On Jul 16, 7:11*pm, Charles Ellson wrote:

Indeed. It always seemed strange that LU were allowed to get away with
a single bell as a start signal with AFAIAA no confirmation response
from the driver long after a safer practice had been established on
BR. As well as the circumstances you describe, a single bell allows
for the signal to be given just as a danger is observed which on BR
would still have to be followed by the second press before the driver
moved off. IMU there was no LU equivalent to a BR stop/one-bell signal
(and if a door bounced open or the detection circuit failed it would
not have been possible) leaving only the emergency brake valve
available for use.

- Show quoted text -

Would it not be the case that the reason this system was kept in
place is that it actually worked? I do not recall hearing too many
tales of people falling out of trains or being drgagged along the
platform. If you give a driver "one" on the bell he has to react, the
thinking time required to acknowledge the bell - that means I need to
brake, then put the brake "in". is surely longer than a guard standing
by a "handle" seeing a problem and simply operating that handle. That
takes away the need for the delay in driver reaction and the time
taken for the gaurd to acknowledge it and operate the bell has been
used pulling the hanndle.

Other may have anecdotes from before my cranking days to suggest
otherwise, but it seems to me to have been a fairly efficient system.

Richard