Flirt Doors

[tsr]

You won't find many 'breakaway windows' on trains nowadays. They were all replaced with toughened glass on the basis that retention of passengers within the vehicles is a greater concern in an accident than escape. Have a look next time you're travelling and you'll notice all the hammers have gone. Automatic supression is limited to the fire bottles beneath the solebar on DMUs, saloons get manual fire extinguishers. Struggling to think of any other 'flavours' of fire protection, aside from the use of retardant materials.

Window hammers still exist on numerous trains, including modern stock such as most Electrostars and Turbostars (and they do work, too). They may not be visible but they are most definitely in the equipment cupboards and cabs, the former being accessible for passengers by means of an emergency handle. Obviously it is rather hoped that on power-door stock there will be at least one external door leaf or one gangway door to provide an exit in an emergency and convenient emergency services access, which I suppose is partly why hammers are less visible. On slamdoor stock, as an example, ideally windows need to be exit routes as you would struggle to unlock and push open a heavy manual door on a train which has [partially] overturned, but in such an event you also have to weigh up the ejection risk and the possibility that the gangway connections may be severed and provide added escape routes.

As for automatic fire systems, not only do many trains have fire bottles under the solebar, but some stock also has automatic suppression in non-driving cabs and you also have newer systems to extract smoke automatically, such as is found on Desiro Cities. Then you get little-known innovations such as gangway doors preventing access to coaches where smoke alarms have activated, which has been present on 377s since their introduction. These also act to suppress fires by not allowing movement in close proximity to open the doors automatically, thereby sucking in oxygen from the rest of the train, whilst still maintaining an exit-only route if anyone is trapped. Etc. etc.!

 

[grumblingalong]

There seems to be a lot of wind about this - the designs shown in Modern Railways show a set of table seats and three drop down seats - I'd estimate that it's a maximum of four metres between the front passenger bulkhead and the front doors. Fires are rare on trains, modern materials have reduced combustibility, even with a catalyst like for example a petrol bomb, moving four metres isn't a great distance, plus there is a staff door in the front bulkhead that could be used as an escape route (subject to breakable locks).

In terms of capacity, a typical end door regional unit like a 156/158, has two doors close together in adjoining units, so on a three car unit, there are four positions for doors - single at each end, then a pair of closely associated at the articulation between carriages - the FLIRT moves the end doors away from the ends then spaces the intermediate doors inbetween, plus provides a doorway that appears to be 1.5x wider than a typical single door on a 156/158 unit. The huge benefit to my mind is the low floor arrangement that will aid access by wheelchair users, buggies and people loading heavy bags or cycles - it appears at face value, a step change in a positive direction, but time will tell on how these units perform, I suspect they will be liked on the regional routes, with near level access, big windows, better toilets and lots of tables.


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They'll be like on rural routes purely because we will never have to see a full and standing 153 enter the platform like its had far too much coolant fluid on Saturday night.