The world's cleanest railway

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Published 2023-05-08
At CEA-Leti, in Grenoble, there's a "funicular" that not many people get to ride: because it's between two clean rooms, and getting to it requires quite a lot of preparation. ■ CEA-Leti: www.leti-cea.com/cea-tech/leti/english/Pages/Welco…

For most of my research on this, I'm indebted to this French-language article from by Julien Meyrat: www.vepres.fr/vepres-presse-salles-propres-funicul…

Camera: Simon Gillouin
Editor: Michelle Martin twitter.com/mrsmmartin
Local production by Block8 block8production.com/

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All Comments (21)
  • @TomScottGo
    This week's pinned comment is a plug for my podcast! It's called Lateral, and this week's episode has Mark Rober, Virginia Schutte and Jabrils. Listen for free at lateralcast.com/ or watch video highlights at youtube.com/lateralcast
  • @speakfreely.1776
    My old teacher worked as a security guard and he accidentally opened an emergency exit for a clean room. Apparently this was a VERY expensive mistake.
  • @B_-.-
    I'm starting to think Tom is a railway enthusiast
  • @desk-kun
    Still loving how trains are always the cost effective solution for many problems
  • @marvindebot3264
    11,000 sq metre cleanroom? Holy crap that's insanely huge!
  • @Tehficus2
    I worked in the clean rooms at TSMC for a time and got to experience the corridor solution. Tom is right it creates quite a dismal environment, wish we had had a train!!! Great video though, it was fun to see all the tools again
  • @tehpanda64
    it occurs to me that clean rooms probably can't even use standard building materials, unless they have special paint or coatings to seal in the materials or something... Time to go down a rabbit hole. EDIT- for those wondering what building materials: epoxy resin poured floors, with aluminum honeycomb modular wall panels seems to be the norm. PVC is another common material. Even the doors need to be easy to clean so no wood.
  • @DomyTheMad420
    my single favorite type of engineering solutions is: "stuff that seems like overkill until you realize the least expensive option to fix the given problem."
  • @paulthompson382
    It seems Tom has asked the entire world "any interesting trains?" and the world is answering. I love it
  • @Nalehw
    0:42 It's refreshing to see Tom miss his timing. Normally the vehicle he's talking about would miraculously enter shot right when he's ready to mention it.
  • @camerastooge
    Can we give some props to the editor/VFX artist who rotoscoped Tom over the blurred license plates in that open? I know it’s not THAT hard to do with current technology, but it would have been quicker and easier to just let the blur go over Tom. That little extra step is noticed and appreciated!
  • @pierrechausse3552
    Hi Tom, I work here at the CEA-LETI ! I love your work. Damn, such a shame to not have seen you.
  • @Aramis419
    I live down the road from Merck, here in West Point, PA, USA, and one night at the pub, I met one of their scientists. “You could always work in the clean room, it’s pretty easy stuff.” And I sneezed all over the bar top. “Okay…probably not a good idea then.”
  • @memoryfoam2285
    Recently got a look into an improvement process for a clean room for a local engineering firm, they're moving from disposable suits to washable, much more comfortable ones, as well as improving exit and entry procedures. Very interesting thing to have to deal with in some industries.
  • @scottthomson4701
    Microelectronics student here. Cleanroom protocals are no joke. We had a sticky mat just by the entrance to remove anything on the bottom of our shoes.
  • @SarimDeLaurec
    I work in a pharmaceutical cleanroom and I am so happy we are allowed more particles than cleanrooms for electronics and stuff. I think the highest standard would be comparable to ISO 5. A higher standard would make no sense though, since you would already have achieved a sterile environment. Just going from one GMP suite to another on the same floor is enough hassle with ISO 7. Just thinking about a long corridor from one building to another and the cleanup process for that would give me anxiety. :D That small car seems way more practical.
  • @chenzinc
    The fab at Micron Singapore has 2 massive, 150m long "corridors" connecting the old cleanroom to the new one. No windows, but wide enough for 2 small cars aside with tracks for automated vehicles on the ceiling!
  • @KnugLidi
    I worked in a radiopharmaceutical R&D facility. While clean rooms are kept at higher air pressure to push particulate out, active areas in a nuclear area are at lower pressure to keep particulate in. When working with nuclear injectable materials, you have to do both. You set the clean room at high pressure, and an area of lowest pressure surrounding it. The main corridors are higher pressure than the low pressure area, but lower than the highest pressure in the clean rooms. Needless to say, the ventilation systems are complex.
  • @zapfanzapfan
    What fascinated me the most when I visited a really extreme clean room was that the water pipes and faucets were Teflon coated plastic to not get any metal ions in the water.