Chilly train rides due during Covid winter

Commuters face frosty but well ventilated journeys, despite scientific opinion that virus thrives on cold

COMMUTERS face a chilly winter on trains as the industry is set to recommend windows are kept open to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

However, policy goes against concerns raised by scientists that the virus “likes” lower temperatures and could affect the severity of symptoms. Evidence has shown that while ventilation is important, there was a decrease in the severity of symptoms as temperatures in Britain rose over the summer.

Rail companies are trying to reassure commuters that travel by rail is safe after losing 400 million passenger journeys during lockdown.

Ali Chegini, a director on the Rail Safety and Standards Board, said: “Even though it’s cold, even though you have to wrap up and put woolly socks on, it’s better to keep windows open than to be exposed to the risk of infection.”

Although the aim was not to “get everybody back on the train”, he said: “If you’ve got a choice between road and rail, road is not the panacea that was originally, without justification, put out there.” The idea of opening windows was due to be approved at tomorrow’s meeting of the Rail Delivery Group, where it could become mandatory for them to be kept open on journeys and for carriage doors to open at stations to aid airflow.

While improved ventilation may reassure passengers, in July government scientists declared that coronavirus spread fastest at 4C (39.2F) as fears grew of a winter resurgence.

Scientists were also understood to be increasingly confident that countries with temperate climates and relatively severe flu seasons, such as Britain, would fare worse in winter.

Train capacity has fallen up to 50 per cent, with social distancing rules driving a loss in ticket revenue of £700 million a month.

Last month the standards board estimated that a passenger on a train on which half of the seats were occupied could take 19,765 journeys without infection if they wore a mask.

The board has since revised the figures following swab testing to 5,000 coronavirus-safe trips on average.

This followed fears that air conditioning units reintroducing air back into rooms could potentially spread coronavirus in enclosed spaces.

Earlier this year, experts told The Daily Telegraph that air conditioning units that did not have a “dedicated source of outside air supply into a room… could be responsible for recirculating and spreading airborne viral particles into the path of socially distanced users”.

Dr Shaun Fitzgerald, a fellow at the Royal Academy of Engineering, said even when using air conditioning units, opening a window would be the best way to mitigate risk of infection.

Huw Merriman, chairman of the Commons transport select committee, said: “Hospitality and leisure businesses in cities are dying because we have not got commuters. Commuters are a hardy, stoic bunch, but we are also considerate. You only get confidence if you are realistic with the rule set and then people aren’t seen to breach anything.”

Susie Homan, a director at the Rail Delivery Group, said: “Hundreds of swab tests have been carried out so far showing no sign of Covid-19 on trains or stations and there are no reports of people getting the virus on the rail network.”

The Department for Transport said it was researching “the risk of Covid-19 transmission on public transport [and] evaluating how to attract passengers back on to the railways at the right time”.

Britain’s coronavirus-hit rail network is due to cost up to £12 billion of taxpayers’ money after the scrapping of rail franchises.