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Comment by n4r9 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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I travel from the south-west of England towards London every weekday, on a service that runs hourly. As far as I know, the trains that service this route only use this type of outside-only-opening train door, including the train I rode this morning. They are still very common here.

It must be a few routes that still use these trains. I was commuting from Guildford into London until quite recently and it was always an electric-opening door.

Yes, a majority of the fast trains running from London towards Wales have this style of door.

The entirely of the east coast main line (Run by Virgin Trains East Coast) runs a 50-50 split of HST 125 and 225's. The HST 125's have this "handle on the outside, lean out of the window configuration".

They are due to be replaced in 2020.

The trains I use don't have these kinds of doors but some of the trains running from Edinburgh on the "inland" section of the Fife loop have the old style external door handles.

Some of the trains running to London on the Midland Main Line are this old format. They are broadly speaking far more comfortable to sit in than the newer ones with powered doors, although they do lack mains power sockets by the seats, because they don't have a diesel engine under every carriage to roar and rattle.

Electrification can't come soon enough, but it won't because the government have abandoned that plan. Again.

The trains from Paddington through Bristol have this type of door. I've never found them notably awkward - The main issue I see is people using them with the wrong hand (as the man in the photograph is doing) as your arm doesn't bend the way it needs to.

I posted this due to taking a train from London to Swindon last weekend and encountering this exact problem! We nearly missed our stop due to being unable to open the door (and I couldn't see an instructional diagram like the one shown in the blog post).

VTEC's trains to Aberdeen (and other non-electrified routes) are all HSTs, and all have this type of door.

Scotrail are getting a hold of GWR's old HSTs, but putting electric doors on them.

The old stock GWR trains are still like this. They still use quite a few of them although they are being removed slowly by the looks of things.

Mk3 coaches are still in use on a number of routes but most will be withdrawn by 2020 due to changes in disability access requirements.

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