4 ms·
Forget high speed rail. It would be great if the trains weren't 30+ years old. On the lines I most often use the carriages don't have automatic doors. I'm cons
by new299 10y ago
Forget high speed rail. It would be great if the trains weren't 30+ years old.
On the lines I most often use the carriages don't have automatic doors. I'm constantly embarrassed when I have to show visitors how to open the window, stick their hand out and use the handle on the outside to open the door (which is how it's done).
- flukus 10y agoAt least they've still got windows. Around here you have to put up with aircon that doesn't work in summer and a heater that's turned up way to high in winter. I find the older ones with windows provided much better temperature control.
- kriro 10y agoOn the plus side this is actually an example in the usability classic "The Design of Everyday Things". Iirc Norman concludes that he doesn't have a clue as to why they were designed that way and offers some hypotheses which he dismisses right away (book is at home so I can't check) :D
- huxley 10y agoA little off topic, but anyone interested in picking up "The Design of Everyday Things" be aware it was previously published as "The Psychology of Everyday Things". There was an expanded and updated edition in 2013 so you should probably look for that one.
- pjc50 10y agoIs that the Intercity 125 trains? Modern ones have generally fixed this.
- aninhumer 10y agoOf course, but the point is that these old ones haven't been replaced yet.
- pyb 10y agoYes, I've always thought it was completely ridiculous. What's the 'justification' for it ?
- lmm 10y agoGuess: when originally built those carriages didn't have door locking. It was felt it would be unsafe to have a handle on the inside that could be accidentally opened while the train was moving at high speed. So the handle is on the outside so that it takes a very deliberate effort to open the door (and hopefully people know better than to reach out of a window at high speed).
- pmontra 10y agoAnother guess: a handle on the outside costs less than one on both sides and there is a window to access the outside handle. Or: passengers were not supposed to operate those doors, there was railway personnel for that (this assumes very old trains) Check: there is something about that issue here https://lukehalliwell.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/horrible-doors-on-british-trains/ https://lukehalliwell.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/horrible-door... "they firstly removed the interior door handles as a dirt-cheap “safety” measure to discourage people from getting out of the train before it stopped, then realised that they hadn’t actually discouraged everyone and had instead made jumping early even more dangerous, so they added a central locking system to keep the doors locked until the train stopped. Of course, in a quintessential piece of British train-related incompetence, they didn’t bother to put the handles back on once they had central locking."
- pyb 10y agoWe are talking about recent carriages here (10-20 years old)
- pmyteh 10y agoThey're quite a bit older than this, assuming you're thinking of the British examples. The last Mark 3 coach was made in 1988, and the Mark 4s have sliding plug power doors. It was still an odd design decision, though. There had been electric doors on BR multiple units since the 70s.