Class 345 Doors Open Wrong Side

From reading various tweets it seems that TFL are going to investigate. I suppose that Bombardier will become involved too - as if the woes experienced by their Goblin trains are not enough.

I would expect so.

Do these trains have what I think on the Underground is called "correct side door enable" (CDSE)?

It is a very serious incident. What if a passenger was leaning on the doors, or a blind passenger attempted to alight?

No - at least while they are operated on the national rail network (remember the ELL from Dalton to New Cross is owned by TfL not NR)

Please remember that despite all the branding / marketing the London Overground is an integral part of our national rail network 99% of which does not have any form of CSDE fitted despite employing trains with automatic doors which are basically no different from the 345s for decades.

There is very little difference whether it is a 345 with its doors opened on the wrong side a 455 at Sutton,  a 313 at Worthing or even a 170 at Grantham - a person falling out of them is highly likely to suffer death or injury (being hit by a 100mph LNER express is just as fatal as being electrocuted on conductor rails)

There are some places where Selective Door Opperation (SDO) beacons can also provide CSDE information as an add on so to speak - but if no SDO is required and the trains are still driven manually (as opposed to Automatic Train Opperation (ATO) as found on the Thameslink core) then no beacon will be fitted.

And before people get all upset about it, if CSDE is desired to be fitted to the national rail network then that applies just as well to Salford, Saltcross or Salisbury as it does to Stratford. This is relevant in so much as the amount of money it takes to retro fit such a system to the mainline fleet of trains, many of which have no provision for said equipment plus installing beacon infrastructure across the country would be enormous.

One small point, if I may.
spsmiler said:


This isn't true. The area is track circuited and the runnong rails are used for the traction return path - just because there is no conductor rail doesn't mean that the running rails are dead.

When trying to find an answer to this question yesterday I found an RSSB standards document that stated CSDE systems are "normally inherent in a FASDO system"* and that information on which doors to open can come from beacons or from an onboard database. (Section 4.8 on page 25 of standard RIS-2747-RST Issue 1). So while your comment about cost of fitting trains is correct, the cost of lineside equipment is not necessarily so.

This morning I've looked to see whether the Class 345s have a FASDO, and this redacted technical specifications document from 2005 states at paragraph 2.1.1.60 on page 12 "The system shall decide which doors to enable for opening at a given station platform and releases them when the Unit comes to a stop at a valid stop position. If the Unit stops at an invalid stop position for a given length of Unit, then the doors are not released." and at paragraph 3.29.10.11 on page 60 "The ASDO system shall operate as FASDO when used in association with ATO, i.e. it shall not require driver input to confirm the correct location, nor to select the side of the Unit on which the doors are to be opened. "

So 345s will have CSDE when operating under ATO but not necessarily at other times.

*ASDO = Automatic Selective Door Opening
*FASDO = Fully Automated Selective Door Opening

There are several possibilities as to what happened, presented in what I guess to be most to least likely order:
1. Driver error (selecting the wrong doors) and either there were no safety system(s) to prevent the doors opening on the wrong side, or they were not operating (for whatever reason)
2. Driver error (selecting the wrong doors) but the safety system(s) to prevent the doors opening on the wrong side also failed (for whatever reason)
3. Driver error (selecting the wrong doors) but the safety system(s) to prevent the doors opening on the wrong side were overridden (for whatever reason)
4. The driver selected the doors on the correct side of the train, but the doors on both sides were released.
5. The driver selected the doors on the correct side of the train, but the doors on the wrong side were released.
6. The doors were released without command by the driver.

In the case of scenario 3, then this overriding may have been either authorised or unauthorised.
In the case of scenarios 2 and 3, then it is almost certain that additional processes designed to mitigate the risks of the situation were either not followed (correctly) or failed to control the risks as designed.
Scenarios 4-6 (and to a lesser extent 2) are highly likely to be regarded as very serious software (most likely) issues and a withdrawal of the fleet until a fix is identified and implemented would not be unlikely.

If there was a driver error then, assuming things work similarly to how they do on LU, in terms of the driver's future career what matters most is not that they made an error, but what actions upon realising that the doors had been opened on the wrong side were. I mention this only to try and forestall any suggestions* they should be sacked/demoted or similar - doing so would be highly inappropriate and HR processes are rightly confidential.

*While members here are generally more responsible than to do this, this site is known to be read by journalists, about many of whom the same cannot be said.

Admin comment

Reminder: Discussion about what happened and the systems involved is fine, but it's not our place to speculate about the cause(s) in this specific case.

Class 345s are TfL Rail rather than Overground, but that too is part of National Rail




It's an earth-return so voltage is extremely low. A few volts at most. Track circuits likewise

www.irse.org/minorrailways/publicdocuments/TC01%20v1-0%20DC%20Track%20Circuits.pdf

My bad, duly noted. Apologies  

There's a rather valuable point you've missed, SDO is enabled on modern stock at all stations, on Bombardier stock this started on the 375/377 fleets and on everything since. Now as SDO is GPS based it uses a signal from GPS to work out where it is and then opens doors to a set length based on its database. The problem with this is that stations with varied platform lengths get a single figure to ensure the shortest safest length is opened.

After the failed Bombardier Thameslink bid based on the Aventra MKI stock, an upgraded system (ASDO) was offered which used beacons on the track that offered the ability to open doors on the correct doors (I can't remember the short hand for it). This tech requires a beacon on the track to operate it on every platform with a different length. The first train fleet with this was the 377/6 used by Southern and on Bombardier offers since (377/7, 387 fleets).

The latest generation of trains have new technologies. Now I'm not sure what Bombardier causes the tech but Siemens has MASDO (Manual Automatic Selective Door Opening) and FASDO (Fully Automatic Selective Door Opening). Neither require ATO to operate and in fact have been used on the class 700s for several years now.

MASDO is basically an upgraded ASDO system (which is a upgraded SDO) that allows the driver to set up manual control of the doors across the general network using GPS as a basis and driver knowledge for the missing info. FASDO requires track side beacons like with Thameslink. Even tho Thameslink only uses FASDO in the Core stations (St Pancras to Blackfriars/Elephant & Castle) the train interacts with system at Loughborough Junction so its fully ready by the time it hits Blackfriars (which is the first point the train will open the doors automatically (as done on today's services).As part if the system for this (which ETCS/ATO is based on) uses track beacons every few hundred meters along with two tracking techs on the class 700, one is radar underneath the end coach that actually know how far and fast its going and second is the trains actually watch the rotations f the wheel and use both to measure the train. This means the class 700 knows far better than anything else on the railway where it is and what its doing. Remember that the radar is not affected by wheelslip either so the class 700 give a speed reading using this tech.

So parts of the network already has CSDE and has done for years. But its not a simple piece of tech that easily fixed by on track infrastructure. Especially as its not a 100% effective tech. But it's already rolled out on various parts of the network and with more new stcok coming its far easier to roll out more but remember different train manufactures require different track side beacons which increases the costs and space for this tech. Also you need to put it at the end of each platform you can enter from so somewhere like London Bridge high level with bi-diection track needs beacons at both ends and various stopping points. If I recall correct the 7 platform Gatwick Airport for the class 700 introduction required over 20 beacons. Now add in the need for a Electrostar version and it suddenly becomes very complex undertaking to do it all.

I hope this explanation is useful for various technologies in use today across the network. SDO and its affects are part of my bed and butter so hopefully I have explained it for you all.

Personally as Straford is so close to the Crossrail Core and the point where the train is expected to manually take control, I'd be surprised if there isn't any beacons on the track at Stratford to allow the signalling and train to sync prior to the train automatically being taken over and computer driven. This is a serious incident that will be properly looked into to see what went wrong. I have thoughts what has gone wrong but I don't have the facts so will refrain.

I'm guessing that the video may not always capture everything.