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Comment by beardyw | Hacker News Reader

For those who are uncertain, I think the term "trespasser" is a euphemism for suicides. At a terminus like Waterloo the trains are approaching pretty slowly to stop just short of the buffers, so much less risk.

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It sometimes is, but it also includes cable thieves, people trying to collect a ball they've lost (as the article mentions), anti-social behavior from the kind of people who think it's fun to set a signalling cabinet on fire, and potential terrorists/saboteurs.

Do these stations not have platform screen doors? Those seem like the most obvious deterrent to suicides, as well as lost items and people generally getting onto the tracks.

You have different rolling stock departing from the same platform. Trains have doors at different locations. Some trains have them close to the center, some near the edges. There are also trains with slam doors - ones that open manually outside, not slide sideways automatically. Welcome to national rail.

> There are also trains with slam doors - ones that open manually outside, not slide sideways automatically.

Haven't seen one at Waterloo for decades. Could be wrong of course. I miss them.

Not on Waterloo, but Kings Cross had them, which is also mentioned in the article. Waterloo in turn had steam leasure trains departing.

No. Waterloo is a huge station used by a huge variety of trains with doors in different places, shifting to platform screen doors would be the work of decades if it's even possible at all.

Ironically mass surveillance is the only thing I might eventually kill myself over

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