When a freight train and passenger train have a head on collision at speed, which was Hinton, you are going to have diesel fuel flung all over the place, plenty of sparks, etc, to ignite it, as well as derailed, smashed and accordianed cars.
VIA's end doors tend to stay closed because they are both manual as well as being swing doors, not pocket doors. I doubt those closed end doors affected the survival and injury rates much in such a cataclysmic collision as Hinton.
Note I said "a fire just breaking out" in a passenger car, not a collision or wreck, the only scenario where closed end doors could conceivably make a real difference. In severe wrecks, with fire, such as Hinton or the truck versus CZ Nevada wreck, cars are often accordianed, tipped or otherwise not in immediate contact. In those kind of wrecks the status of end doors likely makes very little difference.
Fire is a threat in a severe accident. Diesel spills from the engines are always possible in a bad wreck. Happily, that wasn't the case in the fairly recent Montana and Missouri wrecks. But in a severe wreck, end door position simply is not going to be much of a factor.
So not treating open end doors as a safety issue seems perfectly reasonable to me.
