On Tuesday (26th July), I was on a Thameslink Class 700 (12-car variant) which left Cambridge and headed for Brighton.
We had an unscheduled stop at Meldreth, with the driver announcing that there was an overhead wire problem ahead.
The train came to a stand with only the rearmost coach (which I was sat in) wholly in the platform. After about 20 minutes of waiting, a decision was made to get everyone off the train.
What surprised me was that they weren't able to release the normal passenger door on the rear coach, and instead chose to have everyone alight via the rear cab and driver's door.
Of course, it would have been possible to release the door using the emergency release handle but then presumably it would have been difficult to close it again when the train was needed to be moved again.
Is there some limitation of the 700s' doors system that prevents a driver releasing a specific door?
We had an unscheduled stop at Meldreth, with the driver announcing that there was an overhead wire problem ahead.
The train came to a stand with only the rearmost coach (which I was sat in) wholly in the platform. After about 20 minutes of waiting, a decision was made to get everyone off the train.
What surprised me was that they weren't able to release the normal passenger door on the rear coach, and instead chose to have everyone alight via the rear cab and driver's door.
Of course, it would have been possible to release the door using the emergency release handle but then presumably it would have been difficult to close it again when the train was needed to be moved again.
Is there some limitation of the 700s' doors system that prevents a driver releasing a specific door?