Why do different regions favour walkthrough cabs/gangway connections?

[Rhydgaled]

Where there is a gangway present it allows for some flexibilities:
- Better for train manager to access his train.
- Better if there are catering facilities present.
- Sometimes a train may be boarded at a sub-optimal place for various reasons ranging from late passenger arranging, location of platform entrance/shelter ... or just plain randonness.
-- Some opportunities for passengers to re-distribute on a crowded train.
-- Some opportunities for passengers to move to a better location to for exit at their destination.
-- Some opportunities for passengers to move to correct portion of a train if it is being split.
- Possibly better opportunities for passenger to locate working toilets.
- More options to exit the train in an emergency

I'm in agreement with that, wouldn't have thought of the last two myself but those are all good reasons for UEGs (Unit-End-Gangways). Personally, I also think UK 158s are better looking than the Tailand variant (without UEGs) and also 175s. The Heathrow Express units (and the similar trains in the Leeds area, class 333 I think) aren't too bad looking though.

 

[matchmaker]

If you want to go back a good few years the class 126 had both gangwayed and non gangwayed driving coaches.

 

[TEW]

Southern 455s are DOO only, AFAIK.

A few Southern 455s are worked by guards between Dorking and Horsham and Leatherhead and Guildford.

 

[Goldfish62]

I wasn't aware that GA had stopped making up the gangways on Cl317s working in multiple. To me that seems a very retrograde step.

O L Leigh

I had a quick look at Liverpool St the other day and gangways do indeed appear to be locked put now on the 317s.

It does seem to be becoming fashionable with SWT as well. More often than not the 458/5 gangways are locked out, and on the Reading line where 450s are being introduced it's far from unusual for the guard to lock out out the gangways in these as well. I asked a guard recently why he's done it and his reply was along the lines of "more room for me, innit".:roll:

 

[alexl92]

Would there be any practical advantage in swapping round Class 150s so that each set featured one gangwayed and one non-gangwayed end? That way, when you have to work units in multiple, you've got a 50% chance of being able to use the gangway.

 

[edwin_m]

But only a 25% chance of both units having ganways at the correct ends.

 

[Taunton]

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't think of any inner-suburban MUs that had gangways between units (for service use rather than emergency end doors) from the earliest electrifications up until the advent of the 455s around 1980.

I missed this challenge.

Original Manchester-Bury emus of 1916

http://www.lyrs.org.uk/the_railway/electrification3.html

and the Holcombe Brook line units

http://www.lyrs.org.uk/the_railway/electrification2.html