Great Western Coffee Shop

Railway Eye link.
http://railwayeye.blogspot.com/2008/10/cus-tomer.html

Happens all too often.

Seen it occur when train is actually moving, which causes more delay.

I recall once being invited, by the guard, to hop into the guard's van on an HST departing Bristol Parkway. Was a few years ago, hence the reference to guard.

Used to be a particular problem with the Southern Region VEPs (the ones with hundreds of doors : http://upmain.fotopic.net/p55904428.html) none of which had central door locking!

I used to commute in to Charing Cross from Kent on the "slam door" trains.. The whole train would be practically empty on arrival at Charing Cross before it had fully stopped as people would get off once the train was going slow enough that they could run at the same speed when they hit the platform!

Blimey - no 'elf and safety then, eh??   ;D

No Chris, no need. Common sense was more common back then ;)

Some timeless footage of NSE in their heyday with the VEPs/CEPs/CIGs/EPBs etc in a BBC documentary aired in the 90s:

Part 1 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=J-peIDOiTt8&feature=channel_page
Part 2 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=GS9fWTRN3n8
Part 3 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=sOJ-xZqeBF4
Part 4 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=FjYRoroaupM
Part 5 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mkaINEKwW2Y

Well worth a watch if you happen to have a spare 50 minutes!

We all knew that coming into Platforms 2, 4 and 6 at Charing Cross you had to wait until the train had slowed right down before you opened the door, or the wind would grab it.  But on 1, 3 or 5, the doors opened at the trailing edge and needed quite a push to open them.

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/epbstock.jpg)

An old 4 EPB unit (5001 to 5053 series?) showing slam door. Note the handle INSIDE - none of this dangerous sticking your hand out of the window to get to the catch!

Jo - I used to travel in from Petts Wood (and I worked in Whitehall when I was communting Charing Cross).  Where did your commute from?

But they weren't fitted on Mk3s to try to discourage people from opening them at 125mph in the days before central door locking bolts had been thought of. Not that this was a problem on most of their European contemporaries, which of course had power doors and locks put in from new.

I hardly see why you need them. Anyone with an ounce of common sense won't open a door at 125 mph! :D

And letting passengers open the door when the train was a running speed probably reduced dwells.

D/m, those vids were very interesting. Thanks for linking them.

It just shows how bad the third rail system was back then. ::)

And I hope Charing Cross has been modernised - in the vids it clearly couldn't cope! :o

Hmm I could have sworn we had to stick our hands out the window too to open those doors, but it WAS a long time ago now..

I commuted from Barnehurst which is on the middle of the three lines that go out to Dartford (and beyond)..

You're probably younger than me, Jo!  The old suburban units - the EPBs that I travelled in for many years - had the catches on the inside (and they were very heavily sprung!) - but the next units - the BEPs CEPs and VEPs which were build for intermediate and longer distances had handles on the outside only.  I moved away from north west Kent in 1976, and I suspect that the older units got withdrawn / scrapped with the ?EP units taking over from them in a cascade.  All of which takes us a very long way from the 10:21 from Paddington !

Some VEPs could be opened from the inside. Some did, however, have the internal catches blanked - possibly the same units that had bars fitted for safety in the narrow tunnels on certain lines (e.g. Oxted). As I understand it the main problem with internal handles on the HSTs was people swinging them open as the trains arrived at stations, thus slamming the doors into waiting passengers! Reaching out to open the door made people a bit more aware of any obstacles on the platforms.

Yes, I think I was commuting from Kent in about 1990.. I also commuted for a year or so before that from Westcliff-on-sea (Southend) into Fenchurch street and will have no doubt had the same type of trains there too. I do remember when I started using Thames trains in 1992, they already had the automatic doors...

The door locks with the inside handles are single acting locks whilst the locks with outside handles are double acting,.. they are completely different.
Singles acting locks were an early design fitted to mk1 inner suburban stock, these were later replaced with the more safer double acting type as fitted to the longer distance stock
HST locks are double acting and thus have no inner handle, and as for saying people wouldnt be so silly as to try to open doors at speed....you just watch them!!!

When I used to commute Hassocks to Brighton (to school!) there was a mix of two types of slam door stock - one as mentioned above with a door for every set of facing seats with internal release handles, and a (newer) version with less doors, and requiring the lean out of the window approach to egress. As an aside, the sets with internal release doors had bars welded over the windows to prevent leaning out at some point around 1992-ish.

The arrival of the Thameslink 319s with their sliding power doors was most exciting!