Great Western Coffee Shop

Sorry it's just a Facebook link

https://www.facebook.com/ScotRail/videos/576705902775789/

I think the Rab C Nesbitt soundtrack is rather appropriate... after seeing this, I look on HST's with fresh eyes. Isn't it astonishing that in 2018, in what is still nominally and for now a first-world country, people are expected to push a (potentially pretty stiff) window down, lean (quite a long way) out and turn a handle just to open a door?

Why? Isn't more to the point that ScotRail put out that patronising video and the web page that it goes with (https://www.scotrail.co.uk/travelling-classic-intercity-trains) that says:

It's entirely obvious (the rust on the door in the video being just the biggest hint) that these are the same trains as "Inter7City" being put into service unmodified while waiting for Wabtec to struggle their way through their backlog of refurb work? So why not admit it - instead they come up with this "classic" tag as if it's got some extra appeal.

Considering LNER operate HSTs Edinburgh-Inverness/Aberdeen I'd say most people are familiar with the operation of a door on an HST.

Given the 'Classic' tag, maybe this would have been even more appropriate?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9GmXMNitxw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9GmXMNitxw)

Probably true, but it wasn't able-bodied people familiar with this (let's face it, rather eccentric) way of opening doors I was worrying about. I have on more than one occasion shown a totally bemused fellow passenger how to do it - but what if there's no-one there to help?

I can't see them as the audience for the video! And anyway, I don't think that's going to be changed by Wabtec's angle grinders, is it?

They’ll be sealing the windows shut won’t they?

Yes - more like portholes, really. So that's right if you were suggesting people might travel in the vestibule with the window open, offering a temptation to stick their head out ... perish the thought!

Reminds me of the (not issued) advice (or practice) on the SR slammers that went something like:

1 When the train is about 100 yards from your destination, lean out of the window, grab hold of the outer door handle and with your other hand steady yourself against the inside of the train.

2 When your doorway passes the platform entry ramp, unlock the door but hold it close to the train body against your foot.

3 When the train has slowed to a fast walking place, open the door and step onto the first outer wooden step.

4. When you are happy with the speed and that there are is no one waiting on the platform in your way jump off outwards and move well away from the edge of the platform as there will be twelve other commuters following you quickly at fractional-second intervals.

5. You can often beat the train to the buffer stops.

6. If you go flat on your face, get up quickly, look embarrassed and clear off to your place of work to attend to any bruises or wounds in your own time and with your firm’s elastoplast.

E&OE

OTC

Would be great to see all that on a railway style sign, complete with all appropriate pictograms...

Paul

This reminds me of what used to happen, When Gloucester used to have Loco hauled trains, People would open the door slightly as the train came speeding through platform 1 and then stopping at 2. Probably the reason that the Signal Gantry on Plat 2, Is so far back from the Platform edge. Now all has changed with nearly all trains having sliding doors.

Yes, that’s exactly what I was suggesting.  You only have to watch a railtour go by to see heads aplenty hanging out the windows.  HST’s might not have quite the draw of a pair of Hoover’s, but I bet they’ll still be a few.

You remind me of the good old days when solid respectable Rail magazine was in its adolescent form as Rail Enthusiast.  I well remember a railtour review (by David Maxey?) which, referring to the habit of the railfans of the day to photo-bomb by waving their arms out of the windows of carriages, said:

You need to add the bit that if the platform is to your left (looking forward from within the train) you need to push the door outwards, but if the platform is to your right, you need to hold onto the door to control its outward movement ...

In (half-hearted) defence of ScotRail

- Forgetting that other operators in their area have operated similar trains for years is typical inward-looking institutional/corporate behaviour. I think they have been running second generation DMUs with power operated doors for about 30 years themselves on these routes, and just haven't looked around at what others do.

- an increasing number and proportion of train travelers have no experience of slam door trains being the norm, and indeed may never have had to open a slam door ever. Some reading this thread would be alarmed at the (jocular, I know) account of how passengers behaved in the past.

- their publicity team would not be the first to look a little foolish trying to be up-beat about a less than ideal situation -the fact that some scruffy trains are having to be pressed into service before they have been refurbished ready for their new role. It's the way of PR folk, I'm afraid.
 
I agree though that a simple "we're sorry, we are having to introduce these trains before they are ready due to delays with our suppliers, but in case you are unfamiliar with manual doors, this is how they work" approach would have saved them looking daft in the eyes of the members of this forum and many other experienced rail travelers.   

I have stood at Swindon waiting to join an HST and had to push forward through a group of people to open a door as they stood waiting to join a newly arrived train.   Also had to show people how to open a door to get off there. And that's a place where HSTs have been the norm.     The video is not as silly as some may think, but whether the people who are unfamiliar with slam door trains will see it .... I guess that exposure on places like this (not that we will go viral, but Facebook could) may help a bit.  Reaching your whole market is a real issue!

The "eccentric" thing to my mind is having a door with a handle on only one side. We all know why that was done (though do all passengers know that?) but it's a bit of a neither here nor there solution, compared to either modern-conventional push buttons or a door with handles on both sides, with an interlock to prevent opening in motion if deemed necessary (which it surely would be).

I seem to remember that when HSTs were first introduced there was an aluminium plate on the inside of the door covering the space where an internal handle would have been. It would therefore, surely, be a very simple matter to fit handles inside, now that they have central door locking.

I was behind someone earlier this month on an IET that was under the impression the doors would open automatically at the station and didn't require pressing a button. Maybe they were used to Underground trains.

Perhaps 'eccentric' is an understatement. I presume that the inner handles were removed as a quick cheap solution, and the more expensive central locking systems came later:


You can read the report here: http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?docID=393

It concluded that BR really ought to maintain their locks properly, but falls short of insisting on removing inner handles or installing central locking systems. Many accidents seem to have been ascribed to misalignment; in the worst cases a door would jam in its frame with the lock stuck open. In some cases it is believed that in attempting to close doors which had half-caught, passengers tried to open them to get a better slam, and were hauled out of the speeding train as the door swung open. Horrifying.

I think that the 4VEP (423) SR units did have internal handles (or sliding levers), the 4CIG (421) units did not.

There was a technique for safely closing fully, a part closed door, even on the move.

Let's not get on to windows with leather straps.....

OTC

If there was "a technique" it clearly wasn't obvious to the uninitiated and therefore was a bit of a problem in something the public have to deal with everyday in their thousands.

I remember that at the time the central locking was introduced, the press was reporting that most of the deaths were due to drunkenness.

Something to be borne in mind by those who think everything would magically get better if only the railways were nationalised, rather than being mostly nationalised as they are now. I also remember BR's version of events being peddled by the MSM at the time, but the HSE found otherwise...