What Happened to all the Slam door trains?

[Wath Yard]

The not rocket science description could also be applied to opening a door!

 

[RichmondCommu]

The not rocket science description could also be applied to opening a door!

Yes but surely you can see that pressing a button is easier and quicker? Public transport is all about convenience.
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As for inconvenience, try being stuck behind half a carriage of commuters, all trying to get out of one end carriage door !

In all fairness though this is not the case with trains currently operating on south east suburban routes. I accept that Class 156 / 158 units operate on commuter routes in the north but 'slammers' are generally associated with the south east.
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Saying that. Id much rather travel on a good old slammer than a 375 or 395.

In all fairness I think you and I would both agree that you are in the minority. The Clapham disaster proved that such trains were indeed death traps.

 

[Wath Yard]

Yes but surely you can see that pressing a button is easier and quicker? Public transport is all about convenience.

Since when? Public transport, especially peak hour public transport into central London, is about moving huge numbers of people as quickly and efficiently as possible. The slammers were absolutely perfect for that purpose. On arrival at Waterloo the train was half empty before it had come to a halt.

 

[Bungle73]

Well it’s hardly rocket science! It’s a damn sight easier to press a button to open the door then it is to pull down the window and fumble with a door handle. Or worse to open the door from the inside with a ridiculously stiff latch.

Yes, because opening a door yourself is so hard.......

And at least with a manual door you can open it as soon as the train stops at the station, where with electronic doors you have to wait for them to be released by the guard....or driver...or whoever's job it is, which sometimes takes a while; and then there's the 395s whose doors don't open until about ten minutes after you're pressed the button - very annoying.

 

[corfield]

"there was a knack to using the internal latches and you couldn't operate them accidentally"

Not true, I used to commute on NSEs 432s on the SWML, both to sixth form, uni and work over many years. I saw several (at least 3 I recall) occasions on which someone playing with the door latch led to a door opening at full speed. On one occasion it was my mate sitting next to me, who then leant out to try and pull it back in (against the airflow), whilst I and another freind held on to him. It was impossible until the train slowed for a station.

Yes, crazy, madness, stupid teenagers and so on. But it happened, and we were pretty middle of the road lot.

I well remember the almost routine "start moving off from the station, slam to a grinding halt as the driver reacts to someone running late and opening a moving door to climb on". I never saw an accident, but there must have been quite a few. I must admit, on several occasions it was me. It was certainly convenient to slip the door as you came along the platform, then as the train slowed right down, to let it go and sprightly step to the ground, hitting it at a brisk pace and getting a good yard or two towards the stairs/exit - a finely tuned skill that set you as a commuter apart from mere travellers. But it was hardly safe, and I saw people take tumbles, and many near misses of people standing on the platform.

Quite frankly, it was time they went. And as for those with children, babies or of lesser mobility, not appropriate at all. I don't miss them, I used to time my journeys to get a fast, clean (very important) and comfortable 442 when they started showing up, then changing and waiting for the following slam door to catch up and do the last few stops to my station, rather than sit on the mucky slam door the entire way.

Granted much of hte cleanliness issue related to smoking both at the time and the legacy of more widespread usage, but the slam doors just had so many surfaces/edges and nooks & crannies that were just full of black-grey filth that never got cleaned off.

 

[jopsuk]

Yes, because opening a door yourself is so hard.......

And at least with a manual door you can open it as soon as the train stops at the station, where with electronic doors you have to wait for them to be released by the guard....or driver...or whoever's job it is, which sometimes takes a while; and then there's the 395s whose doors don't open until about ten minutes after you're pressed the button - very annoying.

There are a lot of people (anyone much shorter than average, especially the elderly) who do struggle with the external handle on HSTs and rely on some taller/more able getting off or on at that door at the station they want to get off at. Plus, with central door locking you have to wait for the guard anyway, then there's often a delay to the train whilst it is checked that all doors are fully closed.

You are right that many modern doors are rather slow- I do wonder if when busy trains arrive at busy stations it would be possible to have a setting so that the door release just open the doors (tube style). But then is that three seconds stood waiting for the door on the 395 really so important?

 

[yummy125]

Yes these trains could be dangerous but what is not if no care is taken, back in the 80's / 90's there was no health n safety rules thankfully.

I love the "Slam" door stock, the trains used to do 80mph past Basingstoke Barton Mill sidings from Waterloo direction then hit the brakes just after going under the last road bridge & coast into platform 1. Head out the window

Now all we get on a 444 or 450 is noisy air con units & that annoying beeping when it arrives / leaves the stations, i'm sure they can be switched off so the trains arrive silently.

 

[jopsuk]

What a ridiculous thing to say. Worth pointing out that the Health and Safety At Work act ddates from 1974 (though it has had additions and ammenments) and that's the primary piece of H&S legislation in this country.

Put away the rose tinted spectacles, people got hurt. Often. Often through the actions of others. Most passengers prefer the aircon, and the sound signals assist partially sighted passengers to get about independently without actually causing you inconveniance.

 

[yorksrob]

"there was a knack to using the internal latches and you couldn't operate them accidentally"

Not true, I used to commute on NSEs 432s on the SWML, both to sixth form, uni and work over many years. I saw several (at least 3 I recall) occasions on which someone playing with the door latch led to a door opening at full speed. On one occasion it was my mate sitting next to me, who then leant out to try and pull it back in (against the airflow), whilst I and another freind held on to him. It was impossible until the train slowed for a station.

Yes, crazy, madness, stupid teenagers and so on. But it happened, and we were pretty middle of the road lot.

Sounds like a lack of discipline to me

You say so yourself - "someone playing with the latch" which isn't the same as accidentally opening it.

The correct proceedure if a door was incorrectly closed (as notices near the doors pointed out) was to pull the communication chord. But I suspect that you may have been too frit to face the justifiable anger of the guard !

 

[ainsworth74]

Yes these trains could be dangerous but what is not if no care is taken, back in the 80's / 90's there was no health n safety rules thankfully.

Ah yes back to the heady days in the mid 1970s where there was no Health and Safety Executive. In 1974 more than 600 people were killed at work and more than 175,000 people were injured. Wonderful wasn't it...

 

[The Ham]

The correct proceedure if a door was incorrectly closed (as notices near the doors pointed out) was to pull the communication chord. But I suspect that you may have been too frit to face the justifiable anger of the guard !

At least now the "alarm" is rather easier to reset, that and with CCTV monitoring the area there appear to be less delays from people pulling the chord.

The old slam doors served the country well, but there are many advantages to the new trains, although there does appear to remain the problem of extreme temperatures (but now from it being too cold in the summer and too hot in the winter!).

 

[BestWestern]

At least now the "alarm" is rather easier to reset, that and with CCTV monitoring the area there appear to be less delays from people pulling the chord.

The old slam doors served the country well, but there are many advantages to the new trains, although there does appear to remain the problem of extreme temperatures (but now from it being too cold in the summer and too hot in the winter!).

One big advantage of the 'Slammers' was that they were ultra reliable, they rarely went wrong as there was little to go wrong. Compare that to the computer-laden mobile gadgets of today, which will sit down whenever they have a bad mood and then swiftly 'transfer the fault' to whatever brother or sister comes out to rescue them!

 

[transmanche]

One big advantage of the 'Slammers' was that they were ultra reliable, they rarely went wrong as there was little to go wrong.

That's not really connected to whether they had slam-doors or not.

Look at LU's A stock. Only now being withdrawn from service after over 50 years. Or the 1938 stock, still soldiering on on the Isle of Wight.

However, it took a long time for all the faults to be ironed out on the 1938 stock. And the same is true of nearly all new trains. It takes a long time before they are considered reliable.

 

[Bushy]

with electronic doors you have to wait for them to be released by the guard....or driver...or whoever's job it is, which sometimes takes a while; and then there's the 395s whose doors don't open until about ten minutes after you're pressed the button - very annoying.

When 375s were first introduced on South Eastern there was often a delay opening the doors due to the GPS losing its signal. Occasionally they would have to shut the control systems down and reboot them to get the doors opened. If the on-train announcements were wrong you knew there were going to be door problems. Although the doors are still linked to the GPS there aren't as many problems as there used to be.

One impact of GPS linked doors is that SDO operates the same on all platforms, as the accuracy of the GPS cannot reliably identify which platform a train is at. Even if the train arrives at a platform that is long enough, if there are platforms at the station that are shorter, the operates as if it was at shortest platform.

Regards

Bushy

 

[Wath Yard]

The old slam doors served the country well, but there are many advantages to the new trains, although there does appear to remain the problem of extreme temperatures (but now from it being too cold in the summer and too hot in the winter!).

Indeed. Time moves on and the slammers were never going to be replaced by more slam door stock, and I expect many regular users do prefer air con, but they were far more suited to London peak services than the new stuff and the arguments about them being death traps are nonsensical.

 

[jopsuk]

Death Traps
Death Traps
Death Traps

 

[yorksrob]

At least now the "alarm" is rather easier to reset, that and with CCTV monitoring the area there appear to be less delays from people pulling the chord.

The old slam doors served the country well, but there are many advantages to the new trains, although there does appear to remain the problem of extreme temperatures (but now from it being too cold in the summer and too hot in the winter!).

Travelling to Weymouth this weekend, I could have certainly done with a drop light or sliding ventilator.
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Death Traps
Death Traps
Death Traps

Well, I hope you never travel by road vehicle or plane because those are real death traps.

 

[Wath Yard]

I understand some people fall into rivers and drown. Perhaps we should drain them all as they are obviously death traps.

 

[Zoe]

Well, I hope you never travel by road vehicle or plane because those are real death traps.

I doubt many people would want to travel in a Rover 100 these days though. Same goes for rail, the slam door trains were very unsafe compared to what is available these days.

 

[Wath Yard]

Plenty of people, and not just enthusiasts, still choose to travel on Mk Is and I doubt the majority ensure their will is up to date before booking on a railtour. Not complying with modern safety standards doesn't equal death trap.

 

[yorksrob]

I doubt many people would want to travel in a Rover 100 these days though. Same goes for rail, the slam door trains were very unsafe compared to what is available these days.

By that logic, no one would choose to fly between London and Paris these days because a Eurostar is vastly more crashworthy than any plane. (infact, shouldn't planes be banned on this route ?).

 

[transmanche]

By that logic, no one would choose to fly between London and Paris these days because a Eurostar is vastly more crashworthy than any plane.

Comparatively few people do choose to fly. Eurostar has approx 80% of the London-Paris travel market.

 

[Zoe]

By that logic, no one would choose to fly between London and Paris these days because a Eurostar is vastly more crashworthy than any plane. (infact, shouldn't planes be banned on this route ?).

What I'm saying is that there's no excuse for not making each form of transport as safe as possible. I doubt many would want to travel by road in a Rover 100 when there are road vehicles available that are more crashworthy. The same goes for rail, why use something unsafe when more crashworthy modern trains are available?

 

[yorksrob]

What I'm saying is that there's no excuse for not making each form of transport as safe as possible. I doubt many would want to travel by road in a Rover 100 when there are road vehicles available that are more crashworthy. The same goes for rail, why use something unsafe when more crashworthy modern trains are available?

I don't really get the argument as to why under your logic, people should tolerate a less safe form of transport for the same journey, just because it is a different mode, however I'm not really arguing that we should suddenly bring back lots of slam door trains that don't exist.

I would argue against the sort of hysterical reaction that one generation of rolling stock was somehow a "death trap" hust because it has been superceeded through technological developments. My father drives a car which is ten years old. Is he "unsafe" because his car wasn't built to the most modern standards ?

I would expect the current generation of rolling stock to be safer than that it replaced, just as the slammers were safer then the wooden bodied units that they replaced. However, picking out some very bad train crashes and shouting "death trap" is nonsense.

 

[Zoe]

I don't really get the argument as to why under your logic, people should tolerate a less safe form of transport for the same journey

It's not practical to force everyone to use rail so given that people will use other forms of transport even though they are not as safe as rail, there's no excuse for not making it as safe as possible. It wouldn't be acceptable to say coach safety is not important as people should just use rail.

 

[jopsuk]

Well, I hope you never travel by road vehicle or plane because those are real death traps.

The point was that the lack of structural strength in those units, compared to modern ones built with the knowledge of those crashes, helped contribute to the deaths.

As, of course, did outdated working practices and poor/non existent train protection systems. But the point remains- if the safety systems fail and your train does crash, you've got a far, far better chance of getting out alive if it is a Desiro than if it is 4VEP.

 

[Wath Yard]

What I'm saying is that there's no excuse for not making each form of transport as safe as possible.

Yes there is a reason. Human lives have an official monetary value that is used when deciding whether safety measures offer value for money. Vast amounts of money should not be spent saving a few theoretical lives.

 

[Zoe]

Yes there is a reason. Human lives have an official monetary value that is used when deciding whether safety measures offer value for money. Vast amounts of money should not be spent saving a few theoretical lives.

That is your opinion, it won't be everyone's. There is only an official monetary value of a life as the system has decided that there is.

 

[yorksrob]

It's not practical to force everyone to use rail so given that people will use other forms of transport even though they are not as safe as rail, there's no excuse for not making it as safe as possible. It wouldn't be acceptable to say coach safety is not important as people should just use rail.

I would argue that it's not practical to withdraw a large class of rolling stock regardless of whether it was life expired or not, just because of an arbitrary date pulled out of a hat by someone who felt that it wasn't as safe as some modern designs of train. My view on this has been reinforced by the effect that this mass replacement has had on railway finances, as well as the diversion of resources from providing extra capacity to deal with overcrowding.

 

[Wath Yard]

That is your opinion, it won't be everyone's. There is only an official monetary value of a life as the system has decided that there is.

No it isn't my opinion, and I don't care whether it is everybody elses. It is a fact. There are official values for human lives. They differ depending on the mode of transport but a life has a monetary value.