There are heaters on the bottom of the car walls, or at least grills on the bottom of the car walls which sometimes radiate heat. There are also grills on the ceiling, which sometimes blow air which certainly seems to be unheated, and in warm weather seems to be cooled.
So my observations show that NJT's Riverline doesn't have a system as you describe where the air constantly circulates and sometimes is heated and sometimes is cooled, but rather a system with a radiant heating system separate from a forced air ventilating and cooling system.
If your observation that subways have inspectors who check cars' temperatures, when do they do it? Is it back at the shop, in service, with doors open, doors closed? What subway systems do it? What do they do with the data?
Why not let the passenger have local control over his own heat in is own seat? Did that on intervity buses for years
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