Skytrain Noise
Bangkok Mass Transit System Public Company is very conscious of noise, at least so they told us when the SkyTrain began operation: to quote from their website;“The BTS SkyTrain began operation on December 5 th ,1999 ,……. offering both residents and visitors a comfortable ride through central Bangkok - lifting commuters above the chronic congestion, noise and pollution of the streets below.”
They pointed out how their rail system minimized noise;
“Seamlessly welded tracks minimize noise of passing trains
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The curved sections of the tracks have a gauge that's slightly wider from the rest of the tracks to decrease friction between wheels and track and are also lubricated to minimize noise
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The tracks are bordered by a noise barrier not only to decrease noise levels but also improve the system's overall aesthetic quality.”
However, that was then and this is now! The letter to the Nation newspaper reproduced below is a typical scream of frustration from a passenger on noise engineered BTS. As happens throughout Bangkok in shopping centres, hospitals, restaurants, and wherever, quiet is considered intolerable, boring, uncool. Your Bangkok citizen must never be left for a moment with her thoughts, there must be “music”, “song”, advertisement to fill the void. Any announcements must be even louder and then we have a fun environment.
Ladies and gentlemen of Bangkok Mass Transit System Public Company, your BTS stations are no longer quieter than the street below (and, by the way, you rarely lift us up, we have to climb).
Click on the link showing Bangkok daily noise level which shows the level of street noise in several locations in Bangkok. Now let me tell you levels of noise which I recently, and very conservatively measured in Mau Chit station;
noise level on the train platform, (when no train was present) 72 dBA
noise level on the first floor, ticket offices etc. 75-76 dBA
The noise level on the first floor is more than twice as loud as on the train platform because you allow individual shops to add their own blaring sound systems to the noise generators that you yourself provide in TV sets etc..
And now you are experimenting with TV sets spewing advertisements on the trains themselves. A plague on you, your super quiet trains, and stations.
posted by hrdefender at 6:48 pm
1 Comments:
BTS Skytrain always makes whistling noise especially when moving slowly on the rail which is quite strange because metros at New York city and Spanish Metro and the old Italian Breda Metros don't make these whistling noise when the train started to accelerate slowly to depart. The only noise made by metros in New York and in Spain and in Italy are the rail steel bumping onto the wooden plank or when the train turns left or right on curved rail which sparks friction. I don't know if it was the engine of BTS Skytrain or the friction of skybridge rail which makes the whistling noise when the skytrain moves. The metros should only makes a bit of noise only when accelerating fast but it there should not be any whistling noise when the train moves only for 5 inch.
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