Mark1 carriage door
Originally uploaded by seadipper.
These were very dangerous, so it was said. So they scrapped 1500 vehicles which could have gone on for another 15 years. This cost £1.5 billion for the carriages and another billion to upgrade the electricity supply because the new trains are heavier and use more current. As the price of electricity has gone up and will go up more in the future, this has to be paid for.
The doors were a hazard because they could be opened when the train was moving, or if it was stopped and there was not a station platform, and people were sometimes hit when people opened doors before the train had come to a stop. But the money would have been better spent on almost anything, like improving NHS Accident and Emergency services, which are closing down all over the place. This would have saved a lot more lives than were ever lost due to the train doors.
It would in any case not have been difficult to devise an electric latch to stop people from opening doors when they shouldn't, and it ought not to have cost more than £100 a door, which makes between £600 and £2000 a vehicle - peanuts money.
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