Carriage door intelligence tests

[rodent279]

I think we need to recognise that it is a serious issue. Us experienced train users take using slam doors for granted, it's second nature. For a lot of visitors to heritage lines, a mk1 (or even a mk2/3) carriage door is very different to anything they'll experience elsewhere, and the potential is there for fatal or at least life changing injuries if they get it wrong.

[tommyliam021]

Deleted

Edited May 10, 2023 by tommyliam021
Contained potentially sensitive content

[rodent279]

Straying slightly OT, I wonder if inward opening doors would have been safer, in that you'd have to move inwards as the door opens, therefore may be a little less likely to fall out as it opens?

Obviously it's not a practical modification now, but I can see no reason that stock could not have been built with inward opening doors in the first place.

[Edwin_m]

40 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

Straying slightly OT, I wonder if inward opening doors would have been safer, in that you'd have to move inwards as the door opens, therefore may be a little less likely to fall out as it opens?

Obviously it's not a practical modification now, but I can see no reason that stock could not have been built with inward opening doors in the first place.

Unless the side of the coach was flat (which would reduce interior space), inward opening doors would have to be recessed, as seen on Pullman cars.  This makes it very difficult for guards and platform staff to see an open door some distance away.  I assume the Pullmans managed because of the number of on-train staff.  

Edited May 11, 2023 by Edwin_m

[uax6]

12 minutes ago, Edwin_m said:

Unless the side of the coach was flat (which would reduce interior space), inward opening doors would have to be recessed, as seen on Pullman cars.  This makes it very difficult for guards and platform staff to see an open door some distance away.  I assume the Pullmans managed because of the number of on-train staff.  

 

Not so, look at the inwards opening guards doors on all mk1/2/3 stock, these all match the body profile. 

 

Andy G

[Wheatley]

Inwards opening doors would require a clear space inside the doors to open into, which is not possible when the vestibules are crush loaded. On non-vestibuled stock, i.e. compartments and high density suburban stock the door would open onto the knees of whoever was sitting next to the door. Apart from being annoying that would extend station dwell times which negates the point of the 'all doors' design of high density stock. 

 

And as Edwin suggests, open guard's doors are much harder to spot than the passenger doors. 

Edited May 11, 2023 by Wheatley

[jjb1970]

Is there a reason (other than institutional conservative attitudes) why the Mk.3 especially has slam doors? Remote closing power operated doors were pretty mature by then, including on intercity trains, either as sliding or folding doors. Given the amount of expertise that must have gone into the Mk.3 design (it's a truly great design) it seems a little strange that they kept old fashioned doors.

[rodent279]

Really good question, and I think there's got to be a good answer, because power operated doors were commonplace on mainland Europe from around the 1950's.

[009 micro modeller]

As a further variation, didn’t some of the old Tyneside electric stock have manually operated sliding doors?

[Jeremy Cumberland]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

Is there a reason (other than institutional conservative attitudes) why the Mk.3 especially has slam doors? Remote closing power operated doors were pretty mature by then, including on intercity trains, either as sliding or folding doors.

Not in Britain, they weren't. Sliding doors were introduced on London Underground early in the twentieth century, and were used by the LMS on the Mersey Railway and Liverpool-Southport line in the 1930s. After the war, they became common on suburban electric trains all over the country, but I don't think they were ever tried on express trains.

 

Carriage design in the 1960s and 70s (remember that Mk 3s were introduced in 1976) was very much towards flush sides and streamlining, so the recesses of pocket sliding doors would have been seen as something of a throwback. I don't think flush-sided sliding doors appeared on British trains till the Wessex electrics in the late 1980s.

[RichardT]

2 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

 

Is there a reason (other than institutional conservative attitudes) why the Mk.3 especially has slam doors? Remote closing power operated doors were pretty mature by then, including on intercity trains,

 

I’m not so sure they were - I don’t remember many sliding doors on mainline European stock when I was inter-railing in 1985. And 1970s stock was a product of 1960s design processes.

 

But I would also point out the severe financial restrictions imposed on BR by the Treasury under government of all colours in the 1970s and early 1980s - simple manual doors are a lot cheaper, so the best doesn’t become the enemy of the good.  As soon as they could BR introduced centrally-controlled sliding/plug-doors e.g.on the stock for the electrified ECML from the late 1980s onwards.

 

As i said before, no-one expected Mk3 stock to last for so long. When retro-fit central locking was added to the Mk3s the internal door handles could have been reinstated, but presumably BR took a cost-saving decision not to do so.

 

RichardT

[pete_mcfarlane]

5 hours ago, rodent279 said:

Straying slightly OT, I wonder if inward opening doors would have been safer, in that you'd have to move inwards as the door opens, therefore may be a little less likely to fall out as it opens?

Obviously it's not a practical modification now, but I can see no reason that stock could not have been built with inward opening doors in the first place.

These were used on the SECR 'Continental' stock, but later changed to be outward opening after (IIRC) a fatal accident. Pullmans and CIWL stock had inward opening doors, but they had attendants to operate them. 

 

31 minutes ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

I don't think flush-sided sliding doors appeared on British trains till the Wessex electrics in the late 1980s.

The CIE Mk3s had sliding doors a few years earlier than the Wessex stock. 

[45655]

2 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

Is there a reason (other than institutional conservative attitudes) why the Mk.3 especially has slam doors? Remote closing power operated doors were pretty mature by then, including on intercity trains, either as sliding or folding doors. Given the amount of expertise that must have gone into the Mk.3 design (it's a truly great design) it seems a little strange that they kept old fashioned doors.

I remember Modern Railways fulminating about the manual doors at the time, and again when the versions built for CIE were fitted with plug doors.

 

As Richard T says, no doubt it was all down to cost.

 

Keith

Alton.

[jjb1970]

The Eurofima coach and it's offshoots were quite contemporaneous with the Mk.3 and had sliding plug doors. And older European long distance stock had powered closing doors with manual opening. And the Japanese 0 Shinkansen had pocketed sliding doors from entry into service in 1964. 

[009 micro modeller]

Does the new Caledonian Sleeper stock have sliding doors? I assume it does as it’s very modern but I think it would make it the first British sleeper stock to have sliding doors (unless the coaches built for Nightstar had them).

[phil-b259]

1 hour ago, 009 micro modeller said:

Does the new Caledonian Sleeper stock have sliding doors? I assume it does as it’s very modern but I think it would make it the first British sleeper stock to have sliding doors (unless the coaches built for Nightstar had them).

 

All passenger rolling stock built for the past 3 decades (including nightstar stock) has had powered doors (either sliding or of the plug type)  and there is no way that the ORR would sanction manually operated doors on public trains (as opposed to charter operations) for anything built now even if it was loco hauled in the traditional manor.

Edited May 11, 2023 by phil-b259

[Blandford1969]

By way of an update it turns out the solution comes from the Great Western itself from 1921/ I wonder why they did not go ahead and just make the changes.  This was released today as an update.

 

The modification will prevent the door handle from remaining in the vertical position and therefore stop the door from being closed but unsecured. In 1921, the Great Western introduced a ‘semi-slam’ lock for trials, in which the tongue of the lock was modified to strike the internal spring before the handle was in the vertical position. To open the door, pressure had to be maintained to turn the handle to the vertical position. This is similar to how a ‘slam’ lock (or ‘double acting’ lock) works, but it differs in as much the door cannot be slammed to close it because the ‘semi-slam’ requires the handle to be turned against the internal spring pressure, to the vertical position.

 

The solution requires a new lock tongue to be manufactured and a minor modification to the lock case, but importantly retains the existing lock bodies, handles and springs and retains the present striking plates and springs in the door post. 

From a heritage viewpoint, it maintains the pedigree and appearance of these historically accurate vehicles whilst greatly reducing the risk of accident from a door inadvertently left unsecured.  

This solution should be relatively easy and cheap to implement. The alternatives of modifying the doors to use ‘slam’ locks or fitting new locks similar to those proposed by the Talyllyn Railway, would require modification to all doors and posts which would be very costly and take a considerable period of time to implement. 

Detailed costings are now underway, and plans must be drawn up to replace 140+ lock tongues. Operational staff will need training and familiarisation before the vehicles are re-introduced to traffic. However, it is hoped that, with a lot of determined effort, this could be completed by the commencement of the 2024 operating season.  

 

 

[woodenhead]

The ORR is minded to deny West Coast Railways a licence to run it's stock without door locks...

 

Concerns people could exit whilst moving or on short platforms.

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/26/flying-scotsman-future-doubt-trains-modern-doors/

 

LSL already in compliance, Belmond and Vintage trains have agreed to fit the locks and have exemption till future dates but West Coast seem to be the outlier hence enforcement.

Edited May 30, 2023 by woodenhead

[RichardT]

A story which has only a tangential connection to Flying Scotsman written mainly to be about Flying Scotsman…

 

I’m guessing the Telegraph thinks that its readership has only a limited capacity for stories that can’t be spun as anti-woke.☺️

 

RichardT

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

The ORR is minded to deny West Coast Railways a licence to run it's stock without door locks...

 

Concerns people could exit whilst moving or on short platforms.

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/26/flying-scotsman-future-doubt-trains-modern-doors/

 

LSL already in compliance, Belmond and Vintage trains have agreed to fit the locks and have exemption till future dates but West Coast seem to be the outlier hence enforcement.

Not just platforms, there was always an issue with conventional coaching stock about stopping in tunnels or on viaducts if the cord was pulled.  If the train is on fire, they aren't good places to have passengers deciding on their own initiative to evacuate - better to go a little further and stop somewhere safer. 

 

But historically I think the bigger issue of outward opening doors not centrally locked was the way commuters (in particular) would open doors before the train stopped, striking anybody unwise enough to to stand too close to the platform edge.  Just watch any newsreel footage of a rush-hour arrival at Waterloo.  That's still potentially an issue on a heritage line without central locking.

[woodenhead]

@Michael Hodgson What we are seeing here I believe is the ORR looking at what happened on the GCR and deciding that West Coast Railways need to declare a reaonable timeline for being in compliance or lose the right to be there.

 

No chance applying new rules on preserved lines if West Coast are getting away with it on the mainline, ORR would be taken to the cleaners by the likes of the Severn Valley,  GCR and NYMR.

[Nick C]

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

But historically I think the bigger issue of outward opening doors not centrally locked was the way commuters (in particular) would open doors before the train stopped, striking anybody unwise enough to to stand too close to the platform edge.  Just watch any newsreel footage of a rush-hour arrival at Waterloo.  That's still potentially an issue on a heritage line without central locking.

Certainly something our platform staff are trained to be vigilant for. Funnily enough it quickly becomes so ingrained that you find yourself checking arriving and departing trains even when you're not on duty, or when visiting other heritage railways - while everyone else is watching the loco, your eye goes straight to the door handles! 

 

50 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

@Michael Hodgson What we are seeing here I believe is the ORR looking at what happened on the GCR and deciding that West Coast Railways need to declare a reaonable timeline for being in compliance or lose the right to be there.

 

No chance applying new rules on preserved lines if West Coast are getting away with it on the mainline, ORR would be taken to the cleaners by the likes of the Severn Valley,  GCR and NYMR.

 

Plus WCRC will be doing mainline speeds, wheras HRs are restricted to 25MPH...

Edited May 30, 2023 by Nick C

[rodent279]

When I think about it, it's a wonder there weren't more deaths/serious injuries back in the day when almost all stock was slam door.

Are there any figures available from say the 1970's/80's on injuries due to doors opening on trains entering platforms?

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

When I think about it, it's a wonder there weren't more deaths/serious injuries back in the day when almost all stock was slam door.

Are there any figures available from say the 1970's/80's on injuries due to doors opening on trains entering platforms?

 

I've not seen any statistic but it was clearly enough to worry the Southern Railway who probably had the biggest problem.

North of the river I just got used to hearing somebody on the platform bellowing "Shut that bl**dy door!"

 

Those living south of the river also had to be told how to open the sliding doors when they came in. 

Northerners seemed to be able to figure out for themselves what the button labelled Doors Open was for.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 30, 2023 by Michael Hodgson

[rodent279]

I do remember the poster with the lady falling. Maybe, back in the day, there was always the public info & reminders in the form of posters, that there isn't on preserved railways?