rodent279

Point is, to be familiar with using non-CDL fitted slam door stock, you have to be at least in your 30's, and then only in certain parts of the country.

So, to be used to using slam door stock on your own, not as a child with an adult opening the doors for you, you'd have to be say about 10-12 in about 2005, which would put you early 30's now. To be used to using non-CDL fitted slam doors on the mainline, you'd have to be about the same age in about 1992, so 44-ish now. So there will be plenty of parents of say 7-15 year old now who will have little if any experience of slam door stock, and possibly a few grand parents as well. That's exactly what one of the prime markets of the Jacobite will be-parents of kids who are HP fans.

You might remember seeing it as a toddler, but to be used to using it in everyday service you'd have to be 5-10 years older.

Early 1990's I think. So 30 years ago, and to be used to them as a traveller you'd have to be in your 40's now.

I think you'd have to be at least 30 to have experience of slam door stock in mainline service, at least 40 for that stock not to be CDL fitted, and probably in your 6th decade to have experienced a mainline railway where slam door stock without CDL was the norm.

Parents may well be responsible, but does the "brute" deserve death or serious injury because of the negligence of another person misusing a door, or from a malfunctioning door? Anyone who thinks that it is not worth trying to mitigate that risk needs to take a look at themselves. I'm all for personal responsibility, but time and again real world experience proves that it is not enough.

I think this is probably the most succinct explanation of the need for CDL that i have seen. It is a fact that people cannot be trusted to alway act sensibly, within the rules and with consideration for others. And it is a fact that equipment (I.e. manual door locking mechanisms) can an do fail. CDL, whilst I am sure not infallible, adds an extra layer of protection against either misuse or malfunction of slam doors. We need to remember that not all "door incidents" were caused by numpties who deserved to be removed from the gene pool. The argument that "No-one has thus far been killed or injured" (ttbomk) on the WHL steam excursions is, as has been stated above, a shoal of red herrings. There is nothing special about that line or the trains that makes it exempt; rather, the opposite. The associations with the Harry Potter films, the fact that it stops on Glenfinnan viaduct, and the fact that a large proportion of passengers will be there for the Harry Potter connections (and therefore not necessarily familiar with trains, let alone slam door trains), makes it a matter of time before something untoward happens.

Serious question - why would you do that on the real railway? Something to do with keeping track circuits working in a particular location?

And whose common sense are we talking about? The general public? Are they supposed to understand about line speeds and traffic density, and behave accordingly? Common sense is such a vague, undefinable quantity that it cannot be used to govern rules about safety critical situations. You only have to spend 5 min behind the wheel of a car or on a bike to see that most people don't use their "common sense". They just do whatever requires the least thought and the least effort.

Or indeed having to be the unfortunate person having to scrape human remains from track, platforms, carriage sides etc.

Did the industry ever produce any figures showing how many railway staff going about their duties were killed or injured due to the misuse of, or malfunctioning of, slam doors?

This is worth reposting.

Something like 5 deaths per year nationwide, and dozens of injuries, during the first 10 or so years, up to about 1994, from when the majority of pasenger trains started to have some flavour of power operated doors, or manual doors under the control of CDL.

Also, of course, Tilbury, Sowfind* & Shoeburyness 🙂 Pedantic? Me? Surely not! * aka Southend

And Morecambe, and Heysham..... Bristol isn't a million miles away from the sea either, but maybe that's stretching the point a little!