Summary

A passenger on London’s Elizabeth line was forced to run several meters along a platform at Ealing Broadway station after his hand became trapped in the closing doors of a departing train on 24 November.

Railway staff intervened to pull him away, and the train stopped after moving 17 meters. The passenger sustained minor injuries.

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) is investigating the incident, part of a series of similar “trap and drag” cases, to improve safety measures.

Transport for London and the operator, MTR, are cooperating fully.

  • tal@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    3 days ago

    Ah, interesting, thanks!

    Not a lot of passenger rail here in the US, though now that you show that picture, I think I recall seeing an internal airport train that has some kind of similar screen.

    pokes around

    Yeah, I think that it’s the airport train at Atlanta that I’m thinking of, looks like they have them.

    reads further

    It sounds like the goal of these are somewhat different. Hmm. According to that article, there are some problems with providing direct passenger access to the space with the rail lines – people committing suicide using the train, people falling onto the tracks, people intentionally running around in the rail tunnels via access from the platform, unwanted movement of air between the passenger and rail area, and people tossing garbage into the track area, and this avoids those issues; the passengers still get access to the train interior when there’s a train present, but not to the track.

    considers

    It might also provide a second safety mechanism – I assume that the train can’t move if either the safety mechanism on the station platform door or the train door detects that its door is obstructed from closing, but I think that this would still permit the potential for people running late for a train aiming to halt the train from leaving by tripping the safety mechanism on both doors.

    kagis

    Hmm.

    https://old.reddit.com/r/tall/comments/613ogj/guys_head_gets_stuck_between_train_doors_xpost/

    Based on the comment on this post, on the London subway, they partially mitigate people trying to block the train from leaving by not always fully reopening the doors if they hit an obstacle. This guy apparently got his head wedged in the door, and I guess whatever degree to which they will reopen, if any, wasn’t enough to retract it.

    Wow…really? Tube doors close HARD there’s no mechanism that makes it release.

    Seriously? That’s really dangerous. In Melbourne our train doors close fairly weakly, and if they hit something they open straight away. Never heard of anyone getting stuck in a train door around here.

    If you take the tube in London for a couple of weeks you’d want them to close hard. The amount of idiots who end up delaying hundreds of people because they can’t wait 90 seconds for the next train is staggering.

    But it’s not that bad, really. The doors aren’t violent, they’re resolute.

    • Dave.@aussie.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      3 days ago

      The doors aren’t violent, they’re resolute

      New sign on doors:

      "The door WILL close.

      Puny human flesh is not an obstacle worthy of stopping the inevitable closure of the door."