Air Conditioning?

O.k, On tuesday, I took train 2625 From Philly to Cherry Hill. the minute I stepped on the train it was freezing and I was cold the whole way to Cherry Hill.

So I wanted to know, does NJT have rules about the air conditioning or does the crew set the A/C to their preference, or do NJT trains even have climate control? How does the whole air conditioning thing work?

Hey,
The train crew only turns it on.They don't have control on temp. settings.That is done by the mech.dept.Most cars are set for 72-75 degrees,year round.Comet 1's are on or off.A/C or heat.SO you get pot luck with them.

I've noticed that the Comet Vs are always hotter than the other cars. They are also muggy as well...very uncomfortable to sit in them when it's hot out.

Mr Delgrosso were all the cars freezing??? or just the one you got on.
and no the crew can not control the temperature the thermostats are set by laptop computer during maintenance.
muggy Comet V's ?? they should not be since they have two airconditioning systems for redundancy.

The comet V's tend to be humid even when cool. It's very strange, I just reset the unit when I notice it, that will 90% of the time rid the humid feeling.

Poor humidity control? Some recent A/C systems aren't as good as old ones at dehumidifying, and thus don't remove water as well - this is done for EPA reasons (more efficient). I think the new super efficient home systems have multiple speeds and special 'dehumidify' modes. I'm guessing rail HVAC systems at least partially track home/comercial technology.

Also, if the new systems are very high capacity - it takes longer to dehumidify than it does to cool, so a high capacity system can keep it cool, but not do as well with keeping the water out.

Are the C 5 systems variable capaity (i.e., they can go from low to high mode and such), or are they just on/off?

I dunno which cars were freezing or not. All I know was the one I gotr in was freezing (there is one car I know that was freezing). It was also sort of humid, but it wasn't a comet V. I think it was a comet 3 or 4. The one with the bluish greenish seats.

I find the worst situation is on a cool day in the fall or spring following a hot day. The cars are freezing. I always thought that the thermostat was set to cool to a temperature that could never be reached on a hot day but if you hit a cool day the cars would cool to that temperature and be freezing.

It makes sense now why the two sides of the Comet V are almost ALWAYS at a different temperature...they have two a/c units. Thanks, Dutch I did not know that.

jdelgrosso wrote:It was also sort of humid, but it wasn't a comet V. I think it was a comet 3 or 4. The one with the bluish greenish seats.

Comet IIIs have the brown seats, IVs have the blue green seats (and a center door) and the IIMs have have gren blue seats but don't have center doors. Do you have any IIMs on the ACL or just IIIs and IVs?

Thats whats up, it was a C4.

I think the C5's have an "automatic" HVAC system. What I mean here is that they can go from heat to cooling all by themselves, where the other equipment has to be manually changed by mechanical forces.

The C5's have a monitor in the center vestibule doors, where it shoulds the inside temperature, and the outside temperature. Most times, the inside temperature is set around 70 degrees, give or take a few, and it seems that the equipment can either turn the heat on or AC on to make it get to 70. The C5's do have a horrendous humidity problem, and some cars are down right disgusting, the seats get sticky and the car gets smelly. I never tried to reset teh HVAC system to get the system to restart and maybe get rid of the humidity, ill have to give that a shot next time.

But all the other cars, they are either on or off, heat or AC, no inbetween unfortuanately, and all we can control is either on or off

No problem here on all the Comets on east side of river, maybe NJT mechanics are shutting off circuit breakers, as a HVAC system works by overcooling and using reheat to lower the moisture in air. it seems to me it may be a MofE operational problem.

I rode the AC line on Monday and Wednesday to the beach in AC and I thought that the cars felt great. Better to have them a little cool then too hot, especially in the summer.

All the equipment NJT owns is thermostatically controlled. However, since the railroad stopped buying parts for the Comet Is a few years ago, mech forces simply open the heat breakers in the Summer and open the AC compressor breaker in the Winter. Manual "climate control".

And our newest white elephants, the Comet5s, are already notorious freon leakers. Which is why most of them are warm and muggy.