As far as I understand this is a historic safety mechanism.<p>Trains were very popular and important in the UK, transporting nearly the same amount of passenger pre World War 1 as they do today.<p>At this time no central locking existed and many train compartments, especially for the rich, had their own door that opens to the outside.<p>With handles on the inside it is much more likely to open by accident. The door contained the only window in the aisle between the seats of the compartment, where you would stand to look outside, so people naturally lean against it.<p>At the time central locking came around it wasn't necessarily reliable and people were already used to the situation, so there is little reason to suddenly introduce internal door handles again.
Not to mention the terrible new ticket machines introduced in train stations across the country, who supposedly have touch screens but require pressing on a specific angle the buttons. The machines have one of the worst UI designs I have ever witnessed which confuses and delays on a daily basis people who just want to go to work.<p>And let's not mention the new trains that have an LCD display for bookings which is actually not used because they still put reservation papers on top of the seat. I have asked several times ticket inspectors and apparently the booking software doesn't work and often crashes. How hard can it be???<p>Enough ranting!
This paragraph about the door in the station is astounding:<p>> The design model here is that the door is motion-sensor-activated. But the system image communicates to the user that it’s button-operated, so the user ends up with the wrong user model. Worst of all, the designer of this door went to lengths to create this bad system image. They deliberately designed a piece of plastic that looks like a button, aimed the motion sensor at it, and even added a light inside the button to highlight it more prominently to the user. They should have read Don Norman.<p>I think what happened is the door was motion-activated, but people were failing to activate the sensor. But then, instead of drawing attention to the sensor, or adding a real button, they made a fake button that is vaguely in the area that the sensor points at, to try to trick people into moving their hands in the sensed region.
This is indeed quite bad... but it also reminds me of trains in NL, some have mid section doors that have the same layout as on the photo, with a lit up button that you need to press to open the door. Usually I'd see people try to pull the small handle for minutes on end just to give up and instead stand in the pathway.<p>Or other doors that have a automatic closing function and you need to pull a handle for it to open again. When entering the train, not everyone pulls the handle so it sometimes automatically closes when someone is in between the door. If nobody knows that they need to pull the handle this can take a while before the horde of people entering/exiting resumes moving again. (Especially hard on old ladies that get stuck :( )
Parisian metro and RER are nice. Metro is just a silver handle you flip and I believe it locks while in movement (I haven't ridden long enough in Paris to be able to see someone try to flip the handle when it moves).<p>Sweden/Denmark do it a bit better even. Sweden/Denmark regional trains are just a button in the door that lights up when you can press to open (only when stopped). In Denmark the metro is all automated with the doors. They do also have the infuriating motion sensors for the middle of the trains though where you stand there like an idiot sometimes trying to trip it and end up having to wave your hand above your head to get it to open.
The exterior-handle doors were very common on the "slam door" trains: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slam-door_train" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slam-door_train</a><p>They had one massive advantage that the sheer number of doors, one for every group of 8 seats on some units, made it very easy to get on and off. The disadvantage was the inconvenience and danger to the user, as well as inaccessibility for disabled users.
Years back, there were a spate of deaths resulting from people falling from train doors while moving. I expect this explains why some doors are now difficult to open?<p><a href="http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?docID=393" rel="nofollow">http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?docID=393</a><p>Also accepted, just good-old poor design can also be a factor.
The handle only on the outside of the door is quite a bit more ridiculous than what I was expecting. The old-style doors in German trains can also be hard to open. They have a handle on the inside, but they seem to require a considerable amount of force at times, and they have no clear indicator on when they are locked or unlocked. And the time to unlock after the train stops doesn't seem very consistent to me. They aren't very common anymore, but they do tend to confuse passengers that aren't used to them.
> Notice how a real person’s arm doesn’t reach the handle quite as easily as the stick figure in the diagram<p>Not that these doors aren't terrible design (they are), but notice how the stick figure is facing towards the handle when they open it, but the man in the image is facing away from the handle and reaching behind him to open it. If he turned around to face the other way before trying to open the door, he'd find it a lot easier.
This is quite out of date as mentioned - some of the old slam-door trains were hard to use and a little scary, but they've been out of commission anywhere I've travelled for... a decade? More?<p>Interested on the doors in-between carriages though, I see these quite a lot, and they aren't the most responsive buttons. I will be looking out for those sensors!
That's quite funny to read having the Brexit in the back of the mind. With the crippling EU regulations as one of the main reasons. Well, the dignity of a British person needs to be challenged sometimes to remind them that it's still there.
The post is from 2010, and title is a bit misleading even with that taken into account. I haven't seen a train with this type of door for many, many years. I don't doubt there are still a few still knocking about in the UK though.