Two Trains on a Platform Door Policy

[Butts]

Why on earth do they not open up both trains when two are sharing a platform and departing within minutes of each other ?

Seemingly this radical course of action is to revolutionary at Edinburgh Waverley.

This Morning on Platform 10 the 0700 Glasgow Service and 0703 Dunblane Service were nose to tail.

They wouldn't open the doors for the Dunblane Service until the Glasgow one had departed. So passengers awaiting that service were left to freeze outside. Do they have so little faith in people that they can't differentiate between two services notwithstanding the numerous announcements made prior to departure and the internal and external signage ?

Still at least it confirmed to me it does not just happen on Platform 14 which the 0703 Dunblane normally shares with the 0700 Dundee service. Again the same procedure is enacted, no doors opened until the Dundee Service has departed.

Is there any technical or legal foundation to this absurd practice ?

 

[Aivilo]

Generally because Joe public will jump on the first set with the doors open then cry about it when said train departs without them

 

[Jonfun]

Have the crew arrived to the train any earlier? If they've just booked on, then by the time they've got themselves sorted and walked to the train it wouldn't be far off departure time.

 

[Dave1987]

One very simple answer. Railway staff unfortunately can't trust all passengers to pay attention to the boards about which train is which. The old cliche of "see a train, try and get on it" is very prevalent. The only way to ensure people don't board the wrong service is to not allow them to actually board the wrong train. Unfortunately this has the side affect that passengers who are aware of which train is which are inconvenienced.

 

[Butts]

One very simple answer. Railway staff unfortunately can't trust all passengers to pay attention to the boards about which train is which. The old cliche of "see a train, try and get on it" is very prevalent. The only way to ensure people don't board the wrong service is to not allow them to actually board the wrong train. Unfortunately this has the side affect that passengers who are aware of which train is which are inconvenienced.

Well I'd say tough sh*t - as Orlov would concur "seemples" listen to the announcements and read the signage
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Have the crew arrived to the train any earlier? If they've just booked on, then by the time they've got themselves sorted and walked to the train it wouldn't be far off departure time.

The Crew were on both trains !!!

 

[Tetchytyke]

Is there any technical or legal foundation to this absurd practice ?

London Midland do the same thing with the Crewe/Birmingham NS trains (they come in as an 8-car, split, and they don't open the second train until the first one goes). Stops people getting on the wrong train.

It's a bit annoying but probably makes sense.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

At St Pancras for example the 10.26 Sheffield and 10.29 Nottingham are split from the same inbound pair and are both opened at once.

Invariably when they start making on board announcements on the rear unit that it is the Nottingham train, half the passengers get off in a hurried panic...

 

[Bletchleyite]

London Midland do the same thing with the Crewe/Birmingham NS trains (they come in as an 8-car, split, and they don't open the second train until the first one goes). Stops people getting on the wrong train.

It's a bit annoying but probably makes sense.

They did that at Euston on Sunday evening and people *still* ended up on the wrong train. One group of lads in getting off at the last second knocked a father flying, his coffee (which was in a bag) going everywhere, while he was trying to board with a pram with a kid in it. It is fortunate there weren't more serious injuries.

 

[Carntyne]

It'll be done for the reasons above. Passengers don't listen and then complain when they discover they're on the wrong train. 3 minutes is plenty of time anyway, intermediate station dwells are what, 30 secs to 1 min anyway?

 

[Bletchleyite]

It'll be done for the reasons above. Passengers don't listen and then complain when they discover they're on the wrong train. 3 minutes is plenty of time anyway, intermediate station dwells are what, 30 secs to 1 min anyway?

It is more civilised to board at a terminus with time to select a seat in a relaxed manner, with genuine first-come first-served operating rather than first-barged-on first-served. That's why some of us don't want any LM services to go onto Crossrail (nor for LM to operate Euston with the "scrum" like VT do).

 

[howittpie]

EMT seem quite good at boarding 2 trains at the same time. On a Saturday morning 2 trains for Nottingham leave within 7 minutes. They manage to board them at the same time. Plenty of on board announcements seems to do the trick.

 

[Bletchleyite]

EMT seem quite good at boarding 2 trains at the same time. On a Saturday morning 2 trains for Nottingham leave within 7 minutes. They manage to board them at the same time. Plenty of on board announcements seems to do the trick.

It would be made easier if we returned to having destination labels including calling points by every door. Yes, electronic displays are useful, but there usually aren't enough of them. With plug doors, the Pendolino solution of having it on the door (so when open right next to it) could and should be used more widely.

 

[wensley]

Do they have so little faith in people that they can't differentiate between two services...

Generally not, because they don't!!

 

[LowLevel]

Given that I regularly have passengers get on my train, from a through platform, 15 minutes before their scheduled train with announcements etc blaring away and then whinge at me and expect me to make it better for them as I take them for a 3 hour round trip to the next stop, no I don't trust them. 'It's a train, it's my platform, it must be my train'.

It's the inverse of the instinct to leg it for a train that doesn't leave for 10 minutes just because it seems to be there already thus falling over and breaking one's wrist and glasses.

 

[glbotu]

I think it's important to remember that rules aren't made for the sensible, well meaning, intelligent people that make up the vast majority (those people would do the sensible thing anyway), they're made for the small minority, who will get on the wrong train and claim it's not their fault.

 

[terryc]

It still doesn't prevent 'early' passengers that should be boarding the 2nd train to leave from getting on the first!
So potential problems are only halved

(Mr Stupid here knows from 1st hand experience at Manchester Victoria! ), but I do blame my travelling companion at the time, Mr Al Cohol.

 

[plastictaffy]

Usually, the crew will always be in the vicinity of the stock just waiting for the front unit to leave. We do have some ridiculous diagramming though where that isn't the case. Booked to arrive and leave within a few minutes including finding the right unit!!! There's one in the mornings that splits three ways xx46/xx49/xx13 I think, and if the unit is open they will get on without looking or sometimes even caring where it's going!!! Then it's our fault they wanted the xx46 but actually got the xx49.

 

[WelshBluebird]

This isn't the case at Cardiff Central.
Seems to be a regular thing for a Caerphilly service and a Treherbert service to be standing at platform 6 at the same time, both with doors open allowing passengers to get on / off.

 

[northwichcat]

It still doesn't prevent 'early' passengers that should be boarding the 2nd train to leave from getting on the first!

Neither does it prevent people who should be boarding the front train standing on the platform with the people waiting for the second train to be opened up. That sometimes happens in the evening at Manchester Piccadilly when a Hazel Grove train (which doesn't get that many passengers) is in front of a slightly later Chester train (which gets more passengers.) Sometimes the passengers who do that only want to go as far as Stockport so they can just board the Chester one and get there a bit later, other times they do actually want a station on the Hazel Grove line.

 

[TheEdge]

People don't pay attention to screens so wildly board the wrong train if both are open.

At Ipswich in the afternoon you have the 15.54 Lowestoft and 16.00 Peterborough sharing a platform. If the Peterborough unit is open it is always fun to make a PA on it announcing that it is not the Lowestoft and counting the passengers off. All this despite multiple PAs on the station that the Lowestoft is at the front and scrolling messages on the PIS screens.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

This isn't the case at Cardiff Central.
Seems to be a regular thing for a Caerphilly service and a Treherbert service to be standing at platform 6 at the same time, both with doors open allowing passengers to get on / off.

Yes, but it doesn't prevent people from getting on the wrong train, especially if the announcement(s) / electronic display(s) are wrong!

Having said that, I do think that trains ought to be opened as soon as they arrive. It is unacceptable that passengers have to wait on freezing cold platform when the train is there and someone is in the cab, even if it's not the actual driver for the service.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Yes, but it doesn't prevent people from getting on the wrong train, especially if the announcement(s) / electronic display(s) are wrong!

Tbh every time I have noticed it happen at Cardiff, the staff have been very good with doing manual announcements on the PA being very clear that the front train is for x and the rear train is for y and repeating that announcement several times.

Of course that doesn't help much if you don't speak English, can't hear well or are very confused, but for the vast majority of people who get on the wrong train they only have themselves to blame for being too stuck in their own world when announcements like that are made!

At Cardiff specifically it does help that nearly every service leaving platform 6 in normal service (so excluding times like last weekend when P6 was being used for Holyhead services too) stops at Cardiff Queen Street, giving a second chance for passengers if they have got on the wrong service (and again guards are generally very good at making announcements on departure from Cardiff Central so people should really know by the time they get to Queen Street).

 

[A-driver]

They did this for a few weeks at kings cross suburban. But it was a disaster as passengers refuse to read thinking Tgey know best! They had the 21/2205 Cambridge boarding on 9A and the 21/2210 Peterborough boarding on 9B. Too many people wanting potters bar/Hatfield etc ended up on the first stop Biggleswade express as they hadn't read the boards properly so they stopped it again.

 

[NSEFAN]

I'm afraid I agree with the decision to keep the doors of the second departure closed until the first has left.

I've seen it happen at Reading before, where a Gatwick and Waterloo train were sharing the same platform, with the Gatwick service right up the far end. The information screens on the platform were merely showing the two departures, no "front train for Gatwick" etc, and the staff didn't seem to realise how many people were boarding the Waterloo train expecting it to go to Gatwick. Shortly before departure of the Gatwick train, the guard on the Waterloo train announced the situation and many people with suitcases promptly alighted to run up the platform. Sadly many of them missed the Gatwick service and were rather peeved.

The two ways to avoid that problem would either have been to have regular announcements on both trains (every few minutes until departure), or simply keep the doors closed until the first train has left. You can't guarantee that pax will hear/see/understand the announcements but a locked door tends to be a fairly clear message!

 

[Starmill]

It would be made easier if we returned to having destination labels including calling points by every door. Yes, electronic displays are useful, but there usually aren't enough of them. With plug doors, the Pendolino solution of having it on the door (so when open right next to it) could and should be used more widely.

Surely the ones on the Meridians are on the opposite side to which the door opens? Certainly an open door does not obscure the screen on a Voyager.

 

[313103]

Generally because Joe public will jump on the first set with the doors open then cry about it when said train departs without them

What he said ^^^.

Seen it so many times, the general public just run onto the first set of doors they find and then whinge and have a tantrum when the train they want leaves with them sitting on the wrong set.

It is done to protect passengers from their own idiocy. Sorry to be blunt.

 

[Bellbell]

Yes, but it doesn't prevent people from getting on the wrong train, especially if the announcement(s) / electronic display(s) are wrong!

Having said that, I do think that trains ought to be opened as soon as they arrive. It is unacceptable that passengers have to wait on freezing cold platform when the train is there and someone is in the cab, even if it's not the actual driver for the service.

I was berated once by a passenger for not opening the doors on a service. Admittedly it was cold and dark but the service was only in the platform because it had been terminated short (and thus started short) because the driver and I would otherwise have had no break. As it happened the driver and I stayed on the train which is why we were visible to the passenger. As I tried to explain to her once I've got passengers onboard I'm 'working', I can't sit in the saloon and read my book and eat my dinner in peace, and I'm not really supposed to toddle off to the loo etc.

The passenger refused to accept this, refused my suggestion that she go to the open waiting room on the other platforms (too far to go was her response) and sulked like a petulant child. Under normal circumstances she'd have been waiting in the cold for even longer as the train would have had only a 30 second dwell time there.

I work frequent services that come in at a terminus station and then have another train put on top which will obviously go out first (there's a whopping great concourse stopping anything going the other way). If I can lock up my train I will because passengers cannot interpret 'front train only' as 'don't just get on at the first door of the first train you come to'. It inconveniences some passengers, yes, but it's better than me sorting out all those people who ignore repeated announcements about what train this is/put their headphones in and ignore everything around them. If I can't lock my train up I make several announcements and physically walk through the train shouting the destination and major calling points but still usually get one or two :roll:

 

[northwichcat]

Seen it so many times, the general public just run onto the first set of doors they find and then whinge and have a tantrum when the train they want leaves with them sitting on the wrong set.

It is done to protect passengers from their own idiocy. Sorry to be blunt.

Yet where there are portion workings both trains have to have their doors opened at the same time and passengers have to board the right train. Having PIS on the train means people are more likely to realise if they are on the wrong train. If they are boarding at Preston and want Blackpool but the PIS says Windermere then it's obvious even to an idiot that it's the wrong train.

 

[Matt Taylor]

Had it last week, 1824 Waterloo and 1838 Southampton both in p3 at Southsea (Low Level) with all doors open.

Doing a ticket check just before Guildford I found a chap who wanted Woolston, he'd missed several announcements and as a result he got to Woolston at 2155 instead of 1924.

This is why we keep the doors closed.

 

[Kentish Paul]

Just sums up a lot of peoples inattention these days.

When a lot of down Southeastern trains split at Ashford you would see a lot of people running from one bit to the other after the split was made. This would be after more than an hours trip from London with numerous announcments and the conductor checking tickets.

I could say much more but will probably incur the wrath of the moderators. :roll::roll: