Amtrak left passengers - how could you make this mistake?

[jis]

I think the European system works really well. When a train arrives at the station the doors are remotely unlocked by the Conductor. Passengers then press the lighted green button to open only those doors that they need to use. The door automatically shuts after some time but remains unlocked until the conductor remotely locks them before departure. At that time any doors that were still open also shut and lock.

DA is actually right about Air Conditioning escaping through the doors since most new regional rolling stock have wide doors straight into the passenger compartment to facilitate quick and efficient flow of passengers. Think LIRR cars with wide door rather than Amtrak or NJ Transit cars with narrow constricted doors.

I simply cannot comprehend why anyone would thinks this is less efficient and I am not sure it matters, since most fortunately Europeans are unlikely to take a giant step backwards to proceed back into the 20th century with Amtrak anyway.

 

[Hal]

I think the European system works really well. When a train arrives at the station the doors are remotely unlocked by the Conductor. Passengers then press the lighted green button to open only those doors that they need to use. The door automatically shuts after some time but remains unlocked until the conductor remotely locks them before departure. At that time any doors that were still open also shut and lock.

DA is actually right about Air Conditioning escaping through the doors since most new regional rolling stock have wide doors straight into the passenger compartment to facilitate quick and efficient flow of passengers. Think LIRR cars with wide door rather than Amtrak or NJ Transit cars with narrow constricted doors.

I simply cannot comprehend why anyone would thinks this is less efficient and I am not sure it matters, since most fortunately Europeans are unlikely to take a giant step backwards to proceed back into the 20th century with Amtrak anyway.

Nice that it works well. We are not Europeans though. So it does not matter. You and the other rail dilettantes will have to live with that.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[jebr]

It also seems to work well in the winter for Minneapolis/St. Paul's Metro Transit. When it's very cold or very hot out, the doors for the light rail in MSP do not all open automatically, but rather require pushing a button on the door once the train is on the platform. It seems to work fine, and it's a lot better than losing a ton of heat unnecessarily at every stop. The Northstar line may operate in a simiar fashion, but I'm not sure.

So it can work in the States just fine as well; there's not something special with the way the earth works on either side of the Atlantic that makes it impossible to have doors opened on-demand at rail stations here in the USA but work just fine in Europe.

 

[jis]

Responding to Hal .... Actually not so much. Unfortunately due to change in location where I live and related change in travel patterns I guess I will have relatively little chance to use Amtrak anymore, as I have explained before. In a few years almost all my train rides in the US will be AAF, TriRail and SunRail with an occasional jaunt on Amtrak for the AU Gathering or such. I don't foresee any other reason to use Amtrak anymore.

I know about American exceptionalism which sometimes causes us to do great things and at other times stupid things using the same baseless justification. But whatever So carry on.

 

[jis]

It also seems to work well in the winter for Minneapolis/St. Paul's Metro Transit. When it's very cold or very hot out, the doors for the light rail in MSP do not all open automatically, but rather require pushing a button on the door once the train is on the platform. It seems to work fine, and it's a lot better than losing a ton of heat unnecessarily at every stop. The Northstar line may operate in a simiar fashion, but I'm not sure.

So it can work in the States just fine as well; there's not something special with the way the earth works on either side of the Atlantic that makes it impossible to have doors opened on-demand at rail stations here in the USA but work just fine in Europe.

That is a very good point. Many of the newer systems have actually adopted and deployed the European system even in the US in spite of us being exceptional and allegedly unable to deal with that stuff. Remember Amtrak is not the only passenger rail system in the US!

 

[Thirdrail7]

It also seems to work well in the winter for Minneapolis/St. Paul's Metro Transit. When it's very cold or very hot out, the doors for the light rail in MSP do not all open automatically, but rather require pushing a button on the door once the train is on the platform. It seems to work fine, and it's a lot better than losing a ton of heat unnecessarily at every stop. The Northstar line may operate in a simiar fashion, but I'm not sure.

So it can work in the States just fine as well; there's not something special with the way the earth works on either side of the Atlantic that makes it impossible to have doors opened on-demand at rail stations here in the USA but work just fine in Europe.

That is a very good point. Many of the newer systems have actually adopted and deployed the European system even in the US in spite of us being exceptional and allegedly unable to deal with that stuff. Remember Amtrak is not the only passenger rail system in the US!

Ok, I've kind of stayed out of this off topic stuff, but I'd like to pipe in a reminder: a light rail is not governed by the FRA or its guidelines so a comparison is not really valid. That being said, I can't imagine leaving people locked in a train until a conductor with a master key unlocks the doors.

I only say this because I was around for the Congo Coaches, with the manual door with upper and lower hatches that passengers opened themselves. I got sick of dealing with them because at some point, people seemed to forget that you shouldn't launch yourself out of the train just because you can. I was also amazed at how half of the population seemed to have fingers missing since that is what all of the lawsuits claimed.

Remember, this is the same pool that found an engineer 65% at fault for hitting someone with a train after the trespasser admitted on the stand that it was an attempt to commit suicide.

So, I'm sure that is why Hal is a bit skeptical of the technology, even if the trains here were equipped. I'm sure the above case would have been laughed out of court in Europe. Here, the engineer is found mostly responsible for not applying his brakes in a timely fashion.

 

[jis]

I fail to see what Congo Coach's doors have to do with what I thought we were discussing. I don't believe you have made any coherent point invoking the American legal system either. Those doors in question are locked when the train is in motion. How is that different from the current remote controlled doors? And the fact that they are currently deployed only on LRTs and incidentally will soon be deployed on AAF seem to be a Red Herrings at best. But as I said, whatever ...

 

[Thirdrail7]

I fail to see what Congo Coach's doors have to do with what I thought we were discussing. I don't believe you have made any coherent point invoking the American legal system either. Those doors in question are locked when the train is in motion. How is that different from the current remote controlled doors? And the fact that they are currently deployed only on LRTs and incidentally will soon be deployed on AAF seem to be a Red Herrings at best. But as I said, whatever ...

Very simple, Jis. I'm responding to a specific point which is:

I think the European system works really well. When a train arrives at the station the doors are remotely unlocked by the Conductor. Passengers then press the lighted green button to open only those doors that they need to use. The door automatically shuts after some time but remains unlocked until the conductor remotely locks them before departure. At that time any doors that were still open also shut and lock.

As someone that has been involved with claims and railroads, I see NOTHING but potential litigation when (not if, when) someone gets injured, trapped, scared or whatever else they claim in the above scenario. There is a reason why a lot of railroads want people at manned doors and have gotten away from open traps and unmanned doors.

My reference to Congo Coach was an example of how people that handled their own doors and slammed their fingers in the door, hit themselves in the head, fell out of the wrong side of the train, etc often sued...and usually won something.

Just because someone does something in one area, doesn't mean it is appropriate or correct for another area or operating environment.

 

[jis]

And yet NJT operates in the US, with unmanned automatic doors at low level platforms with open traps without getting sued all the time. This suggests to me that while I value your judgement I need to take it with a pinch of salt as an absolute generalization.

I think in an area where people unused to riding trains are the majority of riders what you say is a more significant issue, in areas where people are familiar it is not so much. And indeed one difference between the US taken as a whole and most of Europe is the relative familiarity of riding trains.

So yeah, I agree with your last para but not necessarily that all of US presents the same context.

 

[SP7615]

Going back to the original issue and video, it it obvious in the radio transmission that engineer announces the clear signal (doesn't ask) and the conductor's response is, "Clear. Thanks, out," not, "Clear, I think so."

 

[Big Iron]

What the heck is a Congo coach?

 

[jis]

Coaches that were assigned to the Pennsylvania Railroad train named the Congressional.