Air-Purifying Totems Trial At Birmingham New Street Station
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Railway Gazette.
These two paragraphs outline the trial.
The use of air-purifying totems to reduce the impact of diesel train exhaust fumes on air quality is to be tested at Birmingham New Street station.
The Pluvo Column devices take in air at the bottom of the totem and pass it through a series of filters before releasing it at head height.
Note.
- This is the Pluvo web site.
- The company has an impressive list of backers including Innovate UK and Land Securities.
- Land Securities Group plc is the largest commercial property development and investment company in the United Kingdom.
- From my experience of Birmingham New Street station, the station could be an interesting application of the technology.
I believe this technology can be developed for a large number of applications.
The Anonymous Widower 
I wonder if there has been any airflow analysis. These plumes suck in air at low level and push out the cleaned air at high level.
Yet all the DMU diesel exhausts are at high level so should the plumes not be working the other way?
Or does dirty diesel exhaust air drop immediately?
Comment by chilterntrev | August 5, 2023 |
If you go to the bottom of the home page, there’s a diagram of how it works. If you look at the picture most are
above ground uses.
Rhey’re certainly well-backed, so they can afford to do a lot of calculations and testing.
Comment by AnonW | August 5, 2023 |
I have to say i was rather annoyed with the money wasted at New St rebuilding and creating the retail emporium with absolutely lousy wayfinding when at platform level it was very poor environment for passengers and staff. Of course almost everything that passes through could be bi-mode powered and the problem would go away.
Comment by Nicholas Lewis | August 5, 2023 |
Birmingham New Streetwas designed in the 1960s, when for much of that time, that great lover of the railways; Harold Wilson was in charge, who once said that in the future we won’t need trains, as everybody will have their own car. SO money was saved using the crap-design manual.
Some busy old stations have been well-improved like Derby, Liverpool Lime Street, Leeds, London Bridge, Manchester Victoria, Reading, Stratford and Waterloo.
Others are had botched improvements likr Manchester Piccadilly.
Comment by AnonW | August 5, 2023 |