ryan125hst
Established Member
My sister commutes from Retford to Sheffield for uni and at one point earlier this year, before the May timetable change, the 07:36 was often formed of a five coach Pacer (a three car and a two car coupled). This is too long for some of the intermediate stations on the route (I believe the Kiveton stations have the shortest platforms) and so a Pacer of that length wouldn’t be able to fit. We were talking about this earlier on and she thought that the guard announced over the PA to move forward down the train to get off at those stations. That got me thinking about the rules regarding short platforms and trains with power doors.
Surely the guard will need to open their local door to check that the train is platformed before they open the doors, but they would need to stand at the non-platformed door in order to prevent passengers from falling off the train. But how would they then check that the doors were closed before they close their local door and give the signal for the driver to proceed? I think I travelled on such a train myself once and I regret not getting myself in a position where I could observe how it was operated.
This wasn’t a one off and was done every day for a brief period (as long as the train wasn't short formed!). She also told me that for the Lincoln Christmas Market last year, they ran a Class 158+Pacer combination which must have run into the same issues (the shortest platform is only able to take three 23m coaches if I remember rightly).
Does anyone know how they did this?
Surely the guard will need to open their local door to check that the train is platformed before they open the doors, but they would need to stand at the non-platformed door in order to prevent passengers from falling off the train. But how would they then check that the doors were closed before they close their local door and give the signal for the driver to proceed? I think I travelled on such a train myself once and I regret not getting myself in a position where I could observe how it was operated.
This wasn’t a one off and was done every day for a brief period (as long as the train wasn't short formed!). She also told me that for the Lincoln Christmas Market last year, they ran a Class 158+Pacer combination which must have run into the same issues (the shortest platform is only able to take three 23m coaches if I remember rightly).
Does anyone know how they did this?