[tkboomer2]

I teach Psychology in Stockport and use the train to get to work and think that a good project for my students would be to travel on some of Northern’s different trains for the following reasons.

On Class 142s the open/close buttons are out of sight. As the doors are similar to those on buses it makes occasional passengers think they will open automatically and it seems to amuse the conductors when people can’t find the button to open the doors.

On some Class 150s people struggle to flush the toilet, not because it’s broken but because you have to stand on a button on the floor to flush them rather than press a button or lever at the back of the toilet. The tap on the sink works on the same basis.

Some 156s are equally confusing. On most trains the open door button is above the close door button but on these trains it’s the other way around. Most people don’t try to press the close door button to open the door, but it makes people look carefully at which button opens the door. The toilets on some of these trains aren’t confusing to use but the bin for paper towels is in a strange place (it’s next to the toilet instead of next to or under the sink as you’d expect.)

Many Psychology books refer to the old slam door intercity trains as having a confusing method of opening the doors ,whereby to open the door from the inside you wind down the window and open the door from the outside. However, Northern’s is more confusing as they can use all three of these types of train on the same route.