Cityrail guards are history - it's only a matter of time now...

On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:03:08 +1000, Kevin Martin
<kevinrailway@notreqdoptusnet.com.au> wrote:

[---]

>We are also not talking about slam door stock (like British
>Rail's old stock) where platform staff were required to check doors were
>closed before giving "Right way".

This is the system still used on the S-Bahn in Berlin, where there is
platform supervisory staff ("Aufsicht") who make announcements over
the PA advising passengers to board, then to stand clear of the doors,
and then give the right-away to the driver (these days via a green
bar-shaped signal aspect which is placed below the route signalling).

However, due to increasing pressure on the DB to save money, this
platform staff has been phased out on smaller stations, and even on
larger stations in off-peak periods, and the driver has to accomplish
those duties.

On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:49:11 +1000, "Uncle Joe" <bend@over.com> wrote:

>> Most of the Paris suburban trains are double-deckers. All have DOO.
>
>Thanks, I will do some research. Any others?

Just a slight correction to what I previously wrote - there is still a
very small number of single-decker locomotive-hauled trains in service
on some Paris suburban routes, and they have guards, as the locos are
not equipped for DOO.

They are, however, being rapidly phased out, and the overwhelming
majority of suburban trains, both single and double deckers, are
already made up of EMUs, and they are all DOO.

> Uniqueness sounds like an excuse for not doing something. Does not mean


Uniqness means it is harder to do, what works on other systems will not work
here without more work and testing etc. It took railcorp over 2 years to get
traction interlocking to work, it will take longer for DOO

On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:47:25 +0000, Matthew Geier wrote:

> Instead we let the manufactures built a train that doesn't work and try
> to fix it later...

I'll bet it is the other way around; maunfacturer quotes on certain
plans, customer accepts and then the customer starts asking for changes
all the way through the project, so the poor manufactuer is always
playing catchup.