Jacobite / Glenfinnan Viaduct

[Cotty]

alangla said:

Edit: found the document I was looking for: https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?d...

HSE document paraphrased slightly said:

Between 1984 & 1991 records were found of 270 incidents of passengers falling from slam doors. In 155 of these incidents the person was fatally injured. In 1991 there were 21 fatal falls from train doors

Page 45.
That’s why unlocked slam doors have no place on the modern railway.

I never kenw that was an issue, I thought the injuries were due to people on the platform getting hit by doors or people jumping off the train while it is still moving, which I have see as they wanted to get to the stairs and not have to queue to get out of the station. I had never hear of people falling out of the trains until now.

Thing is even if they are going to find a way of locking the doors, will they still have windows that people can lean out of?

[Cotty]

Petition launched to get The Jacobite Steam train back on tracks
Although I don't know how much good it will do. Should have gone on it a couple of years ago.
https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2024/03/petition-laun...

[ScotHill]

Saw a random Facebook ad that said the trains are back on with central locking carriages. Their website hints that they’ve sourced some ‘new to them’ carriages to run some reduced capacity trains while still trying to get an exemption for their usual carriages.

[velocemitch]

ScotHill said:

Saw a random Facebook ad that said the trains are back on with central locking carriages. Their website hints that they’ve sourced some ‘new to them’ carriages to run some reduced capacity trains while still trying to get an exemption for their usual carriages.

They seem to have a rake of Mk2’s now. Not sure if they new to them or not.
As a child of the sixties and seventies, it baffles me why slam door stock are deemed unsafe, pretty sure you could never open them from inside, always had to drop the window, reach out and open it from outside. Not sure how you active that by accident!

[mac96]

velocemitch said:

ScotHill said:

Saw a random Facebook ad that said the trains are back on with central locking carriages. Their website hints that they’ve sourced some ‘new to them’ carriages to run some reduced capacity trains while still trying to get an exemption for their usual carriages.

They seem to have a rake of Mk2’s now. Not sure if they new to them or not.
As a child of the sixties and seventies, it baffles me why slam door stock are deemed unsafe, pretty sure you could never open them from inside, always had to drop the window, reach out and open it from outside. Not sure how you active that by accident!

I think you fall out either because the door was not properly shut by the last user, or because you are trying to open it as you describe when the door catchs you by surprise (particularly if the mechanism was stiff) and swings open unexpectedly suddenly.
At least those are the sort of accidents I remember hearing about in my London commuting years. There are probably other ways of coming to harm if you really try!

[alangla]

velocemitch said:

They seem to have a rake of Mk2’s now. Not sure if they new to them or not.
As a child of the sixties and seventies, it baffles me why slam door stock are deemed unsafe, pretty sure you could never open them from inside, always had to drop the window, reach out and open it from outside. Not sure how you active that by accident!

Have a read at the HSE document I posted above, it covers all this in quite a bit of detail, including the failure modes for the locks.

[Cotty]

velocemitch said:

As a child of the sixties and seventies, it baffles me why slam door stock are deemed unsafe, pretty sure you could never open them from inside, always had to drop the window, reach out and open it from outside. Not sure how you active that by accident!

I remember some had an internal release. This is the best picture I could find

[miniman]

Cotty said:

I remember some had an internal release. This is the best picture I could find

Yeah I travelled to school in those for years, hence why I am now dead.

[velocemitch]

I remember the sliding catch, but it was very hard to use, hence why opening the window was the way to do it.

[miniman]

velocemitch said:

I remember the sliding catch, but it was very hard to use, hence why opening the window was the way to do it.

Depends on the stock. The internal catches were on the 4VEP stock and the 4CEP carriages only had the external handles.

[alangla]

miniman said:

Depends on the stock. The internal catches were on the 4VEP stock and the 4CEP carriages only had the external handles.

When I used to travel on class 101 diesel units (40+ years old at the time), it was pot luck whether a given door would have an internal catch or just a plain chrome plate. Maintenance on those things didn’t seem to be a strong point, most of them seemed to have only 3 out of 4 engines running, sometimes 2 and what engines were functioning belched clouds of smoke out. The interiors also generally smelt of a mix of diesel exhaust and engine oil. The super sprinters that were cascaded in the early 2000s were like night and day in comparison.

Though I will admit the old units were generally really warm and cosy on a cold winter’s night and they did have a fair amount of character. Managing to get an ex-first class seat at the front when the cab blinds were up was the absolute best & probably an experience never to be repeated sadly.