Why did the GWR not use smoke deflectors?

Trouble is Paul is that your posts are absolute - no room for discussion. People raise valid points so you simply dismiss them. The outward opening doors question is a good example. People ask how you would accommodate inward opening doors on suburban stock so you state that you were only considering corridor stock. Then you're asked how would suburban services achieve the required capacity with corridor stock and your answer is that
it's the other person trying to make a point about capacity. No cogent answer at all.

 

Especially in a crowded suburban set. I remain convinced that if outward opening doors were slaughtering would be passengers by the hundred, then higher authority would have intervened just as they did with the continuous brake etc.

 

Indeed. Imagine a crowded train entering a crowded platform. Easier (and safer) for people on the platform to move back from an outward opening door, than people on the train to move back from an inward opening door.

Best of all are sliding doors of course, but I don't think they were readily available to the GWR!

Tom

 

Even sliding doors bring their own issues of course. If they slide into the carriage they take up space which is none too generous on a UK loading gauge, and they must be a great deal more expensive to fit and maintain, especially if you consider what it would have taken in 1930s technology: unpowered sliding doors might well have been too much for some passengers to open at all, and as for the complications of having steam powered sliding doors...

 

Sorry Tom GWR built in 1907 Dia O coach No 48 as a 70' suburban coach, but it failed to work without the modern sliding doors, which stops people getting jammed in the doors when the guard pulled the leaver to shut all the doors so the idea was abandoned.

 

That makes two of us then. You really need to read what I said actually rather than what you think (or wish for the purposes of your argument) I had said.

PH

 

The LNWR Oerlikon EMUs introduced in 1919 (?) on the Euston-Watford "new" line had manually operated sliding doors. One coach can still be seen in the NRM, though opportunities to operate its doors are probably rare. My grandfather told me (whether seriously or in jest I'm not sure) that the doors were sometimes left open during rush hours to provide more standing space.

 

I rather liked the sliding doors on the old Berlin S-Bahn units. Beep...SMACK. You would only try to beat the doors once, not like these wussy modern units.


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Not quite...

MK IIIs used to have internal door handles, but these were removed & CDL fitted after several incidents where people fell out.

This clearly shows an ex- door handle:—



I vaguely recall at the time (90s?) that **some** of the incidents were put down to the casualty having 'been out for a light ale' & larking about, but nothing was ever proved. More likely IMO is that they were on a packed service & whilst standing in the vestibule, leaned against the handle with tragic consequences. A possible alternative is that the door was only half-latched and flew open when someone inadvertently leaned on the door. Whatever the true cause, the internal handles went & CDL got fitted.

A mortice-lock door cannot fail in this way; it's digital, having only two states - locked or unlocked - so is, in my view, intrinsically safer. If someone falls out of a Hawksworth it'd be highly likely that they had deliberately opened the door whilst the train was moving.

This thread on another rail forum suggests that CDL in its current form may not be as effective as perhaps we'd like to believe. I've no idea if it has a factual basis, but I won't be leaning against a MK III door any time soon.

P.

 

Interesting thoughts. I actually observed a person attempting to open one of these doors when the train was still moving, fortunately with no bad consequences. As to do so required the window to be lowered and the door "embraced" whilst the handle was turned it was not difficult to imagine windage catching the door and pulling the person outside. One reason why I dislike the arrangement. A good reason for avoiding swing doors on the modern railway.

Paul H

 

In 2015 they make sod all difference, as I notice an increasing number of dim witted people looking for the "door open" button on a Mk1...

 

When I was at school I bumped into a few mates on the way home from Kiddy anyway when the unit stopped at Rowley I was stood behind them waiting to get off, not one of them (6) understood press button, open door they thought doors opened automaticlly. I had to reach from behind and show how its done.

 

Since Mk.1s are unlikely to be encountered by the travelling public on their daily commute, why are they "dim witted" if they look for the door button? Just because we know how a Mk.1 door works, it doesn't mean others are blessed with the same knowledge. Even modern sliding door trains have their differences.

 

Just thinking about the visibility pros and cons, were any right hand drive locos ever fitted with smoke deflectors

 

1638 on the Bluebell for a start...

(The SECR was a right hand drive line and some of the SR-built moguls continued with RHD, and smoke deflectors).

Tom

 

Surely the reason GWR locos weren't fitted with smoke deflectors is due to the fact they had to work harder than other locos. All that excess brass and copper must weigh a fair bit. ;-)

 

Thank you, I was wondering about some of the SR locos, not knowing which side they were driven from.

 

You don't have to be very informed about trains to work out powered electric doors did not exist in the days of steam IMO, would you look for the I Phone socket on Stephensons Rocket ?.

 

Never assume that what is blindingly obvious to yourself is equally obvious to others. We can all come across something that's a mystery to us yet us second nature to others.

 

perhaps

Well a certain A1 has somthing very similer... God knows what they'll install on 2007 should imagine it'll be posting its own selfies on FB.