As I put in a previous post . One door release incident at my guarded toc that I know of and almost every week at my doo toc .
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Northern Practice at Stations
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InkyScrolls
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331s and 195s are particularly awkward for the conductor for several reasons: Offset control panels, a nonstandard key, cheap and nasty barrels which can be a devil to turn, and ASDO which barely functions, requiring at some stations three actions to attain full release (open local and check platform, open to the left, open to the right). The door opening procedure is generally slightly slower on the CAF units than on, say, a 333, which is about as easy to work as they come. (Contrary the door close procedure is quickest on the CAF units.) The greatest delays arise, however, from overzealous revenue warriors being habitually late to the doors - despite Northern pointing out and going to great lengths to press home to conductors that a £2.50 fare pales into insignificance against the delay cost of £60 per minute!
northwichcat
Veteran Member
Does that mean the guard could get off without the driver realising, or not? It's going to create a bit of a problem if the train gets to Oxford Road and there's no guard to release the doors! And could an open door create a clearance issue, even if passengers can't get to it without ignoring a 'crew access only' sign?
Given everytime I get on a train there's multiple stops, I would say the probability of the driver stopping in the correct position is over 99.9%. Perhaps if you work on the railways and are stopping at hundreds of stations every day then you will have experienced the one in a million/ten hundred thousand etc. chance at least once?
It sounds like you didn't and even if you did the doors buttons would have been operational, rather than the doors actually opening. It obviously makes sense to look at why mistakes were made and not pretend they didn't happen, but even if you made the mistake the most likely scanerio is probably that you would have pressed the button to close before anyone had tried to open one.
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There must be very few of those now. Northwich to Greenbank is £2.80 Off Peak Single and that's just going from one side of a small town to the other.
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It's not about the age of the platform, it's about the condition and safety of what's currently there, i'll refer you to the state of Buckshaw Parkway which is now only 12 years old and there are plastic covers over gaps that are appearing in the coping stones.
Another factor to this discussion which seems to go round and round relating loosely to driver control is the large range of traction types that Northern have to work with, it's not unknown for train crew to be working four or five different types of train in a shift - this imports risk into the operation as that is relying on a human to be perfect at remembering a lot of detail all the time, so sometimes two heads are better than one.
Besides as someone else has noted above the majority of the current traction is not suitable/ cost effective for changing methods of door operation at this stage.....
I didn't that's correct. But I was close. Not even close to any incident involving myself and a guard , not one nada. On one class of traction I sign I need a door key in the lock and turned , which is behind me. The guard needs a key in the lock too . I only have one to do a door test and that's done on nights or the very first train out in the morning. I don't take that key off my belt loop any other time and my guard doesn't put their key in until they see a platform outside. On the other units I sign I have to firstly turn a selector to either the left or right. I then have to press a number on a different bit for the amount of doors to be opened and then another button to authorise the guard. The guard then needs to open the doors. Very hard to both make a mistake. The problem with doo is that sometimes your hand goes to the buttons without thinking. On a guarded service , by the time I have pressed this that and the other , my guard has time to look out of the window and make sure we are platformed. Also as long on the other units you don't put the key in , you can't open the door and so you wait until platformed. Can it happen , yes of course. But it's rare for both me to make a mistake and the guard to also make a mistake.
Still could be some issue with the platform the train is accomodated in , heard of instances when coping stones have come loose theres something else going on on the platform like heavy ice or snow that you might want to warn passengers about first , I remember one morning ariving at a station and finding someone had availed themselves of half the platform length of york stone coping overnight .
And of course whilst the driver is supposed to give 2-2 on the buzzer if theyve gone past the end of the platform meaning front doors are , its not inconceivable that in a panic theyve forgotton or on some stock the guard hasn't heard it because of the way the panels work . On a 6 car train it can at some stations particularly when platforms are busy be difficult to ascertain if the front of the train is on .
Different types of system, from ones sophisticated enough to know how much of the train is actually accomodated , to systems that are just a database of platform lengths and door release patterns .
The other thing is system can provide for a safe operation but not necessarilly give much info to the operator so for example if you are in the rear 4 coaches of an 8 car formation and the driver has only stopped for 4 cars at an 8 car platform and you cannot get off as a result you might be a little miffed as the driver closes up and takes off for the next station . I guess you could try the alarm if you work out whats going on before the driver closes and goes .
As a guard I don't actually think that saloon panels are the worst thing in the world if they are supplementary to cab door control panels so that I can operate the doors from a cab when a service is full and standing.
on 150/1 the slam local door is not interlocked so the train can move with that door open . This is one of the risks that is drummed into traincrew that sign them .
Although there is no clearance issue of one movig with a local door open because the door opens inwards and passengers cannot readily access the vestibule with the slam doors .
Got to bear in mind that rail staff will also hear through official channels from their employers about incidents network wide as well .
On 150/1s the slam doors open inwards so there is zero clearance issue with them being open.
The saloon to vestibule door is self locking when closed so is unable to be opened by passengers, regardless of if they read the signage or not.
The odds of the guard getting off and not releasing the passenger doors before he hears the brakes release, the engines rev and the unit pull away without him onboard would require an entire dairy's worth of cheese slices to line up.
I try amd give the benefit of the doubt and assume that posters have at least put some thought into what they are writing. The doors open inwards. Surely if you travel often on 150/1s you must have noticed this?
I mostly work class 1 regional trains. Say 50 stops per shift. Someone on suburban class 2 work could easily cover 150. Multiply that by each set of traincrew across the UK. If a DOO driver messed up on one in a hundred stops you'd have no one left who wasn't on gardening leave while OTMR downloads are examined and mediscreen are summoned. With this in mind you must see how even better odds aren't good enough for one of the safest railways in the world. With both a driver and a guard involved in stopping at stations/releasing doors you need both of them to individually mess up (distraction or miscommunication isn't relevant here because normally each stage of arriving at a station is done without any communication, that hypothetical probability of 1/100 squares to become 1/10000.
Are you familiar with Heinrich's triangle? Near misses are still things to be worried about.
Which is just as bad. Relying on "do not alight here" signs is no longer good enough. It only takes one person who is not concentrating (headphones in, looking at phone etc.) to blindly press the open button and plummet like a lemming.
On what basis do you think that is the most likely scenario? Passengers will press the "open" button, that's almost guaranteed. Once you press the close doors button it's not a quick process before they're secure again.
Kids' fares?
On a 195 the saloon panels are the only ones. Otherwise I agree, ideally every door should have a DKS, as they do on a 158.
Of course you also have your blind/visually impaired passengers out and about as well . The headlines about a blind person falling out of a train not properly positioned on a platform write themselves .
195's & 331's are really not great to work , even lightly loaded if you aren't at the panel before the announcement goes off you've got to battle through the passengers getting up ready to get off (not their fault ofc) . Been caught out a few times by platform alterations as well
It’s interesting. The RSSB (as @LowLevel says) have done loads of research into this using human factors experts, industry experts, statistical analysis and a lot more. It might not appear to be “common sense” but sometimes research and analysis doesn’t come up the way you might expect and things are more complicated as to the reasoning than it appears. They state that one-person dispatch is safer in most occasions, although in a number of situations this isn’t satisfactory (e.g. major transport hubs and London terminals) and can & should be backed up by dispatch staff (and normally are). I have no doubt that other organisations have found 2-person dispatch safer, but does that carry the same weight? Depends on your outlook.
Unfortunately this whole area has got very political and dogmatic due to the DOO disputes, so it is difficult to rationally and dispassionately argue with both sides claiming the other has an “agenda”.
Who is the monitoring person in a two-person dispatch?
Purple Train
Established Member
Which ironically now has the opposite problem of having 9-coach trains serving an 8-coach platform!
Which system does the Elizabeth line use? I presume "cheaper ASDO" as doors that are only occasionally platformed don't open (for instance, the first door of the back coach at Burnham), but it also locks out a specific number of doors rather than simply the doors in the last x carriages, so I'm not sure.
As an aside, is Paddington platform 10 (IIRC) the only place in the country where doors have been automatically locked out due to the gap between the train and the platform, rather than a short platform? The doors in the middle were always locked out, as the gap was quite sizeable, (and the step pretty large as well anyway). Though it compares favourably to getting two heavy rucksacks plus a friend with a dodgy back off an IET at the same platform - I virtually had to jump!
Does this happen on non-Stadler routes as well?
Back on topic, I really don't know what the big deal is. I'd rather the train was 15 seconds late due to the guard being a little cautious than an incident occurred. It seems, to me, sensible.
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Ironically, 333s were also built by CAF.
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dk1
Veteran Member
Non-Stadler routes are DOO. The only Stadler exception is Stansted Express which has always been DOO but that is operated by West Anglia who have very different T&Cs.
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Everything on those sets is awkward, multiple faults (eg ghost ASDO activations) - CAF should have been forced to put things right, it's shocking how many contracts they won, even as their newly arrived trains were falling apart.
There will always be the occasional driver or guard who delays trains however that is for the operator to manage. As for our (new member) OPs suggestion that this is all the time, I simply don't see it in the performance figures & delay attribution.
Falcon1200
Established Member
Having travelled on DOO trains since 1986, and worked in an operational role on the railway until 2016, I can only say that in my experience such incidents are incredibly rare.
It is noticeable on non-DOO routes how much longer station stops can take, especially if the last person whose ticket the Guard checks before arriving at the next stop has a complex or time-consuming issue. If full DOO is no longer acceptable, Driver Open/Guard Close seems to be a reasonable compromise.
Lemmy99uk
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Evidence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists (but not in public).
InkyScrolls
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There's quite a few fares of that order of magnitude in West Yorks, where the council heavily subsidises the cost.
Purple Train
Established Member
Interesting, thanks
northwichcat
Veteran Member
To be honest passengers don't examine crew doors. We know the 150/1s has a slam door for the guard because we hear it slam shut. Likewise I don't know if passengers can open the door marked crew access only because I've never tried it, as it's labelled crew access only.
How are you coming to that number? I can't speak for every line but at some stations the stopping place is the same place regardless of the train length, as other places it's variable. You say the driver might forget. He/she might forget it's only 2/4 cars and not a longer 4/8 and then that wouldn't be a safety issue, just an inconvenience for passengers and having a guard there wouldn't stop that inconvenience.
I did say it's something that needs to be considered. However, all possible outcomes need to be considered. A driver thinking about pressing the door release button and then not doing it means the driver correctly prevented any potential incident.
The post did say at a red signal nowhere near a platform. It didn't say just outside a station, although I suppose it could have been. It could have been 20 minutes away from the next station adjacent to a field with cows in it, where no-one was expecting to alight.
In Manchester Metrolink trams have a system where the doors automatically open when the driver releases, if someone presses before the tram comes to a stop. Even though Metrolink regulars are aware of that they aren't pressing door open buttons well before the tram comes to a stop. If the next stop hasn't been announced, it's almost a certainty a button hasn't been pressed.
Passengers pressing open presumes the error is made near a station. If it's in the middle of nowhere it's just as likely that someone will get up and press the call to aid to inform staff something doesn't seem right. Some passengers might not think but others do, and don't want to arrive late because of an incident that can be prevented.
Except on trains carrying large numbers of school pupils, kids travelling without adults aren't a significant number of passengers.
It was a hypothetical example, hence the use of the word "if". Obviously drivers aren't releasing doors away from stations every shift. Other posters have said that it is happening once a week at some TOCs.
Red signals are far more commonly found at Ordsall Lane Junction than in the middle of nowhere. Crawling from signal to signal (as you do across the multiple junctions) is where mistakes are likely to happen. The auto announcer on certain units will announce Oxford Road around there.
It only takes one. You board a train at station A, you are going to C. When the train departs from B the auto announcer announces "this train is for D, the next stop is C". You're not local and don't know how far B & C are apart, A & B were close together so bearing in mind that you aren't as quick as you used to be you get up ready. It might be dark outside, you may have a visual impairment, you may be drunk etc. The button lights up, the squeaker pings, you press the button and step out.
Guard here (not for Northern).
In my experience there are some stations where I can have the platform checked and doors open within a matter of seconds. As stated above if you've got say a 2 car on a long platform you only need a quick glance to be safe. If its a 2 car max platform and you've got a 2 car, then you need to take a bit longer to ensure the train is fully accommodated. I have had to buzz 6 to the driver (draw forward) a few times when my back door has been slightly off.
Other platforms with a curve eg Earlestown we have to step fully out of the train and up to the fence to check the platform and ensure the train is where it should be.
We are also told to check for things like people fighting on the platform, safety issues, and of course its easier to see if there is a wheelchair user waiting to board before releasing the doors and having passengers flooding the platform. An old manager of mine would say "did you see the man with the axe?" If you didn't step out and check properly, "if you checked the platform properly you'd have seen him!".
I work CAF units which can be slow to open for a number of reasons. Example being at Manchester Oxford Road P4 its open local door, step right out due to the curve, walk back in toggle switch to override ASDO, release doors. Takes about 10 seconds.
On our CAFs the cab doors have a window sensor - the cab door won't open with the window down. Sometimes the window isn't touching the switch properly and the door won't open, takes a bit of faffing around opening and slamming the window to convince the door to open. Adds a few seconds on.
Other times on the CAFs you'll stop at an ASDO station, press release doors and ASDO has lost its gps signal, you then have to fumble around to override the ASDO, ensuring you only override the correct doors if the platform is short etc.
In contrast I find the driver open on Merseyrails 777s much slower then the guard open on a 507/8!
In my experience there are some stations where I can have the platform checked and doors open within a matter of seconds. As stated above if you've got say a 2 car on a long platform you only need a quick glance to be safe. If its a 2 car max platform and you've got a 2 car, then you need to take a bit longer to ensure the train is fully accommodated. I have had to buzz 6 to the driver (draw forward) a few times when my back door has been slightly off.
Other platforms with a curve eg Earlestown we have to step fully out of the train and up to the fence to check the platform and ensure the train is where it should be.
We are also told to check for things like people fighting on the platform, safety issues, and of course its easier to see if there is a wheelchair user waiting to board before releasing the doors and having passengers flooding the platform. An old manager of mine would say "did you see the man with the axe?" If you didn't step out and check properly, "if you checked the platform properly you'd have seen him!".
I work CAF units which can be slow to open for a number of reasons. Example being at Manchester Oxford Road P4 its open local door, step right out due to the curve, walk back in toggle switch to override ASDO, release doors. Takes about 10 seconds.
On our CAFs the cab doors have a window sensor - the cab door won't open with the window down. Sometimes the window isn't touching the switch properly and the door won't open, takes a bit of faffing around opening and slamming the window to convince the door to open. Adds a few seconds on.
Other times on the CAFs you'll stop at an ASDO station, press release doors and ASDO has lost its gps signal, you then have to fumble around to override the ASDO, ensuring you only override the correct doors if the platform is short etc.
In contrast I find the driver open on Merseyrails 777s much slower then the guard open on a 507/8!
How are you measuring rarity ?
Stops per Driver
Stops per diagram
Stops per [insert unit length]
Occurrences per year
Occurrences per Driver
Occurrences per depot
Normalised data over X period
Occurrences vs station stops
Per unit mileage
Per stop mark unit stops
TOC variances
National vs TOC average
Reported incidents
Purely anecdotal
Stop Shorts and Door releases are probably the second most common incident at my TOC
Is there any public data on stop short incidents or other PTI incidents ? Which PTI (platform train interface) incidents are in your 'such incidents' ? Do you include trap and drags ?
I believe there is a safety performance review that is public but I haven't read it for a while.
Parham Wood
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Since in my view drivers are paid a handsome salary I would expect them to be able to stop a train at the required place!
noddingdonkey
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There have been multiple incidents of the guard going onto the platform to fix a door fault and being left behind when the driver started up after getting interlock. One example https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/conductor-left-behind.57913/
Does a higher salary equate to higher competence ?
Does a Eurostar Driver make less errors than a Lumo Driver ? OR should they simply get penalised more if they make an error because they are expected to perform better because they are paid more ?
Attitudes like that do nothing to address the very real and basic fact that human and indeed sometimes non human factors are at play .
They are required to stop a train at the required place ,indeed any incidents of it not happening that come to light are investigated . But that investigation in my view should probably delve a little deeper than "you are paid well so why cant you do the job properly" . Especially if your aim with any safety incident monitoring/investigation is to identify any reccurent themes and see if things can be changed to reduce risk even further .
Falcon1200
Established Member
By the total number of such incidents.
Presumably these incidents comprise trains formed, for example, 6 v 3 or 8 v 4 (non-diagrammed strengthening, or does it happen with booked double sets also?) stopping at the single set marker with rear vehicles not platformed. If this is, as seems to be the case, a regular issue at one TOC, that TOC has a serious problem to address. All I can say again is that in my experience such incidents are exceedingly rare.
Depends on what you consider to be "second most common" & "a regular issue"
I mean it could be that the second most common incident occurs twice a year , if there are no other incidents that occur with that or higher frequency then statistically that is the case . I dont think you would consider an incident that occurs twice a year to be regular or frequent .
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