Why are there gangway doors in BR DMUs

[akmatov]

^ British DMUs seem designed for one engine/passenger unit front and one rear with perhaps several purely passenger cars between. So why do they have gangway door in the front of the engine/passenger units? Afaik, they always have the rear unit with the driver's cab facing to the rear to facilitate flipping the lead unit as desired. What purpose does this ugly door serve?

[JJTimothy]

Originally posted by akmatov:

* 'on the cheap' while a bit negitive, also reflects that in order to maintain the branch lines against some degree of opposition by ppl who didn't rely on them, the costs had to be kept to a bare minimum. A Class 142 with all it's faults was vastly better than no train.

Absolutely.

Originally posted by akmatov:

The railroads in the US were also run into the ground during WW2 and I've read it was one of the reasons for the development of the Interstate Highway system.

Didn't get bombed though.

Originally posted by Jack.Grave:

...also I doubt that someone will travel trough drivers cabin unless its emergency. Jack

When the gangway connection is in use the cab itself, at least the section with any controls or sensitive systems, is closed off so there are no concerns about unauthorised access.

[cuavas]

Originally posted by akmatov:

* 'The cab end doors, by no means a new feature, are indeed there to allow passengers to move throughout the train when working in multiple.' Maybe one day I'll see a D/EMU connected with an engine unit connected snout to rear of passenger unit, so far never have, but new to this.

OK, there are two things wrong here. Firstly, there are “driving” and “non-driving” cars. Driving cars have cabs, non-driving cars do not. Whether they have traction motors or not is orthogonal to that. For example in a Bombardier VLocity[en.wikipedia.org] DMU, all cars have traction motors – there are driving motors and non-driving motors, there are no trailers. In a Goninan Tangara[en.wikipedia.org], cars have either a cab or traction motors, not both – there are driving trailers and non-driving motors, but no other permutations.

Secondly, the end gangways, are for connecting driving cars “snout to snout”, not for connecting the front of a driving car to a non-driving car or to the rear of another driving car. Let’s use “D” for driving cars, “N” for non-driving cars, “+” for semi-permanent couplings, and “-” for fully automatic couplings. You have a fleet of DMUs configured as semi-permanently coupled 3-car D+N+D sets. There’s a cab (“snout”) at each end, and if you want to break up one of these D+N+D sets, you need to take it to the workshops and do some fairly serious work. These 3-car sets are fine for off-peak periods, but you need more capacity to meet peak demand. During peak periods, you couple these sets together in pairs, so you end up with 6-car D+N+D-D+N+D sets. If the driving cars have end gangways, passengers can move between the two halves of the 6-car set.

[akmatov]

Jack - thx for the info. Similar solution to a similar problem makes total sense. Hopefully, one day TS will extend into the CzRepublic. Would be cool to travel over the Sudeten Mountains and on to Prague. Or are there mods available and if so where? I know there are some Russian mods around.

I agree having passengers wandering through the driver's cab within a foot of the driver has always seemed unlikely even if the front end gangway was connected to something, which I've never seen.

[cuavas]

Originally posted by akmatov:

I agree having passengers wandering through the driver's cab within a foot of the driver has always seemed unlikely even if the front end gangway was connected to something, which I've never seen.

I assure you it’s done frequently. I can’t find a good side-on picture showing the gangway, all the photos are somewhat head-on.

Here's a picture of a BR Class 172 Turbostar DMU with the end gangways in use: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Stourbridge_Junction_-_London_Midland_172222-172332_Worcester_service.JPG

All the cars in this train have cabs – there are no non-driving cars. The cabs are painted green and yellow. There are two semi-permanently coupled two-car sets joined together “snout-to-snout” here to make a four-car set.

Here’s another picture of a class 172 with two semi-permanently coupled three-car sets joined together in a D+N+D-D+N+D configuration: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dc-7c/8425580992

As has been said before, these DMUs do not have full-width cabs. Passengers can walk past the cab to pass through the gangway. They do not have to pass through the cab.

[Jack.Grave]

@akmatov There is quite few Czech mods available and routes too. Best and most complex route is Kladské Pomezí (more than 600 km of tracks) available from here: https://railsimulator.simtrains.eu/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1578 -- be prepared for a wee bit Asset hunt but latest version is more than OK.
Also several locomotives can be downloaded, some of them with bog standart controls some of them very advanced. Just take a look at that forums (use google translate when needed) and you found plenty of czech stuff. Jack

[akmatov]

Originally posted by akmatov:

The railroads in the US were also run into the ground during WW2 and I've read it was one of the reasons for the development of the Interstate Highway system. "Didn't get bombed though."

Wasn't the bombing of railways mostly in and near the cities? WW2 bombing was extremely inaccurate, hitting a city was about the best that could usually be done. It is my idea that the ruination of rails in both the UK and UK was primarily due to over usage and lack of maintenance of all locos, rolling stock and rails. As well as roadbeds being ruined by running trains over weight limits.

Originally posted by Jack.Grave:

...also I doubt that someone will travel trough drivers cabin unless its emergency. Jack

When the gangway connection is in use the cab itself, at least the section with any controls or sensitive systems, is closed off so there are no concerns about unauthorised access. [/quote]

Interesting, I haven't happened on a real world cab view and base my ideas on the cabs of TS locos where the driver is completely exposed to anyone who might be passing through the cab to the gangway.

[akmatov]

still figuring out how to get the 'quote' feature to work properly.
cuavas - Very interesting. I'm still very much learning and had not noticed that the Driving Cars were painted differently then the Non-Driving Cars. Thus wasn't able to properly recognize how Driving Cars were connected unless from a clear side view, which I haven't seen. Great info and something for me to study up on as it changes my understanding of why there was a front gangway in the Driving Cars.

[akmatov]

Jack.Grave - many thx. I'm very much Newbie to TS and have selected the UK as my area of focus - lots of gear available and lots of content in English. But having lived in Europe and known ppl and places there , I'm rather excited at running a train in the Czech Republic. Not right away, but this is definately on my To Do List. :D