Why is there a button to enter/exit on river line?

Why does the river line have the buttons to open the doors? Why don't they just open at the station?

jackintosh11 wrote:Why does the river line have the buttons to open the doors? Why don't they just open at the station?

When the service started up, passengers pushed the buttons to open the doors. Now the train operator opens all doors at all stations.

Why would they be used at all? It doesn't make sense. Maybe to board at a terminal station in cold weather, but other than that, I don't see a point. Are there similar buttons on NLR and HBLR?

Pushing the button is supposed to make a light or noise happen in the operator cab, from my own use of HBLR for several years.

They're quite common in Europe, to minimize exposure to outdoor air on hot or cold days if no one is getting on or off at a particular door. I assume they're on the RiverLINE cars because they came as standard equipment. Some types have two buttons -- one for normal usage, and another that holds the door open longer, to be used by people in wheelchairs or with baby carriages. I think I remember seeing those on the RiverLINE.

The River LINE buttons for wheelchair passengers are lower than the main door-open buttons. Your memory is functioning.

Glad to have confirmation that I wasn't imagining it.

ExCon90 wrote:They're quite common in Europe, to minimize exposure to outdoor air on hot or cold days if no one is getting on or off at a particular door. I assume they're on the RiverLINE cars because they came as standard equipment. Some types have two buttons -- one for normal usage, and another that holds the door open longer, to be used by people in wheelchairs or with baby carriages. I think I remember seeing those on the RiverLINE.

I've been on the London Docklands lightrail the last couple of days and the buttons are the way the doors opened. The DLR also appears to be fully automated, no personnel on board. It has many stations with different and diverging routes (all on exclusive ROW). There is a manual operating position that can be used if the automatic fails, and it was cool to sit in that seat looking out the front windows as the train progressed along its route.

Sounds like my kind of railroad! Sort of like the JFK Airport Airtrain.

Didn't the LIRRs M1s have a similar function? Were they to physically open the door or to do what the River Line cars do?

tjensen wrote:Didn't the LIRRs M1s have a similar function? Were they to physically open the door or to do what the River Line cars do?

TJ:

The LIRR M1 cars had a door control called a passenger release button when they were built between 1968 and
1972 and since they were a source of door problems this feature was removed by the middle 1970s...

The River Line DMU cars have a door enter/exit button that can be used when all doors are not needed to be
opened at stations and to keep cars comfortable inside when they are at their terminals in Camden and Trenton...

MACTRAXX

Mactraxx, those LIRR M-1 door buttons were never hooked up or operational. After a fatal dragging incident at Huntington in the 1970's where passengers frantically tried to open the doors using those buttons that did nothing, they were eventually removed. Sorry for being off-topic.