Specifically I am curious of what the purpose is for those three springs (actually six…three on each side) that connect any two cars together? They are definitely NOT the main attachment for the cars. The springs are slack most of the time and only stretch out a little bit when the train goes around a corner. I also cannot see them being of any use as a backup should the main coupling fail. While I am no expert I’d be willing to bet the little metal clips that you could bend with a vice-grip are no where near strong enough to pull a 50,000+ pound car down the tracks. I also considered that they somehow dampened swaying between two cars but again they are slack most of the time and far too wimpy to do anything noticeable along those lines anyway.
About the only theory I came up with that makes any sense is to keep people from climbing between the cars. That said it seems an odd inclusion anyway. There are chains between two cars on either side of the end doors. You’d be hard pressed to shimy between cars with those there. In addition…what possible motivation would anyone have for climbing between two cars? You’d have to go sideways, not much to hang on to and it’d be super dangerous. You’d have to be terminally stupid to try it on a train that is in service and moving about. Only if you were suicidal might there be sense to it but even then it’s a pretty piss-poor choice. If you want to kill yourself via train just jump in front of one and it’ll be over quickly (or go play on the third rail).
If they’re there for the same reason as similar thigns on other train systems I’ve seen, that’s exactly it. It’s to stop kids trying to ‘surf’ the trains by hanging on in the gaps between carriages.
The trams in Manchester had to be modified, once local kids discovered they could hang onto the rear and that there was a ledge which gave them a foothold - the entire fleet had to have the ledge removed.
"Oh No!..I’m too late. The doors are closing! And on this, the day of an important meeting at work. Wait…maybe I could hop onto the train between the cars. Its only a few minutes to the next station. I’ll hop on and either open the doors between the cars or hang on till the next stop and board through the regular doors! Brilliant!
I’m fairly sure that that is an anti-climbing barrier, meant to prevent someone from climbing to the roof of the train or accessing the train by climbing to the area between cars and opening the door. It’s not really meant to prevent someone from falling out of the area between the cars; no one is supposed to be there anyway, except transit employees that know the right time to go between cars and how to do it properly. I don’t know that they’re meant to stop people from climbing between cars. They’re to stop someone from getting on the top of the train in the first place; if they get there, they probably jump between cars.
Springs would work as an anti-climbing device because they’d just sag if you tried to grasp them. Some other examples of similar devices from the NYC subway: R32 car (diamond-shaped bars that would be painful to grab), R42 car (chains), R17 car (diamonds).
http://www.trainweb.org/tubeprune/Photo%20Page.htmThis page (photos 7-9) has photos of similar things on the London Underground, and suggests it’s to stop people falling between carriages. Which I don’t buy for a minute (what stops them falling onto the track when there’s no train there?)
I’m fairly sure that that is an anti-climbing barrier, meant to prevent someone from climbing to the roof of the train or accessing the train by climbing to the area between cars and opening the door. It’s not really meant to prevent someone from falling out of the area between the cars; no one is supposed to be there anyway, except transit employees that know the right time to go between cars and how to do it properly. I don’t know that they’re meant to stop people from climbing between cars. They’re to stop someone from getting on the top of the train in the first place; if they get there, they probably jump between cars.
Currently, the most common motivation for climbing on the roofs of subway cars is that some people think it’s fun (‘train surfing’). Train (or subway) surfing would obviously provide a powerful adrenaline rush, but it’s so dangerous that one might well be better off smoking crack. You’d also be able to get places for free, but there are so many other ways of farescoffing that there probably aren’t many subway hobos. In the past, particularly in NYC, graffiti artists may have climbed trains between cars (or the authorities might’ve thought they did), but most used ladders.
Springs would work as an anti-climbing device because they’d just sag if you tried to grasp them. Some other examples of similar devices from the NYC subway: R32 car (diamond-shaped bars that would be painful to grab), R42 car (chains), R17 car (diamonds).
Actually, looking at those photos I linked to properly, maybe it is just a safety measure - the latter photos don’t offer anything other than cautionary protection. (And they’re certainly not to stop people getting onto the roofs of those cars - that could easily be done with a jump and a scramble, it’s only about seven feet from platform level.)
I’m intrigued by the older pictures from New York - these barriers are a very recent occurence on the Tube. And certainly haven’t become universal, nor do they have any parallels on overground trains.
Sorry about the double post… I clicked submit and it didn’t respond, so I cancelled the operation and didn’t realize it had posted. Then I added a paragraph and it posted quickly. Mods, please delete the first post if desired.
I mean, there are dumb things kids do but something like this is beyond any “normal” dumb thrill seeking. This is a Darwin Award waiting to happen if anyone tried to ride the train there. As the train goes around corners the gap between the two cars on the inside of the corner narrows considerably. I’m not sure a person could stay there without being squished and ground to hamburger. That doesn’t even take into consideration that there really is nowhere to hang on well unless you want to be right down near the wheels/tracks.
I use the term “terminally stupid” as a clever turn of phrase often enough but in this case I think the phrase is 100% appropriate to anyone who would try this. I’d almost encourage removal of the springs to catch the Terminally Stupid ala the Darwin Awards that the human race is better off without those people in it but I guess it would be upsetting to the passengers. That the Chicago Transit Authority (or whoever builds the cars) felt it important enough to include this feature makes me re-evaluate just how profoundly dumb some people can be (and I was pretty cynical about that already).
In the link GorillaMan provided is the following (the link goes right to a picture of it):
That looks like an even WORSE place than hanging on the outside of a Chicago “L” train. The gap looks smaller and looks like less to hang onto were someone to try. :eek:
At least it was a slow moving normal train. The US has as part of its history hobos jumping freight trains to move about (I imagine this wasn’t unique to the US but there is a certain amount of nostalgia about them here). Obviously still dangerous as that youth found out but “surfing” a subway class train just seems a whole other caliber of stupid.
I’m going to disagree with you here, only in the point that these things would help a person climb upwards, even if it’s between moving parts. I would assume that these things are as loose as cargo nets, much like a lot of obstacle courses use and what WWII Marines used to climb up and down from landing/troop ships on the high seas. Motion and handgrips notwithstanding, they would lend someone some leverage to get on top and play Dennis Hopper in Speed.
I see these as protection to keep people from falling between cars, onto the tracks (and getting easily sliced into thirds), while moving between cars.
I’m sure either case is written in blood somewhere though . . .
Tripler
Granted, they may not stop your fall completely, but at least you have something to hit/grab onto.
Absolutely. In fact, in that picture you can see the curvature of the carriage ends, purely to allow them to go around corners - you can be sure that’s no more generous than necessary.
You can see the change that was made to the Manchester trams in these pictures - it turns out it was the coupling mechanism that they were standing on, which you can see in the first link, but in the second has a new covering:
Long time Chicago commuter checking in - I rode the El for over 15 years.
The “springs” are, indeed, there to both discourage people from getting onto the train by using the doors between cars (dumb, yes, but something I used to see on a regular basis, anything from kids to middle-aged business suits) and also giving you something to grab/hang on to if you were between cars and slipped/fell while the train was moving. Springs have the advantage of flexing when the train goes around a corner - some of the corners the El negotiates are quite sharp - without going too slack on the straight-aways.
There is no bar on people moving between cars while the train is moving. It’s not always a good idea, but the option is there. Even when it was just the conductors (which have since been eliminated), they needed some slip/fall protection, too.
Yes, trainsurfing is incredibly stupid. People still do it anyway. And sometimes they die from it.
As for getting “pinched” between train cars in a turn and squashed - first of all, if you stay on the walkway this isn’t an issue. If you were out on the edge (dumb! dumb! dumb!) most of the time you’d be fine if you could 1) hang on and 2) stood sideways and 3) were not grotesquely obese. Even on the tightest turn you still have a gap.
The option needs to be kept for use in an emergency - eg if you need to get off the train fast, and your particular car is on a thin bridge or in a narrow tunnel.
