Washington Metro doors vs doors on other metros

[MARC Rider]

On the Washington Metro during crush loads (which unfortunately includes part of my commute), there is a situation where, if someone tries to slip in a closing door, the door reopens, the obnoxious recorded announcement repeats, and if the problem persist, the driver threatens to "offload the train." It even once happened to me (at Judiciary Square), and you can imagine the zoo resulting when we all tried to board the next train. I've been told it has something to do with the automatic sequence programmed into the system. If too many people mess up the door closings, the train can't operate. I've never seen such a thing on any of the other heavy-rail systems I ride on a semi-regular basis (Chicago, Boston, New York, BART) In those systems, the doors seem to close quickly after the passengers have boarded, and nobody threatens to offload anybody. I would blame excessive computerization, except, I suspect all of these systems are automated to some degree. But I can recall riding the Broad Street Subway in Philadelphia in the 1960s with those old cars from the 1930s, and myrecollection is that the service was more reliable back then -- and drivers never threatened to offload us,

 

[jis]

The service tends to be even more reliable when there are no doors to close Rather unusual in subways but certainly not that uncommon on surface suburban lines in many parts of the world.

 

[Ryan]

I'm not sure how the doors on other systems work, but the doors on WMATAs rolling stock don't automatically reopen if something blocks the door (like how an elevator door does). If they did, one joker could delay a whole train by blocking the door and causing them to reopen.

The downside of this is that when meeting an immoveable object (e.g. a backpack), the doors tend to get screwed up.

 

[rickycourtney]

From my recollection of the WMATA's Metro... when one door encounters pressure, they all reopen and therein lies the rub... only that one door should reopen... the rest should close and lock.

That's what happens here in Seattle. If one door is blocked only that one door reopens. Makes it easier to spot the troublemakers too.

 

[FriskyFL]

The service tends to be even more reliable when there are no doors to close Rather unusual in subways but certainly not that uncommon on surface suburban lines in many parts of the world.

Or empty trains.

 

[jis]

The service tends to be even more reliable when there are no doors to close Rather unusual in subways but certainly not that uncommon on surface suburban lines in many parts of the world.

Or empty trains.

That is why we (jokingly) used to say that NJ Transit management considers passengers to be a horrible inconvenience gumming up their pristine system

 

[Ispolkom]

The service tends to be even more reliable when there are no doors to close Rather unusual in subways but certainly not that uncommon on surface suburban lines in many parts of the world.

Or, alternately, the doors crush anything between them, which is my memory of the Moscow metro.

 

[Tracktwentynine]

WMATA doors do not automatically reopen.

If someone is obstructing the door, the door can't close, but all the other doors on the train have closed. The only way for the operator to get that person unstuck is to open all the doors on the train. But it's not automatic.

Of course, when that happens, other people try to get on. And sometimes new people are obstructing the door (or a different set of doors) the next time around.

The offload issue happens when a door gets knocked off its track. That happens especially when people try to force the doors open, but also can just happen from being obstructed. If the operator tries several times to get the doors to close, but one is not closing, they generally have to offload the train, as it cannot operate with passengers when the doors aren't closed.

On the other hand, as Ryan points out, the alternative might be worse. On MARTA, where I used to be a regular commuter, the doors automatically spring back if they close on something. Since people aren't actually stuck in them (it just takes a little pressure to cause it to stop closing or reopen), sometimes people will hold the doors for other people, so trains would end up stuck in stations much longer than they should be.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

The service tends to be even more reliable when there are no doors to close Rather unusual in subways but certainly not that uncommon on surface suburban lines in many parts of the world.

Or empty trains.

That is why we (jokingly) used to say that NJ Transit management considers passengers to be a horrible inconvenience gumming up their pristine system

Half jokingly.

 

[Blackwolf]

WMATA has the same doors as BART does thanks to the two systems being more or less "sisters" with BART being the older of the two. I've read that originally BART had door sensors in the rubber gusset much like an elevator, but it did not work as designed because people held the doors open, causing the computer that runs everything to shut down after several automatic attempts at closing the doors failed. As a result, the sensors were removed and the closing of the doors was made manual (a practice that was then perpetuated even with advancements as the operator's union saw it as a means of guaranteeing job security in the name of safety.) Indeed, just about the only thing a BART operator does is close the doors. All other functions are fully computerized and automatic, with the operator simply staring out the front window with their hands in their lap.

The same issue WMATA has with doors being damaged by people holding them open happens on BART. Except, they don't off-load a train but instead wait for a technician to come and fix the door right there on the platform and make everybody wait. Talk about being THAT guy, with a train-load of hundreds knowing you're the reason they are going to be late!

I'm interested in seeing how the new rolling stock handles this issue. It will be nothing like the current fleet, right down to the pocket sliding doors being gotten rid of. The new doors pop out and slide along the outside of the car, much like the doors on a city bus.

 

[chakk]

The BART and Washington Metro may be big sister and little sister, however, as Washington Metro uses standard gauge tracks, while BART metro uses wide (Russian) gauge tracks.

 

[Ispolkom]

The BART and Washington Metro may be big sister and little sister, however, as Washington Metro uses standard gauge tracks, while BART metro uses wide (Russian) gauge tracks.

Indian broad gauge (5' 6"), actually. Russian gauge is only 5'. I like the theory that BART uses the broader gauge so that its trains will ride out earthquakes better. I remember a Russian sleeping car attendant explaining to me that our sleeper (from Brussels to Moscow) swayed much less on Russian gauge trucks than on standard gauge ones. I certainly never noticed the difference.

 

[afigg]

The Series 7000 cars will be different on what they do when a door is blocked. Washington Post article: Four things to like about new Metro cars. There has a fair amount of coverage on the Series 7000 cars this week because the test cars have been running on the Metro system and WMATA has been showing them off to the local press.

Doors. A common experience for veteran riders: watching the eyes of tourists get really big as they realize that the closing doors aren’t going to reopen just because they’ve pushed their arms between them. Another common experience is having to get off the train because it’s taken out of service for a door problem.

he new cars, the 7000 series now in testing on the rail lines, is designed so that the doors will neither crush tourists nor bounce back all the way. And the operator shouldn’t have to fiddle with all the doors when dealing with an issue involving one of them.

During a test ride Tuesday, Metro project manager Debo Ogunrinde volunteered his arm to demonstrate the new doors. As he stretched out his arm from inside the car, the doors closed on it but then reopened a little bit, enough for him to extract the arm but not enough to allow him or anybody else to get on or off the train. But if need be, the operator could reopen and close that one set of doors, without reopening and closing all the doors on that side of the train.

Because all the series cars up through the 6000s were compatible with the earlier series, I think that is why they never changed how the doors worked when someone blocked the door. With a mixed consist, having a 1000 series car doors work one way and a 6000 car doors work another would present issues to the operator control system. Since the 7000 cars will not be backwardly compatible and will not be mixed in a consists with the Series 1000 to 6000 cars, they can change the door design along with a number of other signal and control systems.